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(CNN) In the weeks before Chris Watts killed his pregnant wife and two daughters in Colorado, she saw him becoming suddenly cold and distant, and she canceled a party where she was to reveal her unborn child's gender, newly released documents reveal.

 Authorities say Watts, 33, killed his wife Shanann, 34, and their daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, on August 13 before disposing of them at a secluded site where he worked.

 He pleaded guilty this month to first-degree murder and other charges, and was sentenced Monday to five life sentences with no possibility of parole.

 Shanann Watts was realizing her marriage was in trouble around the time she and her daughters took a weekslong trip this summer to see family in North Carolina, the last week of which Chris Watts joined them, investigative documents released this week by the Weld County district attorney's office show.

 While they were apart from June 27 to July 30, Watts, apparently unbeknownst to his wife at the time, went on dates with a mistress in Colorado, investigators say in the documents.

 Arguments between Watts and his wife intensified when he reunited with the family in North Carolina in late July and early August. By the time they returned to Colorado, Shanann Watts, roughly 15 weeks pregnant, revealed to friends that her husband told her he didn't want the baby, friends told police.

 "I don't know how you fell out of love with me in 5.5 weeks, or if this has been going on for a long time, but you don't plan another baby if you're not in love," Shanann wrote to her husband on August 8, according to a police review of her phone data included in the investigative documents.

 'Chris said we are not compatible anymore'

 A friend reported Shanann Watts missing on August 13, saying she wasn't responding to messages, not long after Shanann returned from a short work trip from Arizona. Police found no one home.

 Chris Watts, after returning from work, told police that he had informed his wife early that morning that he wanted a separation. They had not argued, but they were both upset and crying, he told police, according to an affidavit. He told police that she'd indicated she was leaving for an unnamed friend's house.

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 A day later, Chris Watts, in an interview with CNN affiliate KMGH at his home in Frederick, north of Denver, pleaded for his family's return.

 But later that week, Shanann Watts' body was found in a shallow grave, and the bodies of Bella and Celeste were found in commercial oil tanks at a company where Watts had worked. Chris Watts had strangled his wife and suffocated the children, authorities said, and he was arrested.

 While they investigated, police spoke to several of Shanann Watts' friends, who told them Chris Watts had just recently become distant with her.

 "While in North Carolina, Shanann called (a friend) and said he (Chris Watts) wouldn't touch or kiss her anymore," a Frederick police officer wrote in one of the documents. "Shanann told her that Chris didn't want the baby she was pregnant with and that he was scared. He was happy with having only the two girls."

 That friend told the officer that after Shanann and the children spent five weeks without Watts in North Carolina over the summer, "Chris came back to Shanann a different man."

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 A different friend told police that she'd been helping to plan an August 19 party at which the baby's gender would be revealed. But the friend learned on August 8 -- a day after the family returned form North Carolina -- that Shanann was canceling the party.

 The friend asked, by text, if everything was OK. Frederick police documented the exchange:

 Shanann: "No can I call you tomorrow and tell you."

 Shanann: "Chris said we are not compatible anymore"

 Friend: " ... Oh my god what?"

 Shanann: "He said we are not compatible anymore! He refused to hug me. Said he thought another baby would fix his feelings. Said, he refused couples counseling! "

 ...

 Friend: "What the hell changed in 6 weeks?"

 Shanann: "He said he had a lot of time to think."

 'Why didn't you just tell me you were done?l?'

 The newly released documents includes a police investigator's analysis of data from Chris Watts' and Shanann Watts' phones. The messages show increasing strain as Shanann's summer trip in North Carolina progressed. Some excerpts from the documents:

 July 10:

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 Shanann writes to Chris: "You OK? It's like you don't want to talk l kept trying to talk and I had to dig it out of you?"

 Chris replied, "l'm fine baby. The last few days at work have put a lot of responsibility on me with new people. I didn't mean to seem short Boo. I love you to the moon and back."

 Shanann answers, "l miss you and l feel like you just want to work out and run."

 Watts claimed running helps "clear my head."

 Shanann responds: "l wish my husband wanted to talk to me."

 July 24

 Shanann remarks that Chris has been slow to respond to her.

 "Thought something happened. But you don't care about others feelings... Or think you're with another girl, or worse. No consideration of others."

 Later, Shanann writes:

 "l realized (during) this trip what's missing in our relationship! lt's only one way emotions and feelings. I can't come back like this. I need you to meet me halfway. You don't consider others at all, nor think about others feelings."

 Watts replied that he was sorry and he loves her, the investigator writes.

 Shanann responded: "l try to give you space, but while you are working and living the bachelor life l'm carrying our 3rd and fighting with our two kids daily and trying to work and make money. lt's not hard texting love you and miss you. lf you don't mean it then I get it, but we need to talk. I kept looking at my phone all night and no response from you. Like seriously! We didn't just start dating yesterday! We've been together 8 years and have 2.5 kids together."

 July 29

 After a 14-minute phone conversation, Shanann writes: "lt would have been nice for my husband to show interest in how the girls and I are, and the baby. l'm done with begging for you to talk."

 August 5

 By now, Chris had reunited with his wife and kids in North Carolina.

 Shanann messages Chris: "l don't know how you fell out of love with me in 5.5 weeks, or if this has been going on for a long time, but you don't plan another baby if you're not in love. Kids don't deserve a broken family ... You show up and I have to practically ask for a kiss in airport."

 Later, she adds: "Being away from you, it's not the help I missed because I handle that. lt was exhausting, but with school that's not hard. I missed the smell of you, you touching me when l'm cooking, you touching me in bed, you touching me period ! I missed holding you and snuggling with you. ... lf you are done, don't love me, don't want to work this out, not happy anymore and only staying because of kids, I NEED you to tell me."

 August 6

 Shanann writes to Chris: "Your only response last night was 'l don't want to lose the kids!' 'You used me to just have a 'boy!' Only reason you wanted another kid?! I can't handle this and you are ok with it. Why didn't you just tell me you were done?l? Why get me pregnant?!?"

 Chris responds: "l'm not just staying because of the kids. They are my light and that will not change. I didn't fall out of love in 5 weeks, that's impossible. I don't want to erase 8 years just like that. l'm not sure what's in my head."

 Later, Shanann writes that at one point, she was trying to get him to hug her, and to "make me feel safe." Chris responds that "this will all get fixed."

 "No I don't need words damnit," Shanann responds. "You just told me you don't want this baby."

 August 7

 In a text with a friend, Shanann writes: "Chris told me last night he's scared to death about this third baby and he's happy with just Bella and Celeste and doesn't want another baby."

 After the friend writes that Chris is just scared and everything will be fine when the baby is born, Shanann writes: "He has changed. I don't know who he is. ... He hasn't touched me all week, kissed me, talked to me except for when l'm trying to figure out what is wrong ... He's been distant since I left."

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 Other woman tells her side of story

 According to an unsealed Weld County arrest affidavit , investigators say they discovered Watts was "actively involved" in an affair. According to the documents released this week, Nichol Kessinger told the FBI that she had developed an intimate relationship with Watts.

 In a report analyzing the phone records of Kessinger and Chris Watts, police said the two had dates while his wife was in North Carolina, including to the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve in southern Colorado, and a museum in Boulder.

 Kessinger, 30, told The Denver Post she met him while working for the environmental department of a petroleum contractor.

 "We had just met," Kessinger told the newspaper. "I barely knew him."

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 He wasn't wearing a wedding ring when they were introduced, and she thought he was attractive, soft-spoken and a good listener, she said. When they first met outside of work in late June, he told her he was in the final stages of a divorce. She never met any of his relatives or friends, Kessinger told The Post.

 Watts sent her a text August 13 to say his family had disappeared, and she was confused about why the media was at his house.

 "When I read the news, I found out he was still married and his wife was 15 weeks pregnant," Kessinger told the newspaper.

 She peppered him with questions via phone calls and text, she said, and he changed his story about the divorce, showed little emotion about his family's disappearance, and tried to change the subject.

 "It got to a point that he was telling me so many lies that I eventually told him that I did not want to speak to him again until his family was found," she told the paper, explaining that she called police on August 15 to report Watts' lies. ||||| Christopher Watts failed a polygraph test before investigators were able to pressure him into confessing that he killed his pregnant wife and hid her body, as well as those of his two young daughters.

 For two days, the Frederick man had claimed to not know what happened to his family after a friend reported his wife Shanann and two daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste, missing on Aug. 13. The six-hour interview with agents from the FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on Aug. 15 led to Watts’ arrest in the crimes.

 Watts was sentenced to life in prison without parole Monday after pleading guilty to the murders of his family. He has not given a full confession to killing all three family members, prosecutors have said.

 Documents in the case released Wednesday by the Weld County District Attorney’s Office show how investigators convinced Watts to confess to the murder of his wife through repeated questioning during the interview at the Frederick Police Department.

 Watts first told investigators that he did not know anything about where Shanann, Bella and Celeste were and said that he was worried for them, the summary of the interview shows. He said he missed reading books with his daughters before bed and that it was hard to stay in the family’s Frederick home.

 He told investigators that the family had more than $8,000 in credit card debt and were three months behind on their mortgage payment. The next month’s mortgage was due the day after he was interviewed.

 Watts told the interviewer about growing up in North Carolina, where he attended a school for mechanics before working for car dealerships. He moved to Colorado in 2012 and worked at Longmont Ford before switching to the oil and gas field.

 When the interviewer asked Watts to describe all the ways a person could make someone disappear, Watts gave a short answer and then giggled, according to the documents.

 The interviewer asked Watts if he physically caused Shanann to disappear, if he was lying about the last time he saw her and whether he knew where Shanann was. Watts said “no” to each of the questions, but the polygraph test, which was only used during those three questions, indicated that he was lying in his answers.

 After some questions from the interviewer and an FBI agent, Watts admitted he was having an affair. Investigators had already learned of Watts’ affair with Nichol Kessinger, documents show.

 The investigators continued to ask Watts if he had anything to do with the disappearance, even telling him that they found it weird that he hadn’t cried. The investigators told Watts that he needed to be honest and “get everything off of his chest” and that he would bear a weight the rest of his life if the case wasn’t solved.

 Watts asked to speak to his father, Ronnie Watts, who was in the police department lobby. Investigators recorded their conversation.

 Watts then told his father that he killed Shanann after seeing her attempting to kill Celeste on a video baby monitor, a scenario that Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke called a “flat-out lie” after Watts’ guilty pleas. Watts said Shanann had already killed Bella when he intervened.

 “She hurt them,” Watts told his father. “And then I freaked out and hurt her.”

 Investigators re-entered the room and continued the interview, which lasted for more than six hours. They pressured him into telling them where the bodies were hidden.

 During the interview, Watts apologized for lying to investigators.

 “I’m not a good man,” he said.

 Police arrested Watts after the interview.

 Read the full 32-page interview summary here: ||||| Case documents show deceit and distrust in family's final months

 Nancy Lee takes a moment after placing flowers at a makeshift memorial, for Shanann, Bella and Celeste Watts, outside the family's home on Aug. 17. ( RJ Sangosti / The Denver Post )

 In an interview with police the day he was arrested for their murders, Christopher Watts talked about taking his daughters Bella and Celeste to a birthday party for the 4-year-old son of family friends.

 Less than 24 hours after that party, he would conceal their lifeless bodies inside oil tanks in rural Weld County and bury their mother in a shallow grave nearby.

 A Weld County district judge on Monday sentenced Watts, 33, to life without parole in the deaths of Bella, 4, Celeste, 3, and his wife Shanann, 34.

 So far, Watts has only admitted to killing his wife, but he pleaded guilty in early November to multiple counts of murder and tampering with a corpse. Watts also pleaded guilty to unlawful termination of a pregnancy, because Shanann Watts was nearly four months pregnant with the couple's third child.

 Shanann Watts, center, and her children Celeste (left) and Bella (right) were murdered by Christopher Watts at their home in Frederick in August, leading to his sentencing Nov. 19 in Weld County District Court to life in prison with no chance for parole. (facebook.com / facebook.com)

 Watts remains in custody at the Weld County Jail pending his transfer to the Colorado Department of Corrections.

 The Weld County District Attorney's Office on Wednesday released an enormous collection file of police interviews with family members, friends and coworkers as well as people who claimed extramarital affairs with Christopher Watts and people offering tips that were investigated but went nowhere.

 A divorce attorney recounted a chance encounter with Shanann Watts at a Japanese steak house in Westminster in the spring, during which she inquired about child custody laws in Colorado. The file contains dozens of letters sent to Watts at the county jail, including bizarre, flirty letters from random women as well as interview requests from news reporters.

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 A psychic made a fairly accurate prediction about the location of the girls' bodies and a police report outlined a Craigslist posting offering a pair of Christopher Watts' underwear for $500.

 "These are legit and I have pics to prove it," the post states. "Serious offers only."

 Mundane weekend

 The nearly 2,000-page trove of documents also details the days and weeks leading up to the murders and outlines a troubled marriage, squabbles between family members over nut allergies as well as infidelity on the part of Christopher Watts and the transcript of a police interview during which he confessed to killing his wife, whom he blamed for his daughters' deaths.

 Watts would fail three polygraph examination questions regarding the disappearance of his wife, a break in the case investigators would use to tease out his confession.

 During the interview ahead of the test, however, Watts talked about the mundane weekend spent at his Frederick home eating pizza and watching TV with his daughters who, according to police interviews with friends and coworkers, were the light of his life.

 Watts told police that his wife, shortly after the family returned from a trip to North Carolina, would take a weekend trip to Arizona as part of her job with nutritional supplement company Le-Vel. He took Aug. 10 off to look after his daughters, and the three went grocery shopping and had his eyeglasses repaired.

 He cooked dinner for Bella and Celeste but decided not to make a video call to their mother because, as he told police, it would result in a "cry-fest." He put the girls to bed at about 8 p.m. and went down to the basement to work out and watch "SportsCenter" on ESPN.

 The Lazy Dog

 On Saturday morning, Aug. 11, Bella climbed into bed with her father. Later in the morning, he played with the girls outside and then brought them in once the temperature rose too high. He planned on another trip to the grocery store but cancelled after his wife said she would go upon her return. He requested green beans in a text message.

 He told police and numerous other people that at about 5 p.m., he left the girls with a babysitter and attended a Colorado Rockies game. He told police that he ate dinner with friends at The Lazy Dog Sports Bar and Grill in Erie after the game.

 It was a lie. Police had already interviewed Nichol Kessinger, Christopher Watts' coworker and the woman with whom he struck up a romantic relationship over the summer. She told police she and Watts had dinner at The Lazy Dog that evening.

 Christopher Watts sits in court awaiting his sentencing at Weld County District Court on Nov. 19. (RJ Sangosti / The Denver Post)

 Kessinger told police that Watts used a credit card to pay for the meal. She took that as a positive sign in their relationship, because Watts usually paid for items with gift cards, a practice she took as an attempt by Watts to conceal his activities from his wife.

 The charge on the card did not go unnoticed by Shanann Watts, however, who told a friend that her husband claimed to have eaten a salmon dinner and drank a beer with friends after the game, but the $62 bill aroused her suspicions, as it seemed pricey for fish and beer.

 'He has changed'

 In text messages with friends, Shanann Watts alternated between angry and sad about what she perceived as cold and distant behavior by her husband. She expressed increasing anxiety about having a third child with a man who seemed disinterested.

 At the end of June, she took the girls to North Carolina. During the trip, she had a blowout with her mother-in-law after she served ice cream with nuts to several children in front of Celeste — who had a nut allergy — as a "lesson" that can't always have what she wants. Christopher Watts came for the last week, and the couple quarreled about his parents.

 Shanann Watts confided in friends that her husband rebuffed her attempts at physical intimacy on more than one occasion, and that he wouldn't hold her hand during an ultrasound appointment. The couple had planned a gender reveal party for the weekend following her disappearance, but she cancelled it.

 "Chris told me last night he's scared to death about this third baby. And he's happy with just bella (sic) and Celeste and doesn't want another baby," she wrote in a text message from Aug. 7 or Aug. 8.

 "He's just scared," the friend replied. "Everything will be fun once the baby comes."

 "He has changed," Shanann Watts countered. "I don't know who he is."

 In one of the texts, the friend floated the idea that Christopher Watts was seeing another woman, but Shanann Watts told the friend that she confronted her husband with the possibility and he denied it.

 Hundreds of text messages compiled by investigators show that Christopher Watts lived a double life over the summer. Shanann Watts often voiced outrage that her husband was living a "bachelor's life" while she struggled with the kids and a rocky situation with the grandparents. Christopher Watts was often juggling simultaneous conversations with his wife and Kessinger.

 Shanann Watts' tone shifted in the few days leading up to her death, however. She told friends that she and her husband had started working through some issues, and the two planned to take a trip to Aspen the following weekend. She sent him a text asking if he would like to order a TV football package for the coming season and described the thunderstorms in Arizona.

 Birthday party

 On Sunday, Aug. 12, Bella woke up and rousted her sister from bed, Christopher Watts told police. The three spent the morning watching cartoons, and he put them down for a nap, so they wouldn't be too tired for the birthday party.

 The girls woke up at about 12:30 p.m. and he fed them leftover pizza for lunch. They drove to the store to buy a gift for the party.

 Watts told police that he didn't know that the party featured water balloons and a pool, so he didn't bring their swimsuits. Nonetheless, he said the girls enjoyed themselves, and he put them in the shower when they returned home, because they had gotten sandy from playing. He sent photos of the party to his wife, who had yet to return from Arizona.

 The father of the birthday boy told police that nothing seemed amiss with Christopher Watts at the party.

 Watts again told police that he fed the girls leftover pizza and the three made a video phone call to Shanann Watts' parents. Afterward, he gave Celeste some vanilla wafers and Bella some chips. The girls ended up trading snacks and eating them on their child-sized couches.

 After Christopher Watts put the girls to bed, Bella twice emerged from her room because she knew her mother was coming home and she was excited to see her. He said he told Bella that her mother would be there when she woke up and put her back to bed.

 In a matter of hours, Bella, Celeste and Shanann Watts would be dead.

 During his interview with police and just prior to his confession, Christopher Watts told an investigator, "I love those girls to death."

 John Bear: 303-473-1355, bearj@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/johnbearwithme ||||| WELD COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4)– In response to a Colorado Criminal Justice Records request, CBS4 News received more than 2,000 pages of documents from the Weld County District Attorney in the Chris Watts case.

 Watts killed his wife, Shanann and their two daughters, Bella and Celeste in August. He pleaded for their safe return, but was arrested days later.

 On Nov. 6, Watts pleaded guilty to the nine charges he faced, including five counts of first-degree murder. In addition to the murder charges for Shanann and his daughters, he also pleaded guilty to two counts of murdering a child, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

 On Monday, the judge sentenced Chris Watts to three consecutive life sentences, along with two other life sentences to be carried out concurrently, in addition to 48 years for unlawful termination of pregnancy for the death of the unborn child, and 12 years each for three counts of tampering with a deceased body.

 CBS4 has excerpted some of the information discovered on the phones of the parties involved in the investigation. The commentary is by investigators for their reports:

 Shanann Watts pregnancy:

 p. 2082 May 29, 2018

 1540 hours: Shanann began filming in the kitchen of 2825 Saratoga Trail. she stepped in front of the camera briefly to show off her shirt with the embossed words, “Oops… we did it again.” When she stepped out of the camera’s view Dieter (the family dog) ran off to welcome Watts entering the home. As Watts walked into the kitchen, he halted mid stride and stared in Shanann’s direction. His confused expression transformed into a grin and he walked to her saying, “We did it again.” When Watts returned in view of the camera he is holding a pregnancy test and they discuss the positive result. Watts leaned in, kissed Shanann and, with a large grin, says, “l guess when you want to, it happens – Wow.” Seventy six days later Shanann, her unborn child, Bello and Celeste were murdered *

 RELATED: Chris Watts Sentenced To 5 Life Sentences For Killing Pregnant Wife, Young Daughters

 In an interview with Thornton Police, Watts’ alleged mistress Nichol Kessinger said from her perspective, Chris and Shanann “did not get along well and their financial life was also troubling. She said Chris was struggling with finances and now he had a third kid on the way and she does not know if he could afford another kid. Shanann was not responsive to this financial trouble. Nichol said Chris always told her he wanted a third child and wanted a boy.”

 Kessinger told police she does not think she is the only catalyst for the sequence of events. She does, however, believe that being in Chris’s life may have “accelerated the process.” She feels “money is the biggest catalyst for this event happening.”

 In that same interview, Kessinger said she could not think of a reason for why Chris would have hurt his children. She continues, “The only thing she could think of was that the kids may have seen him killing Shanann so he chose to kill them as well.”

 Shannan to Chris problems:

 August 5, 2018

 2234 hours: Shanann added (to Chris), “Being away from you, it’s not the help I missed because I handle that. lt was exhausting, but with school that’s not hard. I missed the smell of you, you touching me when l’m cooking, you touching me in bed, you touching me period! I missed holding you and snuggling with you. I missed eating with you, watching tv with you. I missed staring at you, I missed making love with you. I missed everything about you. I couldn’t wait to touch you, hold you, kiss you, make love to you, smell you, laugh with you. I couldn’t wait to celebrate 8 years with you… lf you are done, don’t love me, don’t want to work this out, not happy anymore and only staying because of kids, I NEED you to tell me.”

 2300 hours: Shanann asked Watts, “Would you stay with me if we didn’t have kids?”

 2309 hours: Shanann asked Watts, “l just don’t get it. You don’t fall out of love in 5 weeks.” Minutes later she pondered, “How can you sleep? Our marriage is crumbling in front of us and you can sleep.”

 Problems with in-laws

 p. 2085 July 9, 2018

 2015 hours: Shanann discussed how Watts’ mother gave Celeste ice cream with nuts in the ingredients. Shanann felt this was done in defiance of Shanann’s warnings of Celeste’s food allergies. Shanann told Watts, “You should call your dad and tell him you did not appreciate your mom putting your daughter at risk today, nor do you like that she teased our girls. You should also say you don’t appreciate her saying they have to learn they can’t always get what they want! (Referring to ice cream) they are 2 and 4!

 Shannan discusses marital problems

 July 24, 2018

 1802 hours: Shanann told Watts, “l realized during this trip what’s missing in our relationship! lt’s only one way emotions and feelings. I can’t come back like this. I need you to meet me halfway. You don’t consider others at all, nor think about others feelings.” Watts replied that he was sorry and he loves her. Shanann responded, “l try to give you space, but while you are working and living the bachelor life l’m carrying our 3rd and fighting with our two kids daily and trying to work and make money. lt’s not hard texting love you and miss you. lf you don’t mean it then I get it, but we need to talk. I kept looking at my phone all night and no response from you. Like seriously! We didn’t just start dating yesterday! We’ve been together 8 years and have 2.5 kids together.”

 In a phone search conducted by authorities, investigators found searches on Kessinger’s phone for sexual videos and positions, hours’ worth of searches for “Shanann Watts,” searches including “can cops trace text messages” after the murders, searches for Amber Frey (the mistress of convicted murderer Scott Peterson), if “people hate Amber Frey,” and Frey’s subsequent book deal.

 August 13, 2018 (CBS4 note: This contains lyrics from a song which Chris Watts looked up on Google the lyrics include: “- lunacy has found me – Cannot stop the battery – Pounding out aggression – Turns into obsession – Cannot kill the battery – Cannot kill the family .“

 Page 2122

 1010 hours: during a respite following the murder of his family, and disposing of their bodies at a desolate well site, Watts searched Google for the lyrics to “Battery” by Metallica. ”Lashing out the action, returning the reaction – Weak ore ripped and torn away – Hypnotizing power, crushing all thot cower – Battery is here to stay Smashing through the boundaries – Lunacy hos found me – Cannot stop the battery – Pounding out aggression – Turns into obsession – Cannot kill the battery – Cannot kill the family – Battery is found in me Crushing oll deceivers, moshing non-believers – Never-ending potency – Hungry violence-seeker, Feeding off the weaker – Ereeding on insanity Smashing through the boundaries – lunacy hos found me – connote stop the battery – Pounding out aggression – Turns into obsession – Cannot kill the battery – Cannot kill the family – Battery is found in me – Battery, Battery Circle of destruction, hammer comes crushing – Powerhouse of energy – Whipping up o fury, dominating flurry – We create the battery Smashing through the boundaries – Lunacy hos found me – Cannot stop the buttery – Pounding out aggression – Turns into obsession – Cannot kill the battery – Cannot kill the family – Battery is found in me.”

 On August 15, Chris Watts submitted to Frederick Police for a polygraph test. He came in loose clothing and no wedding ring. Testers determined he was lying during the polygraph. When confronted about the deception and after a long conversation with the tester, he admitted to killing his wife while sticking to the claim that she killed the girls. He admitted to putting the girls in the oil tanks.

 In an unclassified interview with the FBI, a friend of Shanann details specific relationship issues that she and Chris were having, and several instances of issues with Chris’s parents.

 “Shanann also said there was an incident involving Chris’s mother involving ice cream. All the grandkids were over at the house and the girls wanted ice cream, however, Celeste is allergic. One of the other children got ice cream with peanuts, and Celeste asked for some. When Chris’s mom said no, and [sic] argument between Shanann and Chris’s mom ensued about Shanann coddling Celeste and about the treatment of her kids in general.

 “Chris flew to North Carolina to join the family during the last week there. Chris was very distant. He didn’t run to her and kiss her at the airport when they picked him up. Chris was not interested in taking pictures together, which was very unusual. At certain times, Chris didn’t want to hug her, and told her he didn’t want to. Chris was not communicating and Shanann felt lost.

 “While in North Carolina, Celeste had a birthday party. Chris’s mother and father didn’t show up, and also didn’t text Shanann or Chris. Since that time, Chris started to get distant from Shanann. Shanann thought Chris’s parents loved the other grandkids more than Celeste and Bella. It was a burden for them to talk to Celeste and Bella. Chris’s parents also did not attend Shanann’s and Chris’s wedding. Chris told Shanann that Shanann was putting a barrier between Chris and his dad.

 “Chris told Shanann that they were no longer compatible. Chris told her he didn’t want the baby; he just wanted it to be the two girls. Chris told her he wasn’t sure if he wanted a third child. Shanann asked Chris why he wanted another child if he felt that way about her. He said he thought it would fix the relationship. … Prior to the North Carolina trip, Shanann and Chris were both happy, and Chris was excited about the baby.

 “Chris said he was considering separating from Shanann. Shanann asked Chris to see a therapist but he refused. Shanann was 100% against separation. Chris wouldn’t talk to her.”

 An early police report details the couples’ ongoing financial issues. Chris Watts told officers when they first searched the house that “…he couldn’t log in to check the bank accounts because she does the finances. He said he knows the password but not the user name.” The report continues, “Chris advised if there was a stock pile of cash in the house he would not have known about it.”

 Crime scene investigators detail how Shanann’s body was found in a shallow grave, wrapped in a fitted sheet. The same fitted sheet, from what they gathered, that was missing from a sheet set they found in the trash at the Watts’ home that was missing a fitted sheet. The report also graphically details how the bodies of Bella and Celeste were recovered from the oil tanks at a battery near Roggen.

 Watts’ father Ronnie told investigators that his son “described Shanann as controlling, narcissistic and possible bi-polar,” though he had not seen any verbal of physical altercations between Chris and Shanann. |||||Summary:

– Christopher Watts will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters in Colorado. Some of the last things he did as a free man have come into sharper focus thanks to some 2,000 pages of documents the Weld County District Attorney's Office released on Wednesday. Authorities say he suffocated his girls late on Sunday, Aug. 12, or early on Monday the 13th, which is when he strangled his wife. The details begin before that, per the Daily Camera: With his wife out of town on business, Watts on Saturday took girlfriend Nichol Kessinger to dinner, though he told police and others he had dinner with friends. More: Kessinger says he uncharacteristically paid with a credit card, rather than a gift card, which she took as a sign that he no longer needed to hide their relationship from his wife (whom Watts told her he had divorced). The $62 charge caught Shanann Watts' eye; she mentioned it to a friend as suspiciously high considering her husband told her he had salmon and a beer. CBS Denver reports on Aug. 5, Shanann texted Watts, "l just don't get it. You don't fall out of love in 5 weeks." CNN reports Shanann took her girls on a lengthy summer trip to North Carolina to see family; Watts joined her for the last week of the trip, but the two were apart from June 27 to July 30. During that time, Watts reportedly saw Kessinger, who told co-workers they got physically intimate in early July.


His attorney argued Murray should remain free until sentencing, noting he had family obligations. "There is no reason to remand him under these circumstances," he said.

 As Pastor was giving his order, a bailiff handcuffed Murray behind his back while he was sitting in his seat.

 “This is not a crime involving a mistake of judgment,” Pastor said. “This is a crime where the end result was the death of a human being. That factor demonstrates rather dramatically that the public should be protected.”

 A judge on Monday ordered Dr. Conrad Murray to jail, just a few minutes after a jury found him guilty in the death of Michael Jackson.

 Murray, Michael Jackson's personal physician, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for causing the pop icon's 2009 death by a powerful surgical anesthetic.

 The verdict against Dr. Conrad Murray comes after a jury of seven men and five women deliberated for about nine hours over two days. The 58-year-old cardiologist, who was charged with the lowest possible homicide offense, faces a maximum sentence of four years in state prison and a minimum sentence of probation.

 Murray now also faces the probable loss of his medical license. California authorities already suspended his right to practice, but medical boards in Nevada and Texas agreed to wait to evaluate licenses he holds in their states until after the criminal case.

 Over four weeks, prosecutors painted Murray as a deceptive and incompetent doctor who abandoned his medical judgment in complying with Jackson's request to be given a surgical anesthetic to put him to sleep.

 Witnesses testified to many egregious medical missteps -– giving propofol in an unmonitored setting, fumbling at basic resuscitation, keeping no records –- failures that experts said directly led to Jackson's overdose death.

 As his famed patient stopped breathing and suffered cardiac arrest under the influence of propofol, jurors were told, the doctor chatted on the phone and sent and received emails and text messages. And in the crucial moments after he discovered the singer had stopped breathing, he delayed calling for help and lied to paramedics and emergency doctors, witnesses said.

 Central to the government's case were the doctor's own words from a police interview two days after Jackson's death. In the 2-1/2-hour tape, Murray admitted to giving the singer the propofol -– caving in after Jackson repeatedly begged for it, he said -– as well as two other drugs earlier in the day.

 Admissions in the interview were enough evidence of the doctor's guilt, witnesses said. But the prosecution's star witness also said levels of the drug found during an autopsy showed Murray lied about how much propofol he administered. Dr. Steven Shafer, a renowned anesthesiologist and propofol expert, said the only plausible scenario was that Murray left a large drip of the anesthetic running into Jackson's blood after he was dead.

 RELATED:

 'Michael Jackson got justice,' fan says

 Occupy L.A. protesters go to courthouse

 Conrad Murray trial: Who’s who in the jury

 -- Victoria Kim and Harriet Ryan

 Photo: A bailiff handcuffs Dr. Conrad Murray behind his back in court Monday. Credit: Pool photo ||||| Dr. Conrad Murray 'Keep Away Prisoner'

 Dr. Conrad Murray -- Keep Away Prisoner

 Law enforcement tells TMZ ...has been deemed a "keep away inmate" -- which means jail officials will be taking special precautions to keep him safe during his stint behind bars.We're told Murray will be assigned a single cell for his own protection -- and he'll also be assigned an "escort" to keep an eye on the doc wherever he goes inside the jail ... including shower time.Officials tell us Murray will not be allowed to mingle with the general inmate population -- which is a blessing and a curse for Murray ... who will surely feel safer, but also INCREDIBLY lonely at the same time. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Moments after his guilty verdict, Dr. Conrad Murray was ordered held without bail and escorted from the courtroom in handcuffs, the Los Angeles Times reports. "Dr. Murray's reckless conduct" is a threat to public safety, said Judge Michael Pastor. "This is not a crime involving a mistake of judgment. This is a crime where the end result was the death of a human being." A Los Angeles jury found Murray guilty of involuntary manslaughter today in the death of pop icon Michael Jackson. One bit of good news for Murray: Jail officers will consider him a "keep away inmate" in an effort to protect him behind bars, TMZ reports. In other words, Murray will get his own cell, shower alone, and won't be allowed to mingle with other prisoners. The doctor's lonely spell will be broken on November 29 for sentencing. The Times notes that he faces up to 4 years in state prison and will probably lose his California medical license. (Read about testimony that Murray gave Jackson a propofol dose 40 times higher than the doctor claimed.)


Summarize this article:

No one can predict when the current bull market will end. But we can all agree on when began, right?

 You might think so, but no.

 By the most commonly accepted definition, the bull market in stocks that followed the 'Great Recession' and global financial crisis turns eight years old Thursday. On Monday, March 9, 2009, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index closed at 676, having touched 666 the prior Friday, and then reversed higher.

 By the standard custom for classifying bull and bear markets, this rebound became a new bull market once it gained 20 percent – just two weeks later. And those unwritten rules say that this bull market remains in force unless and until the S&P declines at least 20 percent from a high.

 That has not happened since March 2009, which is why this 250-percent advance is still generally considered one, long bull market – the second-longest ever, in fact.

 Yet plenty of professional investors and longtime students of the market argue that dating the bull market to the initial snap-back rally from a 12-year low overlooks some of the setbacks since then and perhaps overstates the bull's age.

 Here are some alternative start dates commonly cited by those who think the bull market truly got rolling well after the tumultuous swings around the financial-crisis climax:

 Source: CNBC

 September 2011: In a sort of financial-crisis aftershock, stress in European debt markets, surging oil prices and a U.S. debt-ceiling standoff struck a still-fragile economic recovery and dragged the S&P 500 down 19.4 percent from May to September that year. The decline exceeded 20 percent on an intraday basis and most global indexes suffered declines of at least that much.

 The record keepers file this under the heading of "severe market correction," but to many it was close enough to consider the recovery from the September 2011 akin to a new, or renewed, bull market.

 March 2013: In some respects, this equity advance didn't begin to behave as a real bull market until late 2012. Treasury yields had bottomed in mid-2012, and riskier assets benefited from the unclenching of tensions that this represented. Risk spreads on speculative high-yield debt began collapsing, and for the first time in this economic cycle, the price-earnings multiple on stocks began expanding.

 By early 2013, with Washington gridlocked, the Federal Reserve looking to end quantitative easing and equities appearing cheap relative to bonds, the S&P gained upward momentum. By late March 2013, the index finally eclipsed its former all-time high from October 2007 of 1565.

 Some strategists say this was the end of the "secular bear market" that had begun in the year 2000 and the start of a new "secular bull market." The term "secular" refers to a long-term structural move in asset prices. An earlier secular bear lasted from 1966 to 1982, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was contained below the 1000 market, followed by the stupendous secular bull of 1982 to 2000.

 Obviously within these periods are significant cyclical swings, often of more than 20 percent against the long-term trend.

 There's no real science to defining or playing such periods. And, frankly, there have been so few that it's hard to generalize about their behavior with too much confidence.

 But the idea that a push to a new all-time high touches off a decade-plus of further upward movement has some evidence behind it, and the likes of Bank of America Merrill Lynch have been using this framework since the 2013 breakout.

 February 2016: The S&P 500 fell "only" about 15 percent from the summer of 2015 to the early-2016 low as oil prices collapsed and global recession and deflation fears flared.

 Yet that understates the carnage beneath the surface. The small-cap Russell 2000 sank 26 percent over eight months. And Strategas Research technical strategist Chris Verrone notes that 63 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 index fell at least 20 percent from their 52-week high.

 So, bear market or not, it was a pretty good washout - one that many now argue cleansed the market of excesses, rebuilt value and reinvigorated the bull. In some ways this is akin to the Asian financial crisis of 1998, when the S&P 500 never fell by more than 20 percent but 70 percent of all stocks did. Once it bottomed, that bull market put in a ferociously lucrative final push over the next 18 months.

 So how much does this matter for an investor trying to set expectations for future equity performance?

 Not terribly much. Even if we say the bull is eight years old, and therefore a "mature" one, bull markets don't die of old age; they are put down by recession, financial panic or the Fed.

 On the other hand, even if we decree that the bull market truly started five-and-a-half years, or four years ago, or 13 months ago, it doesn't change the fact that stock valuations are close to the top of their historical range and the eight-year returns delivered by the market are among the best ever.

 Ryan Detrick of LPL Financial looked back at all eight-year periods since 1936. The past eight years' gain was only exceeded 35 times, placing the current run in the top four percent of all past periods. Most prior instances occurred in clusters in the mid-1950s, and then the late-'90s and early 2000.

 The one-, five- and ten-year average and median returns following the other such periods aren't great – small losses one year out and subpar appreciation for longer periods.

 Granted, those averages are heavily undercut by the Tech Bubble readings. But taken together, they suggest that no matter when you say the bull market began, it's certainly not over but it's probably not early.

  ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| NEW YORK (Reuters) - The run of gains on Wall Street turns 8 years old on Thursday and, despite its advanced age, is expected to rage on, with perhaps a few hiccups, based on a combination of stronger company earnings, lower taxes and a corporate-friendly administration in Washington.

 A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 6, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

 Strategists, however, warn that a correction of as much as 10 percent should be expected as the market is richly valued. The bull case for equities relies on analysts seeing little chance of recession in the short term.

 “Just because the (bull) market has hit a birthday, or is among the longest ever, doesn’t mean that it will ‘die’ of old age,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.

 “Markets don’t really pay attention to the calendar or the candles on the cake.”

 The S&P 500 index has rallied 250 percent since hitting a closing low of 676.53 on March 9, 2009. The gains since, uninterrupted by a decline of 20 percent or more, rank this bull market as the second longest ever.

 The current run is nearly three years older than the average bull and more than a year shorter than the longest one: the rally from Oct. 11, 1990 to March 24, 2000.

 The S&P continued to rise through a year-long decline in corporate earnings through most of 2016, supported in part by historically low interest rates which made stocks comparatively cheaper and more rewarding than U.S. Treasuries.

 The index has risen nearly 6 percent in 2017, closing on Wednesday at 2,362.98. Analysts remain undeterred in their belief that more gains are coming as the economy and corporate earnings growth improve.

 "With earnings growth expected to continue the rest of the year, it might be a rocky road but it could still be that the bull market makes it to nine," said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina.

 Infographic ID: '2n9BKfK'

 A Reuters poll in December showed analysts expected the S&P 500 to finish 2017 at 2,350, buoyed by the belief that President Donald Trump’s plans to stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending, lower taxes and financial deregulation would come to pass.

 Strategists, including some with a lower target than that, see the bull market continuing, even if a correction is in the cards.

 Julian Emanuel, executive director of U.S. equity and derivatives strategy at UBS Securities, said he expects a pullback of 5 to 10 percent to “refresh” the bull market and that such a correction would be a buying opportunity.

 “The bull market is going to finish, in our view, when conditions begin to accumulate that tend to lead to a recession. We just don’t see that as a 2017 or 2018 event,” Emanuel said.

 He warned, however, that “valuations have outrun earnings potential and the state of fundamentals generally.”

 With the S&P 500 currently trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 18, well above its average of 15, corporate profits will need to improve in order to bring down valuations.

 Earnings are seen growing 10.7 percent this year compared to last, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data. Even though that is a lower expectation than the 12.5 percent estimate at the start of January, it still allows for a healthy gain in 2017.

 U.S. economic data, including a private sector jobs report on Wednesday that showed growth recorded its biggest increase in more than a year in February, continues to improve and is far from indicating a downturn, further supporting stock prices.

 “We do not yet see any of the warning signs that point to a larger decline,” said Kingsview’s Nolte, who sees a pullback of up to 5 percent. “A recession does not seem to be in the cards just yet.” ||||| 8 Things to Know about the Bull Market on Its 8th Birthday

 The stock market has accomplished something that only one other bull market in history has achieved — it survived to see its eighth birthday.

 It was eight years ago today that the Dow Jones industrial average sank to its recent nadir of 6,547, as hundreds of thousands of workers were losing jobs and the global financial system teetered on the edge of collapse.

 Since then, though, the Dow has skyrocketed more than 14,000 points to 20,855. The broader S&P 500 index of U.S. stocks has come roaring back too, returning an annual 20% to investors who had the nerve to stay in the scary market.

 But this was by no means a straight shot back up. In fact, the second-longest bull market in the post-World War II era has been unpredictable, puzzling, and rather peculiar.

 Here's how:

 1. This Bull Has Been Unloved

 "The current bull market has been the least loved, the most questioned and the most doubted bull that we certainly can recall in near 34 years of experience in the markets," noted Oppenheimer chief investment strategist John Stoltzfus in a recent report.

 That's an understatement.

 Even as this bull market more than tripled the value of stocks over the past eight years, the percent of households that actually own equities has sunk from 62% in 2008 to 52% last year, according to a survey by Gallup .

 That's the lowest level of stock ownership in the 19 years that Gallup has been tracking this data.

 2. This Bull Has Been Persistent

 World events since 2009 have been anything but supportive for a major stock market rally. Major industries such as banks and automakers neared collapse. The Federal government shutdown for 16 days. And political posturing in Congress in the Obama years brought the nation close to defaulting on the national debt.

 Overseas, major European nations were crippled by a debt crisis, terrorists attacks spread around the globe, and China's economy endured a dramatic slump.

 Yet stocks kept chugging along.

 3. This Bull Was Nearly Gored Last Year

 Since President Trump's election in November, the stock market has been on a a roll, as most major economic metrics have been pointing higher. So it's easy to forget that as recently as a year ago, there was real doubt that equities would make it to this anniversary.

 One year ago stocks were battered by a series of bad headlines, such as low growth in China and weak global demand for oil. A few months later U.K. voters decided to leave the European Union, and eventually Donald Trump was elected president — a plot twist that some analysts predicted would cause stocks to crash.

 And yet stocks rebounded from their disastrous 2016 winter to deliver 22% over the past 12 months, according to CFRA, the third biggest year-over-year gain since March 2009.

 4. This Bull Has Been Surprisingly Calm

 Despite all of last year's uncertainty, stocks have been remarkably subdued. In fact, compared to the bull market of October 1990 to March 2000, investors could afford to take a long, deep breath for the past 12 months.

 "During year eight, the S&P 500 recorded 85 [days of more than 1% gains or losses] in 1998, but only 23 in the year just past," according to CFRA's Sam Stovall.

 5. This Bull Is Getting Expensive

 " Most importantly for investors, both stocks and bonds are now significantly more expensive than eight years ago," says David Kelly, chief global strategist for J.P. Morgan Funds.

 The current price/earnings ratio for the S&P 500 now rests at 18 based on projected profits over the coming 12 months. That's about 12% above the market's 25-year average, per Kelly. That could be a result of investors hoping that a GOP-dominated federal government will unleash billions in tax cuts and spending to jumpstart persistently lackluster post-recession economic growth.

 By another P/E calculation, the market is even frothier. Based on 10 years of averaged corporate profits, the stock market's P/E now stands at 29.8. The only other times the market has been this expensive by this measure was during the dot.com bubble and the Great Depression.

 6. This Bull Is Egalitarian

 Different sectors of the market have experienced their own highs and lows. Financial stocks, for instance, gained 149% from March 2009 - 2010, according to CFRA, but fell 9.5% two years later, before leading the pack last year.

 Two years ago sleepy, defensive-minded utility stocks earned investors the best return (14.8%), while energy companies lost big league (-16.2%).

 These rough edges, though, have smoothed out over the long haul. From 2009 to 2017, there's only a 1 percentage point difference in annual returns between the top and second best sectors — consumer discretionary 25.7% vs. real estate's 24.6%. Five sectors returned between 22% to 26% per year, while the weakest performer (energy) returned a respectable 9.4%.

 7. This Bull Has Gotten a Big Assist from the Fed

 Normally, there's a pattern to bull markets. First, stocks rise, foreshadowing a rebound in economic growth. Then once the economy actually gets into gear, the Federal Reserve starts to tap on the brakes by raising interest rates to make sure the economy — and inflation — don't overheat.

 The cumulative effect of Fed rate hikes are often what helps bring about the end to bull markets.

 This time around, though, the Fed has kept interest rates at historically low levels throughout the eight years of this bull. The Fed has lifted rates only two times throughout this entire rally — each time by a mere quarter of a percentage point.

 But that may change as the Fed is expected to lift rates next week.

 8. This Bull Will Turn 9

 This bull market has dovetailed with one of the longest business cycles in American history. But all things end, which have some worried that a recession, and stock market declines, could eventually reappear.

 But old age would be the wrong cause of death, should it occur.

 "Bull markets don’t die of old age, they die of fright," says Stovall.

 Which means there has to be something to cause investors to sell en masse and move their money into safer assets. And usually that involves concerns over negative economic growth, i.e. recessions.

 So will the economy contract in 2017?

 It doesn't appear likely. Demand for automobiles and homes remain strong, and the Fed has signaled multiple times that it believes the economy is strong enough to endure higher interest rates.

 But that doesn't mean you should expect prices to rise forever, or at least as much as they have in the recent past.

 "With earnings growing more slowly, dividend yields and bond coupons low, and the potential for P/E ratios and real yields to mean revert, a traditional 60/40 U.S. stock/bond portfolio could well generate returns over the next five years that are less than half the roughly 8% annualized gain that such a portfolio provided over the past 25 years," says Kelly. ||||| If investors took a leap of faith when the bottom fell out of the market eight years ago and invested heavily in Dow stocks, most would be sitting on a fairly sizeable nest egg today.

 The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.08% is a benchmark of 30 large U.S. companies and generally serves as a barometer of broader market conditions; among investors here and abroad, the blue-chip average is synonymous with the U.S. stock market, period.

 Since the dark days of March 2009 when the Dow was barely holding onto 6,500 points, the index has soared a little more than 200%, mostly on the back of loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and other foreign central banks in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. During the same period, gold only rose 30.8%, while crude oil gained 17.5%.

 Compared with stocks in Europe and Asia, the Dow is clearly an overachiever. The Stoxx Europe 600 Euro SXXP, -0.02% climbed 138%, the U.K’s FTSE 100 UKX, +0.62% advanced 108%, China’s Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +0.14% added 50% and Japan’s Nikkei NIK, +0.45% rose 175% during the same time frame.

 Among the Dow components remaining from 2009, Home Depot Inc. HD, +0.16% is the undisputed star, soaring 608%, while American Express Co. AXP, -0.08% and Walt Disney Co. DIS, +0.75% both surged more than 500%.

 Seven companies have joined the Dow after the bull market began its epic climb, doing their share to fuel the Dow’s bullish run. UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, +0.45% jumped 752% since the beginning of the bull market and Visa Inc. V, -0.48% skyrocketed 524%. Apple Inc. AAPL, -1.11% the youngest member of the blue-chip family, has shot up nearly 1,000% since 2009, although it rose only 9.3% since it became a Dow component two years ago.

 Newcomers on the Dow

 Stock Returns since March 2009 Date added to the Dow Returns since inclusion in the Dow Cisco Systems Inc. 136% June 8, 2009 72% Travelers Cos. 245% June 8, 2009 179% United Health Group Inc. 752% Sept. 24, 2012 201% Goldman Sachs Group Inc. 176% Sept. 23, 2013 53% Nike Inc. 457% Sept. 23, 2013 65% Visa Inc. 524% Sept. 23, 2013 81% Apple Inc. 989% March 19, 2015 9.3% Source: FactSet

 Yet, not all Dow stocks have posted such stellar returns. Oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM, +0.07% has risen a paltry 23% while its competitor Chevron Corp. CVX, +1.02% rose 87%.

 International Business Machines Corp. IBM, -0.11% Procter & Gamble Co. PG, +0.10% Verizon Communications Inc. VZ, +0.53% and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT, +0.64% have also posted comparatively lackluster returns.

 Only a handful of companies have been booted from the Dow since 2009—AT&T Inc. T, +0.74% Bank of America Corp. BAC, +1.13% Alcoa Corp. AA, +0.01% Citigroup Inc. C, +0.74% General Motors Co. GM, +0.53% Kraft Heinz Co. KHC, -0.22% and HP Inc. HPQ, -1.49% Of the seven, Bank of America and Citigroup have outperformed their Dow peers Goldman Sachs GS, +0.04% and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM, +0.11% although AT&T ‘s T, +0.74% 77% came up short of Verizon Communications Inc.’s VZ, +0.53% 87% gains. Alcoa Corp. AA, +0.01% replaced by Nike Inc. NKE, +0.15% in September 2013, is up 77%.

 Data on GM, Kraft, and HP were not available due to mergers, spinoffs and in GM’s case, a government bailout following the 2008 financial crisis. ||||| Thursday marks eight years since the low point of the last bear market on Wall Street. On March 9, 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 6,547.05. Since then, it has more than tripled. If you’d invested twenty thousand dollars in the Dow index eight years ago, it would now be worth about sixty-four thousand dollars.

 The vast majority of the market’s gains came while Barack Obama was President, but since Donald Trump was elected the Dow has tacked on more than twenty-five hundred points, or about twelve per cent. Last week, it closed above twenty-one thousand for the first time, and we also saw the I.P.O. of Snap , the social-media company that owns Snapchat . At the end of Snap’s first day of trading, the market placed a notional valuation on the firm, which has always operated at a loss, of thirty-four billion dollars. “Since November 8th, Election Day, the Stock Market has posted $3.2 trillion in GAINS and consumer confidence is at a 15 year high. Jobs!” Trump boasted on Twitter .

 Looking at numbers like these, many people’s reaction is to try to get in on the action. Since October, about seventy-five billion dollars of new money has flowed into U.S. equity funds and exchange-traded funds, according to figures from the Investment Company Institute. Evidently, investors believe that Trump can keep the bull market going.

 They might be proved right—but I doubt it. That’s not an opinion driven by my animus toward Trump’s politics, or even my belief that investors are ignoring the economic and financial risks inherent in having a man like him in the White House. (My colleague James Surowiecki wrote recently about the business world’s view of Trump as a risky but not completely uncertain bet.) My skepticism about stocks is primarily based on nonpolitical factors: valuation, monetary policy, and herding behavior—all of which can play key roles in driving the market.

 I’m not arguing that we are in a full-on speculative bubble of the sort we saw in stocks during the late nineteen-nineties and in the housing and mortgage markets during the early two-thousands. Although the stratospheric valuation placed on Snap last week should be seen as a warning sign—in the past few days, the company’s stock has fallen back—it can’t be compared to the rash of dot-com I.P.O.s in 1999, or the proliferation of “liar loans” in the mortgage market between 2004 and 2007. Still, the price-to-earnings ratio of the S. & P. 500 index, which is perhaps the most widely followed valuation metric, now stands at more than twenty-six.

 That’s not as high as it was during the late nineteen-nineties, but it exceeds the levels seen during any other bull market since the Second World War. Other valuation measures, such as Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted P/E ratio, and the late James Tobin’s “Q ratio”—which measures the price of investment assets relative to their replacement cost—are also emitting warning signals. Andrew Smithers, an investment analyst who tracks both of these metrics closely, wrote recently , “Although the overvaluation of the stock market is well short of the extremes reached at the year ends of 1929 and 1999, it is near its other previous peaks of 1905, 1936, and 1968.”

 Stock-market bulls respond to this type of analysis with two counterarguments. First: with interest rates at very low levels, stocks still represent better value than bonds and other interest-bearing investments. Second: even overvalued markets can sometimes rise a lot further before they go pop.

 Regarding the first argument, there can be no doubt that one of the primary drivers of the bull market has been the Federal Reserve’s determination to keep the cost of borrowing very low. But the Fed is now raising interest rates, and it may well be about to step up the pace of monetary tightening. At their policymaking meeting next week, Janet Yellen, the Fed chair, and her colleagues are widely expected to raise the federal funds rate by a quarter point. Based upon recent projections from the Fed, it looks like there will be at least another two additional hikes before the year is out.

 Rising interest rates don’t necessarily presage lower stock prices, but the two things have often gone together. They did in the mid two-thousands, the late nineteen-nineties, the late seventies, and the late sixties. The early nineties were an exception—one that can be explained by an unexpected surge in productivity and G.D.P. growth, which, in turn, boosted corporate profits. To be sure, something like this could happen again: Trump is promising as much. But looking at the already low unemployment rate (4.8 per cent) and weak productivity figures, few economists think a sustained growth spurt is likely.

 Why, then, is the market still going up? Undoubtedly, there is a “Trump factor.” Many billionaire hedge-fund managers have welcomed the President’s promise of lower taxes and less regulation. “If nothing else happens, that releases animal spirits,” David Tepper, the head of the hedge fund Appaloosa Management, told CNBC on Wednesday. In the current environment of decent growth, low inflation, and pro-business policies, Tepper added, investors “can’t be short.”

 That last comment, I suspect, is the real key to the market’s buoyancy. Professional investors are buying stocks because others are buying, and they fear that if they deviate from this pattern they will be punished. (George Soros was punished late last year, when he shorted the market and, reportedly, lost a billion dollars .) Keynes warned us that herding behavior can drive markets far from reasonable valuations, and that the mispricing can last for a considerable period. Referring to short sellers who try to make money by selling high-priced stocks, he is reputed to have said, “The market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent.”

 It is folly, then, to predict what will happen on Wall Street tomorrow, next week, or next month. With many investors still upbeat, stock prices could rise further for a time. Eventually, however, overvalued markets do correct and revert to levels justified by economic fundamentals. When that happens, it is seldom pretty. There is no reason to believe things will be different this time. ||||| CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share See what could jeopardize the second-longest bull market in Wall Street history. USA TODAY NETWORK

 This file photo taken on Dec. 8, 2016 shows the Wall Street Bull sculpture in the Financial District in New York. (AFP PHOTO / Bryan R. Smith/ /AFP/Getty Images) (Photo: BRYAN R. SMITH, AFP/Getty Images)

 Forget the doubters. The numbers don’t lie. This Wall Street bull’s got game.

 The rising market for stocks, which turns 8 on March 9, might finally have silenced critics who questioned its staying power.

 From a statistical perspective, this market's no slouch. It has posted big enough returns to rank No. 4 all-time in terms of performance, with the mega-bull run from the 1990s taking top honors with a gain of 417%, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The current market can’t be faulted for a lack of endurance, either, as only one bull has lasted longer.

 It has also generated more than $21 trillion in new stock market wealth.

 The star stock of this bull run? Incyte (INCY), a biotech firm whose shares have gained more than all others in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index. The drug company is a Wall Street favorite for its dominant bone marrow treatment, Jakafi, and its loaded pipeline of potential drugs. The bull’s biggest dud? Southwestern Energy (SWN), a victim of a price crash in oil.

 The best-performing group of companies the past eight years can thank U.S. shoppers. The consumer discretionary sector, which includes home improvement retailer Home Depot, coffee shop Starbucks and athletic apparel and sneaker giant Nike, has benefited from an improving economy and people’s willingness to buy things not deemed necessities. The energy sector was the biggest laggard, which is no surprise given plummeting earnings for hard-hit companies in that industry.

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2lsIuIr ||||| If the bull market is worried about dying, it’s not letting on.

 Eight years along and no existential crisis plagues this advance, whose unbroken march from the depths of the Great Recession is the second longest ever. Valuations are stretched and going by its age the rally is in rarefied air. But volatility, the ticker tape of investor anxiety, is nowhere to be found.

 So profound is the market’s peace that a debate is raging over whether it’s healthy: are investors willfully blinding themselves to danger in the era of Donald Trump? Whether they are, the result has been manna for anyone who’s held on. Almost $3 trillion has been added to equity values since November.

 “Investors should now be on the lookout for a fear-of-missing-out mindset that could signal overconfidence and sound the final lap,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA in New York. “Volatility will remain a potential challenge to the intestinal fortitude of many investors and cause their emotions to become their portfolio’s worst enemy.”

 At 250 percent, the advance in the S&P 500 Index since 2009 has surpassed any bull market at the eight-year mark, plus all those that ended earlier, according to data compiled by CFRA that goes back to World War II. While history shows stocks tend to get more volatile as rallies drag on, it’s not the case now. In the past 12 months, the S&P 500 has spent only 23 days rising or falling 1 percent, compared with 85 days during the eighth year of the 1990-2000 run.

 The bull market, driven by easy monetary policy from central banks and a doubling in corporate profits, shows few signs of waning as it heads into its ninth year. Since Trump’s election in November, the S&P 500 has jumped 11 percent, going 55 days without an intraday swing of 1 percent, the longest since at least 1982. The index added 0.2 percent at 9:50 a.m. in New York.

 Is it good or bad when markets surge without volatility? On trading desks around Wall Street last week, charts surfaced purporting to show that “complacency” is at a record high by dividing the S&P 500’s price-earnings ratio of about 22 by the CBOE Volatility Index, now near 11. The quotient exceeded levels during the dot-com bubble.

 Even the Fed has noticed the lack of turbulence. In the minutes from the central bank’s last meeting, a few officials “ expressed concern that the low level of implied volatility in equity markets appeared inconsistent with the considerable uncertainty attending the outlook” for Trump to deliver on pro-growth agenda.

 To Michael Shaoul, chief executive officer of Marketfield Asset Management in New York, neither P/E nor the VIX is useful in determining a market top on its own -- and it makes no more sense to look at a combination of the two.

 “This idea can be summed up by the old term ‘two wrongs don’t make a right,”’ Shaoul said in an interview. “We can complain that valuations are no longer appealing and that the steady staircase-like move is unnerving, but we cannot say that these factors in themselves mean the end is nigh.”

 Steady gains have coaxed investors back to stocks. They poured $60 billion into American equity ETFs and mutual funds in the last four months, an amount recorded only twice over any similar stretch in this bull market, data compiled by Investment Company Institute and Bloomberg show. From 2009 to 2016, withdrawals exceeded $200 billion.

 Investors may be forgiven for their reluctance to embrace equities. While the market ruptures that followed Britain’s June vote to exit the European Union and Trump’s November election proved temporary, they were among the five instances in just two years of what Deutsche Bank AG categorizes as an extreme shift in equity volatility. Before that, it took two decades to record five such events.

 And the current tranquility does appear to be a bit out of touch with history. In an average bull market, the number of days with 1 percent move usually more than doubles to 65 in year seven after falling in the first three years. During the Internet boom, the only post-war bull market that lasted longer than this one, year nine saw such days surge to 95.

 The most important market news of the day. Get our markets daily newsletter.

 While Trump’s plans to lower taxes and boost public spending may accelerate a rebound in corporate profits, anyone anticipating the peaceful advance to continue may be making a mistake, according to John Stoltzfus, chief market strategist at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. Catalysts abound for volatility outbreaks, from Fed tightening to Trump disappointment to risks associated with the French presidential election and China’s currency policy, he wrote in March 6 note.

 “The ever so unloved and disdained bull market might have more upside than even its earliest adapters and supporters project,” Stoltzfus said. But “With the transition taking place in Washington, changes in monetary policy stateside as well as upcoming elections abroad with issues around populism and nationalism, we expect the market will not show much tolerance should it detect investor complacency.” |||||

– Thursday is a Wall Street milestone: The bull market that began on March 9, 2009, turns 8 years old, making it the second-longest such run in history. (It would need to go another year and a half or so to match the record from 1990 to 2000.) Some coverage: On this day in 2009, the S&P 500 plunged to 676. Since then, it's rallied about 250%. The Wall Street Journal has a funky graphic illustrating the near-historic run here. The Dow closed that same day at 6,547, and if you'd invested $20,000 then, it would be worth $64,000 today, notes the New Yorker. But the post has a warning: "With many investors still upbeat, stock prices could rise further for a time. Eventually, however, overvalued markets do correct and revert to levels justified by economic fundamentals." Reuters, however, suggests a bear is nowhere in sight. "The bull market is going to finish, in our view, when conditions begin to accumulate that tend to lead to a recession," says one analyst. "We just don't see that as a 2017 or 2018 event." What's unusual about the long run is what Bloomberg calls the "freakish calm" surrounding it. There's barely a whiff of volatility or investor anxiety, so much so that there's now a debate underway about whether that's healthy. One consequence of the bull run is that stocks and bonds are now quite expensive by historical standards, according to Money. It runs down that and other factoids here. The top performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Index since 2009? Home Depot, which is up more than 600%. MarketWatch looks at other winners. The star stock in the S&P has been biotech firm Incyte, notes USA Today. There's some debate on when this bull market actually began, and Michael Santoli at CNBC runs through it. Unemployment at the start of the run was 8.3%, and it's now 4.8%, per a list of key stats at Yahoo Finance.


The home in the 1200 block of Blanchard Ave in East Price Hill where a man shot and killed his 14-year-old son. (Photo: Patrick Brennan)

 It was a call that can only be described as wrenching.

 "I just shot my son by accident," a distraught father sobbed to a Cincinnati police 911 operator.

 "Oh God. Get here quick."

 "Please hurry."

 The man, believing his 14-year-old son was at school, fatally shot the boy in the neck when he mistook him for an intruder at their East Price Hill home Tuesday morning.

 Police say they are investigating the shooting.

 The shooting at 1216 Blanchard Ave. occurred around 6:30 a.m. The father, whose name has not been released, had recently dropped his son, Georta Mack, off at the school bus stop but the teen returned home, police said.

 After hearing a noise in the basement, the father grabbed a handgun to investigate. Georta startled the man, according to the frantic 911 call, and was accidentally shot in the neck.

 Throughout the call Georta's father begs police to hurry, asking God why this has happened. He tells police his son is struggling to breathe as he held a cloth to his neck to slow the bleeding.

 Shortly after, he exclaimed that his son stopped breathing.

 Georta was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Shortly after 8:15 a.m., the boy was pronounced dead at Children's Hospital.

 Police Lt. Steve Saunders says the father is being interviewed by police and has been cooperative.

 A father mistook his 14-year-old son for an intruder and shot him in the neck, killing him, at a East Price Hill home on Tuesday morning, according to Cincinnati police.

 Neighbors were seen crying as they shared the news of the shooting on snow-covered Blanchard Avenue hours later.

 "He's only 14 years old," one woman said through tears.

 Neighbors said Georta lived in the home with his 73-year-old father. They said the two seemed to get along well.

 Angela Roberts, who has lived in the neighborhood in a friend's home there for about a year, said Georta was a "good kid,'' who would often mow her friend's lawn and help with yard work.

 "From everything I knew, he was a pretty good kid."

 Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac called the shooting a "terrible, terrible tragedy'' at a press conference Tuesday. "It's unimaginable really.''

  Isaac said the father told police the teen returned home to skip school. Isaac said the teen had some recent trouble at school but did not elaborate.

 Isaac said that while owning a gun is an individual choice, that gun owners should be responsible, prepared and well-trained. He also said the everyone in the home should be aware that guns are kept in the home.

 Officers were discussing the case with the Hamilton County Prosecutor's office. Isaac said he did not know if the father would be charged in the case.

 Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1P6McK1 ||||| CINCINNATI (AP) — Police in Cincinnati say a man has fatally shot his 14-year-old son in their home, thinking he was an intruder.

 Police say the man thought his son had caught the bus for school Tuesday morning, but the teen returned home soon afterward. Police say the man heard a noise in the basement and checked on it with a gun in his hand. Police say the father fired after apparently being startled, hitting the boy in the neck.

 Authorities say the father called 911 and the boy was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, where he died Tuesday morning.

 Police Lt. Steve Saunders says the father is being interviewed by police and has been cooperative.

 No names were released immediately. |||||

Write a summary.

– Police say a Cincinnati father, thinking he heard an intruder in his basement, fatally shot his 14-year-old son Tuesday morning, the AP reports. According to the Cincinnati Inquirer, the father dropped his son off at the bus stop before returning home. When he heard a noise in his basement, he assumed his son was at school and got a gun to check it out, the AP reports. Police say he fired a shot "after apparently being startled," and his son was hit in the neck. The teen was taken to the hospital, where he died from his injuries, the Inquirer reports. No charges have been filed, and the names of the father and son haven't been released. According to the AP, the father is cooperating with the police investigation. (In December, a Florida mother fatally shot her 27-year-old daughter she mistook for an intruder.)


ESO/Tom Ruen/nagualdesign

 Scientists are searching for an unseen planet hiding somewhere in our solar system, but not one set to seemingly appear from nowhere to collide or nearly collide with Earth, ushering in an age of apocalypse.

 Over the past several weeks, you may have come across one of those wacky predictions that a planet called "Nibiru" or "Planet X" is lurking "behind the sun" or somewhere else out of view in our solar system but threatening an imminent existential catastrophe nonetheless.

 As with much of the fake news and online rumor-mongering that now spreads far and wide in a flash over social media, there is a grain of truth to the story that is then twisted, exaggerated, taken out of context or conflated with others.

 The kernel of reality in the 2017 version of the Nibiru cataclysm prophecy, which represents at least the third time the planet has failed to show itself as predicted, is that astronomers increasingly see evidence of an invisible ninth planet in our solar system.

 "There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," CalTech planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin, said Wednesday in a release.

 Batygin and his mentor-turned-colleague, Caltech professor Mike Brown, originally hoped to debunk the idea of a hidden planet a few years back. But they have instead discovered more indications that there is something out there, stretching the orbits of distant objects and perhaps even tilting the entire solar system to one side.

 "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them," Batygin explains.

 What Brown and Batygin haven't found, however, is evidence that a ninth planet is anywhere near or will come remotely close to Earth anytime soon. And its aforementioned influence on the entire solar system takes place subtly and over a very long timescale

 "Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said.

 A world that is unseen, but has a gravitational impact that can be detected through its interaction with other bodies in our outer solar system, is unsurprisingly believed to be significantly massive and very, very far away. Brown and Batygin have estimated the mysterious cosmic neighbor to be perhaps 10 times the mass of Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune.

 So now Batygin and Brown are trying to locate the hidden planet they once tried to disprove using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. They call it the "best tool" for finding distant, dim objects hiding in the broad, black sky.

 As for spotting Nibiru or Planet X on a collision course with Earth, you could do that by looking up at the sky with your naked eye, where it would easily be visible. Don't see it? That's because it doesn't exist and also, it hasn't been hiding behind the sun for years, because that idea goes against simple geometry.

 So carry on and don't worry about unseen colliding planets. Asteroids, though, are another matter...

 Technically Literate: Original works of short fiction with unique perspectives on tech, exclusively on CNET.

 Crowd Control: A crowdsourced science fiction novel written by CNET readers. ||||| It might be lingering bashfully on the icy outer edges of our solar system, hiding in the dark, but subtly pulling strings behind the scenes: stretching out the orbits of distant bodies, perhaps even tilting the entire solar system to one side.

 If a planet is there, it's extremely distant and will stay that way (with no chance -- in case you're wondering -- of ever colliding with Earth, or bringing "days of darkness").It is a possible "Planet Nine" -- a world perhaps 10 times the mass of Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. The signs so far are indirect, mainly its gravitational footprints, but that adds up to a compelling case nonetheless.

 One of its most dedicated trackers, in fact, says it is now harder to imagine our solar system without a Planet Nine than with one.

 "There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," said Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, whose team may be closing in. "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them."

 Batygin and his co-author, Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, described the first three breadcrumbs on Planet Nine's trail in a January 2016 paper, published in the Astronomical Journal. Six known objects in the distant Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies stretching from Neptune outward toward interstellar space, all have elliptical orbits pointing in the same direction. That would be unlikely -- and suspicious -- enough. But these orbits also are tilted the same way, about 30 degrees "downward" compared to the pancake-like plane within which the planets orbit the sun.

 Breadcrumb number three: Computer simulations of the solar system with Planet Nine included show there should be more objects tilted with respect to the solar plane. In fact, the tilt would be on the order of 90 degrees, as if the plane of the solar system and these objects formed an "X" when viewed edge-on. Sure enough, Brown realized that five such objects already known to astronomers fill the bill.

 Two more clues emerged after the original paper. A second article from the team, this time led by Batygin's graduate student, Elizabeth Bailey, showed that Planet Nine could have tilted the planets of our solar system during the last 4.5 billion years. This could explain a longstanding mystery: Why is the plane in which the planets orbit tilted about 6 degrees compared to the sun's equator?

 "Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said.

 The last telltale sign of Planet Nine's presence involves the solar system's contrarians: objects from the Kuiper Belt that orbit in the opposite direction from everything else in the solar system. Planet Nine's orbital influence would explain why these bodies from the distant Kuiper Belt end up "polluting" the inner Kuiper Belt.

 "No other model can explain the weirdness of these high-inclination orbits," Batygin said. "It turns out that Planet Nine provides a natural avenue for their generation. These things have been twisted out of the solar system plane with help from Planet Nine and then scattered inward by Neptune."

 The remaining step is to find Planet Nine itself. Batygin and Brown are using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii to try to do just that. The instrument is the "best tool" for picking out dim, extremely distant objects lost in huge swaths of sky, Batygin said.

 But where did Planet Nine come from? Batygin says he spends little time ruminating on its origin -- whether it is a fugitive from our own solar system or, just maybe, a wandering rogue planet captured by the sun's gravity.

 "I think Planet Nine's detection will tell us something about its origin," he said.

 Other scientists offer a different possible explanation for the Planet Nine evidence cited by Batygin. A recent analysis based on a sky mapping project called the Outer Solar System Origins Survey, which discovered more than 800 new "trans-Neptunian objects," suggests that the evidence also could be consistent with a random distribution of such objects. Still, the analysis, from a team led by Cory Shankman of the University of Victoria, could not rule out Planet Nine.

 If Planet Nine is found, it will be a homecoming of sorts, or at least a family reunion. Over the past 20 years, surveys of planets around other stars in our galaxy have found the most common types to be "super Earths" and their somewhat larger cousins -- bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.

 Yet these common, garden-variety planets are conspicuously absent from our solar system. Weighing in at roughly 10 times Earth's mass, the proposed Planet Nine would make a good fit.

 Planet Nine could turn out to be our missing super Earth.

 News Media Contact

 Written by Pat BrennanElizabeth LandauJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-354-6425elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov2017-259 ||||| A possible "Planet Nine" in Earth's solar system would orbit far beyond Neptune's orbit (visible as a bright ring around the sun in this artist's illustration).

 Planet Nine is out there, and astronomers are determined to find it, according to a new statement from NASA. In fact, mounting evidence suggests it's hard to imagine our solar system without the unseen world.

 The hypothetical planet is believed to be about 10 times more massive than Earth and located in the dark, outer reaches of the solar system, approximately 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune is. While the mysterious world still has yet to be found, astronomers have discovered a number of strange features of our solar system that are best explained by the presence of a ninth planet, according to the NASA statement.

 "There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, said in the statement. "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them." [The Evidence for 'Planet Nine' in Our Solar System (Gallery)]

 Researchers say an anomaly in the orbits of distant Kuiper Belt objects points to the existence of an unknown planet orbiting the sun. Here's what we know of this potential "Planet Nine." Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics artist

 In 2016, Batygin and co-author Mike Brown, an astronomer at Caltech, published a study that examined the elliptical orbits of six known objects in the Kuiper Belt, a distant region of icy bodies stretching from Neptune outward toward interstellar space. Their findings revealed that all of those Kuiper Belt objects have elliptical orbits that point in the same direction and are tilted about 30 degrees "downward" compared to the plane in which the eight official planets circle the sun, according to the statement.

 Using computer simulations of the solar system with a Planet Nine, Batygin and Brown also showed that there should be even more objects tilted a whopping 90 degrees with respect to the solar plane. Further investigation revealed that five such objects were already known to fit these parameters, the researchers said.

 Since then, the astronomers have found new evidence that further supports the existence of Planet Nine. With help from Elizabeth Bailey, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at Caltech, the team showed that Planet Nine's influence might have tilted the planets of our solar system, which would explain why the zone in which the eight major planets orbit the sun is tilted by about 6 degrees compared to the sun's equator.

 "Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess, or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said in the statement.

 Finally, the researchers demonstrate how Planet Nine's presence could explain why some Kuiper Belt objects orbit in the opposite direction from everything else in the solar system.

 "No other model can explain the weirdness of these high-inclination orbits," Batygin said in the statement. "It turns out that Planet Nine provides a natural avenue for their generation. These things have been twisted out of the solar system plane with help from Planet Nine and then scattered inward by Neptune."

 Going forward, the researchers plan to use the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii to find Planet Nine, and then deduce where the mysterious world came from.

 The most common type of planets discovered around other stars in our galaxy has been what astronomers call "super Earths" — rocky worlds that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. However, no such planet has yet been discovered in our solar system, meaning that Planet Nine could be our missing "super Earth," the researchers said.

 Editor's Note: This article has been updated to clarify that some Kuiper Belt objects unexpectedly orbit in the opposite direction to the rest of the Solar System, not all of them.

 Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Astronomically inclined conspiracy theorists have long been predicting the Earth's demise in a collision with a rogue planet called "Niburu" or "Planet X" biding its time out of sight somewhere in the solar system, CNET reports. In fact, Niburu was "supposed" to crash into Earth just last month. And while death-by-planet remains unlikely, the existence of an undiscovered planet in our solar system is now almost a certainty, according to NASA. Planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin and professor Mike Brown set out to disprove the existence of a hidden planet a few years ago and, ironically, ended up finding convincing evidence for the existence of what they call "Planet Nine." The main evidence for Planet Nine comes from its "gravitational footprint," but it's convincing enough that Batygin says the solar system makes a lot more sense with the hidden planet than without it, Space.com reports. Planet Nine is believed to be 10 times more massive than Earth and located about 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. From its position in the far reaches of the solar system, it has tilted and reversed the orbits of objects in the Kuiper Belt, according to Batygin and Brown. It also may be the reason the orbits of the planets are slightly off from the sun's equator. Finally, Planet Nine could be the "super Earth" frequently found orbiting other stars but "conspicuously absent" around ours. Oh, and NASA wants conspiracy theorists to know Planet Nine, if it exists, is staying far away from Earth. (Scientists just found the smallest possible star.)