Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Inc. and driving force behind a string of products that revolutionized the consumer-electronics industry, stepped down as chief executive on Wednesday.

But the move wasn’t a completely unexpected one.

His departure from the CEO post had been widely anticipated ever since Jobs took an extended medical leave earlier this year to attend to undisclosed health reasons. He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer seven years ago and had a liver transplant two years ago.

In his letter of resignation to the company board, Jobs said, “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”

Though widely expected, the announcement threw the future of the technology juggernaut into flux, given Jobs’ deep personal association with Apple’s most successful innovations, including the Macintosh computer line, the iPod portable music player and the iPhone smart phone.

Though the stock dropped nearly $20 in after-hours trading, some analysts recommended that investors take the news in stride because Jobs’ marginal health condition, which has been hanging over Apple and its stock price for years, should not come as a surprise.

“Don’t panic, remain calm,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. “This is not unexpected.”

“He clearly has some major health issues going on,” Gillis said. But “deteriorating or not deteriorating, chairman is the perfect role for him to continue providing artistic input.”

Apple named Tim Cook, the company’s well-regarded operations chief who had run the company in Jobs’ absence, as chief executive. Jobs assumed the role of chairman of the board.

His decision to step down as Apple’s CEO, however, signals that his disease — kept in check for more than seven years — is advancing beyond doctors’ ability to control it, experts say.

While no one can say how Jobs will fare, “I suspect we will not be talking about years” of additional survival, says Zev Wainberg, a gastrointestinal oncologist with UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center with no personal knowledge of the case.

Jobs suffers from a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, which accounts for only about 5% of the 43,000 pancreatic cancers diagnosed each year, and is generally more curable than more common types of pancreatic cancer, says Margaret Tempero, a pancreatic cancer expert at the University of California-San Francisco and former president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Patients with the most common form of pancreatic cancer often live less than a year, says Tempero, who hasn’t treated Jobs.

Neuroendocrine tumors, which arise in hormone-producing cells of the pancreas, typically grow much more slowly, allowing patients to live at least two or three years, says Wainberg, who hasn’t treated Jobs.

Unless the disease is completely eradicated, however, the cancer eventually takes a turn for the worse, growing much more quickly, Wainberg says.

“People can co-exist with this disease for years,” says Richard Goldberg, an expert in neuroendocrine tumors at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, who has not treated Jobs. If the liver begins to fail, however, “people can go downhill pretty quickly. When you hit the wall, you hit the wall.”

Only about 10% of people with metastatic disease — cancer that has spread around the body — survive this type of tumor, Goldberg says.

With Jobs’ work ethic and strong love of his job, doctors say his decision to resign as Apple CEO suggests that he must be feeling very ill.

“Given his will to dominate, you’d have to speculate that he must not be doing well,” says James Abbruzzese, a pancreatic cancer expert at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Abbruzzese, one of the USA’s leading pancreatic cancer specialists, consulted on Jobs’ care early in the course of his treatment, but has not participated in Jobs’ treatment in several years.

Jobs has undergone aggressive treatment for the cancer, which he first acknowledged in 2004. Jobs had surgery to treat the original cancer, then underwent a liver transplant in 2009.

That suggests that his original tumor had spread from his pancreas to his liver, in spite of surgery to remove it, says Tempero.

Liver transplants for this kind of tumor are “occasionally successful, but it’s a real long shot,” Tempero says.

Patients who receive organ transplants must take drugs to prevent the body from rejecting the new organ, Tempero says. But because these drugs also suppress the immune system, they can allow the original cancer to re-emerge and attack either the new liver or other organs.

In rare cases, a liver transplant may cure the patient’s cancer, if it hasn’t spread around the body, Abbruzzese says.

More often, the transplants helps restore normal liver function, giving patients a few more years with a better quality of life, Abbruzzese says.

The fiercely private Jobs has said relatively little about his health problems, although he did acknowledge his bout with cancer during a commencement speech at Stanford University. “No one wants to die,” he said. “And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”

Actor Patrick Swayze died of the more common type of pancreatic cancer in 2009, as did opera star Luciano Pavarotti in 2007. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also has had pancreatic cancer.

Doctors don’t know what causes neuroendocrine tumors, Abbruzzese says.

The most common types of pancreatic cancer, however, are linked to smoking and obesity, and possibly to a diet filled with red meat and fat. Those at greater risk include men, African-Americans, people older than 50, diabetics and those with a family history of pancreatic cancer. Chronic inflammation of the pancreas and exposure to certain chemicals also can cause the disease.

Scientists are actively studying ways to find the disease earlier, when it might be more curable, by looking at families in which several people have developed the cancer. Researchers also are searching for genes that may be involved. In January, scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore announced that they had deciphered the genetic code, or genome, of neuroendocrine tumors, which they hope will lead to better treatments.

Tempero notes that the Food and Drug Administration approved two new drugs for neuroendocrine tumors, sunitinib and everolimus, this year.

“Apple is in incredible shape, and you could say that Jobs has changed many of our lives for the better,” Goldberg says. “I’m sorry to see him affected by this; it only redoubles my resolve to improve on the treatments we have.”

In the eyes of investors, Apple Inc. is as good as gold.

Shining alongside the precious metal as two safe buys in a volatile market, Apple shares surged Tuesday, briefly pushing the consumer electronics giant past Exxon Mobil Corp. to become the world’s most valuable company.

The market value of Apple rose to $346.7 billion a few minutes before the end of regular trading, nearly $5 billion above Exxon’s at $341.9 billion. But a last-minute market surge pushed Exxon back above Apple by about $1.6 billion.

Exxon is not likely to stay ahead much longer. Propelled by iPhone and iPad tablet sales, Apple has been closing in on the oil giant for more than a year, since Apple passed Microsoft Corp. to become the second-most-valuable company in May 2010. Back then, Apple was worth $50 billion less than Exxon.

Exxon’s biggest liability may be the instability of another shiny and much talked about commodity: crude oil. Unlike the relatively steady rise in the price of gold over the last several years, oil prices have fluctuated wildly, from as low as $40 a barrel to as high as $150.

The price of oil dropped below $79 a barrel Tuesday to its lowest level since September after the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates at a record low through mid-2013.

Meanwhile, the price of gold — and Apple — keep rising.

Both Apple and gold are up about 45% over the last year, far outpacing the broader market. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index has gained less than 4% in the same period, and the Dow Jones industrial average has risen 5%.

Apple shares climbed $20.80, up nearly 6%, to close at $374.01 in regular trading Tuesday. Investors could trade about five shares of Apple for an ounce of gold, which rose to an all-time high of $1,740.

But that might not be a good trade, said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw.

Gold is “a safety asset” that investors typically choose in stressful times when trust in financial institutions becomes tenuous, he said. But even if buyers see gold as recession-proof, “it’s got no income-generating capability,” Kumar said.

Whereas Apple, he added, “is literally a cash machine.”

Cars are backed up for blocks as workers in fluorescent suits usher lines of pedestrian shoppers across the road and into a 14,000 square metre warehouse at Auburn.

Welcome to Costco, the US bulky goods retailer where everything is sold in bigger quantities than what you’d normally find in the local supermarket.

Anyone for 2kg of feta cheese? Or a 60-pack of toilet rolls?

A huge 2kg apple pie is just $14.99, but it’s the giant deodorants and 220-pack boxes of nappies that are doing a roaring trade at the rainy opening day of Sydney’s first Costco.

Even the trollies are super sized, making them harder to dodge as consumers steamroll from aisle to giant aisle.

By 11am (AEST) on Thursday, the 800-capacity car park is full and motorists are being advised to avoid the area.

Inside, dozens queue to apply for a Costco membership, which costs $60 a year and confers the right to shop, while up to 20 shoppers wait in lines at the checkouts.

The Auburn store is the US retailing giant’s second Australian store, and comes after the first in Melbourne in 2009. A third store due to open in Canberra on Friday.

According to business information firm IbisWorld, Costco’s Australian adventure has been a success so far, with sales revenue for its Melbourne store hitting $166.4 million in its first year.

With an emphasis on cheap goods, Costco is challenging the dominance of Woolworths and Coles supermarkets in a sluggish domestic retail market.

Professor Paul Patterson, an academic at the University of NSW’s Australian School of Business, says the big supermarkets will keep a close eye on the chain.

“Somewhere along the line, Coles and Woolies will feel the impact,” Prof Patterson told AAP.

For Kelly Chapman from Belmore in Sydney’s inner west, Costco offers a unique chance to pick up American food she likes, such as Chippy peanut butter and Quaker oats.

“We travel quite a bit to the States and we’ve got to know the brands,” she says.

But Ms Chapman doesn’t believe Costco will oust the need for supermarkets such as Woolies and Coles.

“We’ll still need them for our everyday shopping,” she says. “Not everyone wants 80 slices of cheese.”

It seems like there’s enough food in the Auburn store to feed a small country in one sitting.

There are hundreds of 1.5kg spare pork rib packs, layer upon layer of two-dozen egg boxes, gigantic packs of tinned pineapple for those who really, really like tinned pineapple.

But Costco offers more than just groceries.

There are baby grand pianos for $2000 standing next to flat screen TVs and kids’ playhouses, and men’s shirts and $49 Levi jeans.

In the homeware aisle, Karen Dodd from Hunters Hill in Sydney’s north ruefully surveys an egg poacher in her overflowing trolley.

“I don’t really need that, I can poach eggs in a saucepan at home,” she says.

“That’s the problem with a place like this, you buy so much stuff you don’t need.”

The winning numbers for the Friday, March 18 drawing were: 14, 33, 34, 54, and 56 and the Gold Mega Ball number was 37. The Megaplier number was 04.

Tonight’s Mega Millions drawing will be televised on NJN-TV – the New Jersey Network at 11 p.m.

Determined by a Credit Suisse survey, the analyst also said that Amazon’s new streaming service is not likely to have Netflix consumers to cancel their subscriptions. Blackledge raised his target price tag to $280 from $180 and said Netflix is most likely planning to broaden further into global markets within the second half of this yr and past.

Stocks that moved considerably or traded heavily Tuesday on the New york Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market. Netflix Inc, Up $9.04, or 4.2 %, to $221.88 in late trading. The company’s shares hit an all-time large of $247.55 previous month ahead of providing up some ground.

Read more detail at:

Www.netspend.com can meet all your demands and solve all your problems. With NetSpend, you can pay bills online, online shopping without bank account, and secure reservations and it is for sure safer than cash. So Visit the Net Spend site today, Sign in & get access to your account and make your travel, grocery, gas bill payments etc.

How to Login at Www.netspend.com?

The Log In process at www.netspend.com is very simple. You have to visit official website of NetSpend which is feature Login option at top on the homepage. You can directly login at the homepage of NetSpend by entering your Username and enter your password.

If you click on the “Login button” on the Netspend.com, you will be also able to sign in there, please enter your Username and Password to access your Account on the space provided. There is also Forgot Username? Forgot Password? New User? Options are provided under the Login section. Click on it, if you unfortunately forget username or password.

NetSpend Sign Up info:

You must have to register online banking account, if you are New User. Please select which best identifies you from the options like Registration / Activation and Buy / Reload Centers. On the homepage of Netspend.com, you will see NetSpend Reload Center option, just enter your Zip code there and find a NetSpend Reload Center near your area very easily.

You will also view “Activate your card” button, to activate your card please just give card number. Then register for online access is given under the login tab, just enter card number and second fill 3-digit CW number and then click on the continue box.

Source: https://www.netspend.com/