If only the rest of the year on Wall Street could be as good as the first week. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are up 4.5 percent since January 1. The S&P 500 index is at the highest level in five years. But this week’s stock action may be a lot more volatile as Wall Street’s attention shifts away from Congress to the fundamentals of corporate profits. The fourth-quarter earnings season begins tomorrow with Alcoa’s earnings. The previous quarter’s results were disappointing for most large corporations and this season is not expected to be much better.

Motorists can expect bad news when the US Energy Department releases its weekly gas price report today. The national average is creeping up after falling to a one-year low in mid-December. Analysts expect the trend to continue in the coming months. Crude oil futures are up about $10 in the past month.

The Hostess bake sale continues. Hostess Brands – the bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonderbread – is said to be in talks with two big companies about selling off pieces of the firm. The Wall Street Journal says Grupo Bimbo and Flowers Foods are negotiating to buy assets including the firm’s bread business. Cake brands may be sold off later this year. Hostess announced in November that it was shutting down its business and selling off its brands and bakery plants.

A big break for global banks. International regulators have decided to slow down the phase-in of new rules meant to ensure banks have enough cash on hand to survive a future financial crisis. The liquidity rules requirement will take effect four years later than originally planned. European banking stocks surged this morning. Shares of several big Italian and Spanish banks rose more than 4 percent. Banks had warned the new rules would sharply reduce their profit margins.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio ABCNews.com twitter.com/daviesabc

(Image credit: Caren Archive)

The mystery of the young man sitting beside the late Diana Spencer in a photo apparently prohibited from being published has been solved.

The photo of Lady Diana before she married into the royal family will be up for auction later this month. Besides the identity of the mystery man, the words, “not to be published,” written on the image in grease pencil, intrigued the photo’s owner, Eric Caren of Caren Archive.

Caren had bought images from the former British newspaper, the Daily Mirror.

The man in the photo is Adam Russell, a student at Oxford University at the time and the great-grandson of former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. He is currently a deer farmer in Dorset, England.

Reached on the phone in western England, Russell confirmed with ABC News he was the man in the photo, but refused to say any more.

In Photos: Rare Diana Photo and Other Expensive Items

Asked whether he had any additional photos of himself at the time, he replied, “you’ve got one, it was just several years ago… The hair’s a bit shorter, otherwise you’d probably recognize [me].”

According to royal biographer Andrew Morton, the two were just friends.

In Morton’s book, “Diana, Her True Story – In Her Own Words,” he writes that her friend, Mary-Ann Stewart-Richardson, invited Diana to join her family on their skiing holiday in the French Alps. It was there that Lady Diana and Russell were injured and so they spent a lot of time together.

She fell on the ski slopes and tore all the tendons in her left ankle.

Morton said, Russell “always liked Diana but nothing ever happened, in part because he never expressed his desire for her.”

Diana did not attend Oxford but the two apparently kept in touch when they returned to London.

“After the holiday, he went away for a year and when he came back he was told he had competition: the Prince of Wales,” Morton said.

Federal regulators spent more than a year and a half looking into whether Google favored its own products in search results. They didn’t come up with much. The Federal Trade Commission has decided not to bring charges. The announcement is a blow to Microsoft and other Google competitors. Google is by far the biggest name in search. The company has argued its search engine benefits users. The commission says Google has voluntarily agreed to license some patents to mobile phone rivals and stop the practice of including snippets from other websites in its search results.  Read our full story.

Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android continue to gain market share in the smart phone market, while other competitors continue to lose ground, according to the latest report by ComScore. Mashable reports: “In the three-month period ending November 2012, Google had a 53.7% share up from 52.6% in August. Apple’s market share rose from 34.3% to 35%, while RIM, Microsoft and Symbian all lost market share, dropping to 7.3%, 3% and 0.5% respectively.”

Many Americans, especially younger workers, are looking for something different in their next job: stability. A new report from the Council on Employee Benefits says priorities are shifting for many job seekers. “We’re looking for places that offer long-term opportunities,” says Meghan Casserly of Forbes Magazine. “It used to be the trend that workers were looking to work for the next big thing – for the Google or some cool place where they could bring their dog to work. And now, more and more, we’re looking for mature, more established companies that we can plan for the long term. People aren’t just happy to have a job anymore.” Compensation is important, Casserly tells ABC News Radio, but younger workers don’t want work to be all consuming. “The issues of balancing work life with our home life have become they’re for everybody. It’s no longer a woman’s issue.”

University professor is the least stressful job you can have, says a career website. CareerCast.com says teaching at the college level combines a median annual salary of more than $62,000 with prestige and a comfortable environment. “Their students are largely those who choose the classes they attend, and thus want to be in class,” the website said. “Unlike elementary and secondary educators, the performance of college professors isn’t evaluated based on standardized tests.” The website says enlisted men and women in the armed forces have the most stressful jobs.

Actor Patrick Dempsey may have scored a win against Starbucks in his bid to buy a small coffee chain in Seattle. The actor, who played Dr. McDreamy in the hit TV series, Grey’s Anatomy, told a KOMO-TV reporter that his investment group appears to have the winning bid for Tully’s Coffee. He noted that a bankruptcy judge will have the final say next week, but tweeted “We got it! Thank you Seattle!” Tully’s Coffee has 47 company-owned locations in Washington and California. Tully’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October. After the auction, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson confirmed his company participated and “is currently in a back-up position” for some of Tully’s assets.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio ABCNews.com twitter.com/daviesabc

Al Gore of Current TV. (Image credit: Danny Moloshok/AP Photo)

Hillary Clinton and some other Americans who want a global perspective may be fans of the Qatar-based news service Al Jazeera, but will Americans tune in to its new English channel?

Owned by the government of Qatar but broadcast across 130 countries, the Arab-language news service says it is planning to replace the Current TV cable network it is purchasing with its own English programming.

Current TV, founded by former vice president Al Gore in 2005, is based in San Francisco.  The purchase price has not been disclosed but the New York Times reports people with knowledge of the deal estimate it was worth $500 million. Gore owned 20 percent of Current TV.

Shortly after the announcement, Time Warner Cable said it was dropping Current TV.

Al Jazeera says about 50 percent of traffic to the Al Jazeera English website comes from the U.S. and Canada.

Simon Dumenco, media columnist at Advertising Age, is skeptical whether millions of new American viewers will watch.

“I hate to say it, but I think a good number of Americans, among those that have even heard of Al Jazeera, are suspicious of it by default,” he said. “There’s a certain segment of the population that’s just going to be automatically suspicious of anything that starts with ‘Al,’ like Al Qaeda — or Al Gore, for that matter.”

“The network’s branding, from its name to its calligraphic Arabic logo, isn’t exactly targeted to the American mainstream,” Dumenco said. “As Al Jazeera expands its footprint in the U.S., is it willing to tweak its branding to appeal to the average heartland channel-surfer? That remains to be seen.”

The site certainly has its fans.

Al Jazeera English has previously been awarded the Columbia Journalism Award, a DuPont award, and a George Polk award.

In March 2011, Hillary Clinton voiced criticism of American media outlets and said Al Jazeera was “real news.”

“You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners,” Clinton said.

(Image credit: Caren Archive)

A photo showing a rare glimpse into the life of Lady Diana before she married into the royal family will be up for auction later this month.

The photo formerly belonged to the former British newspaper, the Daily Mirror. It has the words, “not to be published” written on it in grease pencil, commonly used by photo editors. Diana appears to be lying in a bed with a male seated behind her. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Whisky is on the window sill next to her.

In Photos: Rare Diana Photo and Other Expensive Items

The date, Feb. 26, 1981, is written on the back side of the photo. Caren Archive, the photo’s current owner, bought part of the photo library of the Daily Mirror.

On Feb. 23 of that year, Diana moved into Buckingham Palace, at just 19 years old. The next day, the palace had made an official statement about the engagement.

She married Charles, Prince of Wales, on July 29, 1981 at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The photo will be auctioned as part of a photography sale by RR Auctions of Amherst, N.H., from Jan. 17 to 24.

Eric Caren, the owner of Caren Archive, said he does not know who the man in the photo is for sure, though many have suggested the man is Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer.

“If it is her brother, it is more curious why they squashed it,” Caren said of the Daily Mirror’s editors. “It’s not an unflattering shot. It’s a more intimate shot.”

Bob Livingston of RR Auctions said the Daily Mirror was likely uncomfortable publishing a photo of the future Princess of Wales appearing to be in the arms of another man. He told the Daily Telegraph a similar photo could be sold for $1,000 but because of the words, “not to be published” on it, he expects it to be sold at a much higher price.

Also to be auctioned are a 1988 news photograph of Princess Diana observing a marriage conflict resolution seminar, an original photo of the Beatles playing in the 1960s and a studio portrait of Albert Einstein.

Wall Street’s first day of trading for 2013 brought the biggest gains in more than a year for the Dow Jones index – up 308 points. Other averages rose after the fiscal cliff deal in Congress. Ten stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. But don’t expect the euphoria to continue. The ratings firm Moody’s says Congress must go beyond its latest deal and come up with a plan to shrink the deficit if it wants to keep the current credit grade.  Moody’s has a negative outlook on the government’s debt. Congress put off tough decisions on spending cuts that would be aimed at reducing sky-high deficits.

The outlook for savers and investors? “I think you should prepare for a lot of volatility in the coming six months,” says Susan Schmidt of Mesirow Financial. Economist Diane Swonk agrees, saying the deal in Congress “was just one small step, one toe in what is going to be very turbulent waters for the next several; months.”

One of the biggest personal finance changes for many Americans over the next year will involve health care.  In 2013 we’ll learn a lot more about how President Obama’s health reform law will effect consumers.  “Most big changes will start to be seen late next year,” Susan Dentzer, editor in chief of the journal Health Affairs, tells ABC News Radio. “In October open enrollment period begins for people who are going to be eligible to buy coverage through new health insurance exchanges.” Health exchanges will cover people who don’t have coverage today. “There could be as many as 30 million Americans covered under these new arrangements,” says Dentzer. “People will be able to sign up at that point for Medicaid as well. The coverage will actually take effect in January of 2014.”

Better latte than never? Starbucks is now selling cheap, reusable plastic cups at all its US stores. Every time you bring a $1 cup back Starbucks baristas will rinse it with boiling water and then give you a ten cent discount on your coffee. The aim is reduce the amount of trash that ends up in landfills. USA Today reports:  ”Thousands of people have signed petitions on Change.org, a website promoting social change, urging companies to promote reusable options and abandon polystyrene foam packaging, which is rarely recycled.”

The Arabic-owned news channel Al-Jazeera is buying Current TV, extending Al Jazeera’s reach beyond a few large US cities to about 40 million homes.  Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar and is one of the world’s largest international news channels. Current cofounders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt say Current was built with goals that are compatible with Al-Jazeera’s, including giving “voice to those who are not typically heard,” providing independent and diverse points of view” and telling “the stories that no one else is telling.”

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio ABCNews.com twitter.com/daviesabc

Your 401(k) plan may be looking better this morning after a solid gain last year. Expect a big stock market bounce after the House passed the Senate’s fiscal cliff agreement. Futures shot up after the drama finally ended late Tuesday. Economists had warned hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts could have triggered a US recession this year.

Several leading European averages are up 2 percent today. Australian and Hong Kong stock indexes closed overnight at their highest levels since June 2011. The vote brings tax increases on high earners for the first time in 20 years. Single taxpayers earning more than $400,000 and couples over $450,000 will see their top marginal tax rate go up. The wealthiest Americans will also pay more on capital gains and dividends. The fiscal cliff deal stops income tax hikes for more than 98 percent of taxpayers.

During 2012 major stock averages rose for a fourth year in a row. The widely quoted S&P 500 index closed with an annual gain of 13.4 percent.

Good news for milk drinkers. The fiscal legislation that passed Congress averts the “dairy cliff”– putting off a steep increase in milk prices. The legislation includes a nine month extension for a 2008 farm bill that ran out at the end of December. Without the fix dairy subsidies would have plunged, and milk prices could have doubled.

Avis Budget Group (Nasdaq:CAR) is buying Zipcar (Nasdaq:ZIP) , the world’s leading car sharing network. According to today’s announcement Avis Budget will pay $12.25 per share in cash, a 49 percent premium over Monday’s closing price. The transaction is subject to approval by Zipcar shareholders and is expected to be completed in the spring of 2013. Car sharing has grown to be a nearly $400 million business in the United States and is expanding rapidly in major cities around the world.

Many economists expect the US jobs market to improve this year especially during the summer and fall. But demand for unskilled jobs may continue a long term decline. One reason is the rise of robots: “You can go to many modern factories today and look out on the factory floor and see very few people but the people who are there are performing higher value jobs,” says James Meigs, editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics. Warehouse robots can move bar coded packages and have “the ability to sort and discriminate and make decisions on where it needs to go.” Meigs says robots will do a lot more in the future. “Dumping out the French fries filling up the cokes flipping the burgers” at your local McDonald’s could be one of many innovations.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio ABCNews.com twitter.com/daviesabc

If a deal is not reached, the consequences for the economy will be severe, wiping out as many as 5 percentage points of Gross Domestic Product in the coming year, according to some estimates. Though economists argue about the impact of the numbers — the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts would happen over 10 years — nearly all agree the combined effect would be recessionary.

See our live coverage of the cliff talks

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost 400 points since the “cliff” talks began in earnest in mid-December.  That wiped out nearly half the gains in the index for the year, which, as of mid-morning, was up 5.9 percent for 2012. It’s a  blow to investors and 401(k) savers who, since 2008, have seen only about 2 percentage points added to their wealth with the stock market’s gyrations.

The Dow Jones Industrial average, after opening sharply higher on hopes for a deal, fell 11 points to 12,938 at 11 a.m. today, the last trading day of the year.

It’s easier to gauge the “fiscal cliff” effect on the financial markets, but what’s less apparent, though equally significant, is impact on non-publicly traded companies, says Sageworks CEO Brian Hamilton.

“There are 27 million private companies out there, and they’re watching the cliff negotiations closely,” he told ABC News today. “This uncertainty is weighing heavily on business owners. You can’t throw policy at them on the last day of the year and expect them to adapt and plan for their businesses.

“They’re uncertain and they should be; they need some time to prepare for what’s coming at them. If it’s a great policy, that’s fantastic. However, any policy is better than the uncertainty they’re facing right now.”

Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of the “cliff” talks is that even under the rosiest scenario, any deal worked out to avoid it will do little to solve the nation’s budget and debt morass, built dollar by dollar in three decades by politicians in both parties. The budget deficit has topped $1 trillion four years in a row, a shortfall higher as a percentage of GDP than any year since World War II.

Meanwhile, the national debt has ballooned to more than$16 trillion.

No deal being contemplated would even bring the budget into balance until nearly the end of the decade, nor would it envision cutting the national debt by even a dollar. Instead, the debt will continue to rise. President Obama needs authority to raise the debt ceiling or face drastic cutbacks, starting as soon as today. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Congress last week that the government would hit its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit Dec. 31.

The government will be able to move money around between its accounts to stave off a crisis but only for a month or two. It’s not clear then what would happen if the debt ceiling is not increased.

Bill Gross, at Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, tweeted today that he expects stocks and bonds to return less than 5 percent in 2013 as high unemployment persists.

“There may be no miracle policy drugs this time around to provide the inevitable cures of prior decades,” Gross wrote in his December market commentary on Pimco’s website. “These structural headwinds cannot just be wished away.”

Even if there’s a deal, the economy is in for headwinds next year. A 2 percentage point jump in payroll taxes for Social Security will take place Jan. 1, sucking about $2,000 from a worker earning $100,000 a year. Higher taxes on the wealthy — a given in any version of a budget deal — will draw money out of the economy, cutting job creation.

Economists expect that even with a deal, GDP will rise at a 2 percent rate in 2013, not enough to make a dent in the jobless rate, which has remained near or above 8 percent since 2009.

Napnanny.com/ABC News

The company that makes the Nap Nanny – a device marketed as a portable recliner for infants to sleep on – has refused to recall the product, even after the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 70 complaints, including 5 deaths. So now, in an unusual move, four major retailers have announced they will recall the Nap Nanny themselves.

Amazon.com, Buy Buy Baby, Diapers.com and Toys “R” Us/Babies “R” Us had already agreed earlier this month to stop selling the product. Now they are offering customers a chance to return the Nap Nanny.

On its website, Toys “R” Us said, “Consumers should stop using this product immediately and return the product to your nearest Toys ‘R’ Us/Babies ‘R’ Us for a refund or store credit.”

The devices sold for around $125.

CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson praised the companies.

“The retailers were great. They were not obligated to carry out this recall,” he said. It’s estimated that 150,000 of the Nap Nanny have been purchased since the product came on the market in 2009.

The Nap Nanny was created by mom and Philadelphia sportscaster Leslie Gudel, who sold it through her company, Baby Matters. CPSC said it had been negotiating with Baby Matters for a mandatory recall, but Gudel refused to go along, contending the product is safe.

In email, Gudel told ABC News, “Baby Matters is disappointed to hear that four retailers have chosen to voluntarily recall the Nap Nanny.  As I’ve said before, the loss of an infant is an unthinkable tragedy, and I am truly heartbroken for the families who have lost a child.  But when the Nap Nanny has been used properly, no infant has ever suffered an injury requiring medical attention.”

Gudel said parents have misused the product by placing the device on a table or in a crib, or not strapping in the infant. Initial versions of the Nap Nanny were recalled and redesigned in 2010 after the first reported infant death. The sides were raised, warnings adding, and an instructional video was added to the website.

The CPSC said, however, injuries and deaths continued. The agency believes that the Nap Nanny contains defects in design, warning and instruction, “which pose a substantial risk of injury or death to infants.”

This month, CPSC took the rare step of suing Baby Matters to force a recall. That lawsuit continues, said the agency.

Spokesman Wolfson told ABC News, “Many smaller mom and pop stores also sold the Nap Nanny, so our lawsuit will continue. CPSC staff is seeking for Baby Matters to provide consumers with a refund of the cost of the Nap Nanny.”

Meantime, Gudel shut down her company because, she said, it couldn’t afford to continue the fight with the CPSC. She continued to defend the product and told ABC News in her email, “We look forward to presenting our case before a judge who will hear all of the facts.”

CPSC however, is urging consumers to return the Nap Nanny if they bought it from one of the retailers now voluntarily recalling the product.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the actress, who recently married Branson’s nephew Ned RocknRoll, received the out-of-this-world ticket from Branson as a thank you for rescuing his mother from a fire last year.  Winslet, who became a household name after her character survived the “Titanic,” became a hero when she rescued Branson’s then-90-year-old mother from a 4 a.m. fire at the private residence  the businessman owns on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands.

As a thank you, Winslet will head to outer space.

According to the Virgin website, Winslet can look forward to “a brief moment of quiet before a wave of unimaginable but controlled power surges” during her journey in the Virgin Galactic shuttle.  That’s before being:  ” instantly pinned back into your seat, overwhelmed but enthralled by the howl of the rocket motor and the eye- watering acceleration which, as you watch the read-out, has you traveling in a matter of seconds, at almost 2500 mph, over 3 times the speed of sound.”

Winslet’s new husband is reportedly a part-time employee of Virgin Galactic, and it’s unclear if he’ll be joining her for the ride into space.  Virgin Galactic, which plans to start flights next year, has already sold 530 tickets for £124,000 each; such people as Russell Brand, Ashton Kutcher and science genius Stephen Hawking are slated to go into low earth orbit.