Uncertainty

Shares of Ciena Corp. slipped as much as 6.6 percent yesterday due to uncertainty about future orders from WorldCom Inc. and AT&T Corp.The Linthicum-based telecommunications network equipment company's stock closed at $49.25 on the Nasdaq stock market, down $2.8125.Ciena had discussed the orders' status in a statement accompanying its fiscal second-quarter earnings report, which was released after the close of markets on Thursday.The company said it still expects to meet its yearly revenue target of $603 million.

In the aftermath of No. 13 Johns Hopkins' devastating 8-4 loss to then-No. 7 Loyola last Saturday, senior defenseman Tucker Durkin said the week of practice leading up to Friday night's contest at Army would be the most important one of the season. Coach Dave Pietramala said he has been pleased with the players' effort and attention to detail Monday and Tuesday. But one thing the Blue Jays are not paying attention to is their tournament profile. “We don't really talk about it because we can't control that,” Pietramala said Wednesday morning.

To millions of American voters, Ross Perot is an achiever who represents their best hope for a change in the way the federal government works. To the stock market, however, he represents uncertainty, and that's the principal reason stock prices will, at best, probably drift for months to come. Should Perot remain strong among the electorate, stock prices stand a good chance of declining over coming months, and into next year if he wins the election.Uncertainty is a major nemesis for stock prices, even more devastating than a recession and weaker corporate earnings.

Scientists at the nation's leading research institutions are warning that continued uncertainty over federal funding could lead to a brain drain that will undermine the country's global status in medicine. With funding at the National Institutes of Health stagnant since 2003 and other countries increasing research spending, some scientists have chosen to work overseas rather than endure what they expect will be a years-long wait for the grants they need to launch their careers in the United States.

WASHINGTON -- Following the defeat of the budget accord, the mood among Maryland representatives on Capitol Hill was one of uncertainty and some bewilderment."

FOUR YEARS ago, like many high school seniors, I was uncertain. I had no idea which college I would attend, not even where I might be interested in applying. Then, as I walked from the subway station to school on a cloudless morning, a plane flew low overhead and slammed into the World Trade Center four blocks away. That changed everything but the uncertainty, which just became a permanent part of day-to-day life. I was never in fear for my life that day, not even as the debris plume chased me northward on Greenwich Street.

Freud recognized that human beings have a sex drive and even a death drive. Is it possible that we also have an aphorism drive? We do seem attracted to pat answers and pithy summations - especially from our politicians. It isn't enough to be wise or effective; one must be quotable. In fact, aphorism is the oldest written art form, according to aphorism expert and author James Geary. Les bons mots tend to make us feel better, lending form to our thoughts and order to our emotions. They're especially useful in times of duress.

Supply and demand - the yin and yang of the modern world, the nemesis of Homo economicus, the most basic principle in all of economics - is really quite easy to grasp. When demand is high or supply is tight, prices go up. When demand is low or supply is plentiful, prices go down. That's why the Hannah Montana Non-Stop Dance Party CD will cost you $14.99 on Amazon, while my band's latest offering, Will Rock for Food, is free. The same basic principles are behind the high price of oil. Surging demand in emerging markets such as India and China have squeezed supplies, leaving less of the stuff to go around.

When Americans awoke Nov. 8 to find that the presidential election was too close to call - and would likely take several days to resolve - no one foresaw the ensuing drawn-out affair. Five weeks and countless trips to court later, the election standoff is over, and Americans finally know who the next president of the United States will be. Unfortunately, this stretch of uncertainty came at a vulnerable juncture, and appears to have damaged the U.S. economy. "I think there is some evidence of that," says James Hardesty, head of Hardesty Capital Management, a Baltimore-based money-management firm.

Athletic director Roger Wrenn, who usually greets phone calls to Patterson by saying, "beautiful Patterson High School," hasn't been pleased with the recent publicity the school has been getting."

Donald Hill-Eley has always told his Morgan State football players that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond. Now, after enduring as strange a few months as any college coach could fathom, Hill-Eley is striving to live by his own lesson. In late November, following the Bears' third straight losing season, Hill-Eley accidentally received an e-mail outlining the university's plan to seek his replacement. For almost six weeks after that, as rival coaches ramped up recruiting for 2013, he heard nothing official about his status.

With Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his top advisers visiting Washington this week, huge questions about the future of the NATO mission there consume Afghan and American minds. How fast can we draw down our current total of 68,000 U.S. troops (and another 30,000 or so from other outside countries) before the mission formally concludes at the end of next year? And how many forces do we have to keep in Afghanistan afterward? These questions come on top of other decisions we have been making lately, about the long-term size of the Afghan army and police and about foreign aid levels the international community will provide to Afghanistan for many years.

Congressional action to avert a "fiscal cliff" of higher taxes and across-the-board federal budget cuts means that government agencies will avoid many dreaded spending reductions — at least for now. But "now" is no more than two months. The future remains uncertain for federal employees because the legislation, passed less than 24 hours into 2013, delays the budget reductions known as sequestration only until early March. "Really, do we have to go through that again?" asked an exasperated Gregory J. Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers.

A bipartisan plan to avoid federal spending reductions and tax increases that would hit Maryland especially hard won final approval Tuesday night in the House of Representatives even as outside groups warned that the bill would simply delay difficult decisions for a few months. After a day of wild political gyrations - even by Washington's standards - the House voted 257 to 167 to pass a plan negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell that raises income tax rates on households earning more than $450,000 and postpones $110 billion in spending cuts through the end of February.

Usually by early December, investment professionals have mapped out their outlook for the next year. But such forecasting has been made difficult by the "fiscal cliff" — the confluence of spending cuts and higher taxes that kick in automatically next year if politicians in Washington can't reach a deal. Some experts are waiting for the dust to settle on a compromise before outlining a 2013 investment strategy. But others say if it isn't the fiscal cliff, it would be the debt ceiling or some other Washington-manufactured crisis to worry investors.

Terrell Carr and his mother, Niesha Carr, have loved his experience at William C. March Middle School. From the Arabic classes in which he's excelled to the quality of the instruction, both have nothing but good things to say about the school. And they are disappointed that it might close at the end of the year. "It's kind of sad because it's the best school I've ever been to," said Terrell, a 13-year-old seventh-grader who was attending the fifth annual Baltimore City Public Schools Middle and High School Choice Fair, which brought the system's 64 middle and high schools together Saturday to showcase their offerings for parents and students.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand voted yesterday in an election that was expected to produce not only a new parliament but also several weeks or months of political and constitutional uncertainty. Dozens of winners in the 500-seat parliament were expected to be disqualified by an aggressive new election commission for vote buying and other irregularities, leading to one or more runoff elections. And the candidate who appeared headed for victory as prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, 51, is under indictment by a counter-corruption commission and could be removed from office if he fails in an appeal to the Constitutional Court.

The Orioles began the second half of their season last night with cooler temperatures at Camden Yards. Perhaps the drop in degrees came from the large cloud of uncertainty that hangs over every ballpark. Not much light seems to be breaking through these days with so many controversies overshadowing just about everything that takes place on the field. Fans have become increasingly turned off by issues ranging from alleged steroid abuse to another work stoppage to Tuesday's premature ending of the All-Star Game.

Maryland's thoroughbred horse racing tracks and the state's horsemen are close to agreement on a 10-year deal that would give the industry stability it has not seen in decades, those involved in the negotiations say. "We've had years of not knowing what the future would hold," said Alan Foreman, the lawyer for the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. "But now we're running for historic levels of purse money and are on the cusp of an unprecedented revenue-sharing agreement with the track operator.

Quint Kessenich equates the move to a college football power leaving the SEC. "I don't see any positive for the lacrosse program," the ESPN analyst says of the University of Maryland's jump to the Big Ten Conference. "You're talking about the potential of severing rivalries with North Carolina, Duke, Virginia. " In leaving the ACC for the Big Ten, Maryland's football and basketball teams will trade one set of big-time opponents for another. But the picture is murkier in lacrosse, perhaps the university's third signature sport.