Business & Financial News

List of stocks followed Friday the Paris Bourse, where the CAC 40 index lost 0.1% to 3008.86 points to 12.30, after posting a new low for the year to 2,970.10 points early trading as risk aversion is increasing in Europe, Fitch has downgraded Greece Moody's and that of several Spanish banks.

* Many CYCLIC and / or values ​​at high risk of suffering INTERNATIONAL also fears about the U.S. and Chinese growth after the publication of several unfavorable statistics.

Pernod Ricard was down 2.74%, largest drop in the CAC 40, PPR of 2.18%, 1.82% LEGRAND, and CAP GEMINI of 1.63%. The Stoxx European car sector (-1.93%) shows the largest sector decline in Europe.

* The oil services also receding in the wake of oil prices. TECHNIP loose 1.4%, 0.6% MAUREL AND PROM and CGG VERITAS 2.35%.

TF1 * still leaves 4.75%, after pressing an important technical support around 6.60 euros, according to technical analysts. Since the announcement May 15 of its withdrawal from the MSCI at the end of the month, the value lost almost 13%.

* A reverse trend, financial stocks have regained some color after the first exchange in the red, traders citing a report in the Spanish newspaper Cinco Dias that Spanish banks want a ban on sales to ; discovered. In addition, the trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, said the European Commission and European Central Bank are working on a contingency plan in case Greece should leave the eurozone .

SOCIETE GENERALE advance of 4.75%, largest increase in the CAC 40 and SBF 120, BNP Paribas took 4.08% and Crédit Agricole, who scored early Matiné e a new record low at 2.934 euros, were up 2.73%. The Stoxx index of European banking sector sign up only in Europe (+0.4%).

* ARCELORMITTAL grants to 1.55%. The steelmaker Nucor has announced the acquisition of Skyline Steel LLC, a steel foundation, with ArcelorMittal for about $ 605 million (478 million).

* EDF, which had lost over 3% yesterday, back to 1.78%. Edison (-0.06%), which the French group is preparing to take control, has expressed interest in gas reserves off the Israeli coast.

Greece still has no government. The risk of bankruptcy and the issue of leaving the euro area is raised again. Result: the stock prices fall and investors flock to German bonds, even if they yield nothing. The Eurogroup meeting will be devoted to Greece and Spain

After a difficult week, the stock markets reopened on Monday sharply lower against the backdrop of prolonged political stalemate in Greece, epicenter of the debt crisis, while be held a meeting of the Eurogroup.

Monday morning, Paris was losing more than 2% in early trade, London 1.33%, 1.31% Frankfurt. In Milan (-2.02%) and Madrid (-2.47%), the decline was more pronounced after banks have announced they will place new provisions because of subprime mortgage they hold in their portfolios. The day promises to be difficult, while "the risks to the euro area are still very real," said Chris Weston of IG Markets.

More than a week after the parliamentary elections, Athens still has no government. But the prolonged absence of government raised concern among investors in a delay or suspension of financial aid promised in Athens to enable it to meet repayment dates and ensure payment of arrears.

Monday, the Greek President, Karolos Papoulias, will try to snatch a coalition government during the final meeting between the country's political leaders. But many observers believe the country is moving towards new elections in June as the positions between pro-and anti-austerity diverge.  

Another sign of market nervousness, the 10-year rate of German bond (Bund) fell Monday morning at their historic low (1.47%). The political situation seems to push investors to turn to these securities deemed safe. "Investors plébiscitent increasing security even if the debt did their German report anything," said Nordine Naam, bond strategist at Natixis. He added: "Fears of an output of Greece of the euro are strong and, in case of persistent political deadlock in that country, the Bund interest rate expected to fall further in the coming days".

It was in this tense situation the finance ministers of 17 member countries of the euro area shall meet this afternoon in Brussels. A signal strength should be sent to Athens, to push the Greek authorities to put in a faster end to this in-between chaotic. Spain will, too, part of the program. The Spanish Minister of Finance, Luis de Guindos, will try to reassure, giving an overview of the reforms that Madrid will set up to consolidate its public finances. Is that Spain is in the viewfinder markets. The rate of its 10-year government bonds is back above 6%.

Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly earnings of $ 5.2 billion (3.9 billion) by selling over 20,000 per hour Galaxy smartphones in the first quarter, beating Apple and iPhone.

The South Korean group was pleased with Nokia as the world's largest maker of mobile phones, after 14 years of rule by the Finnish group, today distanced the smartphone market .

Samsung has sold around 93.5 million mobile phones in the quarter January to March, more than a quarter of those sold worldwide, including 44.5 million smartphones, according Strategy Analytics. It controls and 30.6% of the global market for smartphones, against 24.1% for Apple, which sold 35.1 million iPhones in the first quarter.

"Samsung and crush their main rivals Apple and the smartphone market is likely to become a two-horse race," said Neil Mawston to Strategy Analytics.

Samsung will launch next week in London the third generation of its flagship model Galaxy S. The group hopes to see its sales boosted by the Summer Olympics, he is one of the first sponsors.

Apple said this week that its iPhone sales 4S had led to quintuple its quarterly revenue in China. But on this first global market of mobile telephony, the group remains at the apple behind by Samsung, which is already allied with the three main TV operators coms in the country.

The operating profit of Samsung in the first quarter nearly doubled to 5,850 billion won (3.9 billion euros), after reaching 5,300 billion won in the previous quarter .

After the announcement of these results, the action Samsung surged 2.9% to a record high of 1.38 million won (1,200 dollars).

The group also competes with Sony and LG Electronics on the TV market, Toshiba and Hynix in the memories SK and LG Display the segment of flat screens. 

Its earnings in semiconductors has been more than halved, to 760 billion won, due to falling prices of memory cards, but its activity in the tee ; léviseurs and appliances has generated 530 billion won against 80 billion a year earlier.

Samsung and LG Electronics compatriot among the few TV manufacturers in the world to make profits and gain market share in favor of including the use of 3D and OLED displays.

Sony, Panasonic and Sharp expect their side to show a combined loss of $ 21 billion during the fiscal year that just ended.

Bad news on the economic front: the activity in the services sector began to turn to contract and morale deteriorates entrepreneur. The recovery will be anemic. French executives come to the business district of La Defense

The significant recovery announced by Nicolas Sarkozy is struggling to emerge. Instead, the slump continues, whether in industry or in services. The private sector activity has indeed registered the largest decline since 6 months, according to a first estimate of the PMI index released Monday by the firm Markit. The index "flash" composite of overall activity in France has contracted from 48.7 points in March to 46.8 points in April, below the 50 points that mark a contraction in activity. This decline reflects a sharp deterioration in performance of the services sector, whose activity fell for the first time in five months.  

The French industrial morale has degraded him in April compared with the previous month, according to the business survey released Monday by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE). The composite indicator of business climate in the industry fell 95 points, against 98 in March and remains below its long-term average set at 100 points.

"Here we have throughout the disappointing figures, downright disappointing side of the PMI surveys," summed Baudchon Helena, economist at BNP Paribas of France. Details of the survey by INSEE in March, which marked a rebound of industrial morale, "let hope for a continued recovery," said she. "I expected better than this: the confirmation of a rebound in confidence of business leaders," adds his colleague Societe Generale, Michael Martinez.  

The overall indicator of business climate in France, INSEE calculated from the responses of CEOs of major industries, is itself almost unchanged in April, to 95 points, with a decline in the building, an increase in retail trade and a stable indicator in services.

An anemic recovery

"In total, still manages to defend the idea that the French economy is now rebounding from a low point that has been the fourth quarter and first quarter. But the strength of this rebound is very very low, "says Mr. Martinez, who expects a decline of 0.1% of GDP in the first quarter, followed by an increase of 0.1% in the second.  

According to Jack Kennedy, the firm Markit economist, "the second quarter of 2012 will be difficult for the French economy, the service activity in April showing a decline in concern while a decline in manufacturing persists." He perceives a "wait and widespread household as businesses at the approach of the presidential election".

An argument that refutes Ms. Baudchon, for whom "the external economic and financial environment always difficult is a good explanation of the new shift in the PMI surveys in France and Germany".

Sector by sector in the industry, the survey by INSEE mask disparities and it appears that the decline is mainly due to the vehicle with the past activity "would have contracted sharply" and metallurgy.  

A table overshadowed by the automobile?

The overall order books and foreign French carmakers are down sharply while that "given the personal perspectives of production, the activity could fall further in coming months," said INSEE.

"Outside the car, which suffers from the end of certain tax provisions and the European context with overproduction on a European scale, we nevertheless confirmed that production recovered slightly and the personal perspectives of production are well oriented ", says Mr. Martinez.

U.S. stocks finished mostly slightly higher Friday, the Dow Jones having received solid results from several big names such rating Microsoft, General Electric and McDonald's, but the downturn in the technology sector weighed on the Nasdaq.

The Dow Jones industrials gained 30 0.5%, or 65.16 points, to 13,029.26. The S & P-500, wider, took 1.61 points, or 0.12%, to 1378.53.

The Nasdaq Composite, however, yielded 7.11 points (0.24%) to 3000.45, weighed down by including SanDisk, which dropped more than 11% after a warning on its sales business. The decline of Apple (-2.46%) also weighed.

For the week, the Nasdaq fell 0.4%, but the Dow Jones rose 1.4% and the S & P 500 0.6%, encouraged by the good start of the earnings season.

Of the 121 companies in the S & P 500 having reported their quarterly on the date of Friday, 81% exceeded Wall Street expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Microsoft has topped the Dow Jones gains, surging 4.5% Thursday after reporting a profit above the consensus, PC sales are e , as revealed better than expected.

SanDisk has dropped 11.27% to 35.91 dollars. The memory manufacturer has said it expected a revenue well below Wall Street expectations in the second quarter due to lower prices in the sector.

In its wake, the index of the semiconductor sector fell 2.38% on the session. Apple has lost 2.46% to 572.98 dollars.

SEASON RESULTS STILL GOOD

General Electric closed up 1.1%. The first American industrial conglomerate reported earnings and sales better than expected first quarter thanks to strong demand for energy equipment Ticks and railway equipment.

McDonald's took 0.7%. The world's number one fast food has published quarterly results rise, driven by strong sales in its restaurants in the United States.

"Yesterday there was some concern to see McDonald's to miss the consensus, but he reached out and showed strong sales growth at stores constant. GE beat expectations. Overall the earnings season continues to be good, "said Peter Jankovskis for Oakbrook Investments LLC.

The industrial conglomerate Honeywell International has published its quarterly results next up and has revised upwards its annual financial targets. The stock closed up 2.4% to 59.39 dollars.

Schlumberger took 2.7%. The oil services group published the first-quarter net profit up 39% to $ 1.31 billion, or 97 cents per share.

A Wall Street as on the European stock exchanges, investors awaited further reassurance on the capabilities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to raise new funds to contain the crisis euro area.

The Group of Twenty (G20) is committed in the evening to give the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over $ 430 billion of additional resources, making more than double its capacity loan.

Areva announced Friday an agreement with EDF to provide the public with electrician nuclear fuel assemblies and related services for the years 2013 and 2014.

Financial details of the agreement were not specified.

The fuel assemblies, which confine radioactive material in sealed ducts, are the Centrally? Heart of a nuclear reactor, where fission takes place.

Areva and EDF also agreed to negotiate a framework agreement in the medium and long term on the fabrication of fuel elements.

The Supreme Court could reverse the conviction of Total over 12 years near the wreck of the tanker Erika off the Brittany coast in 1999, reported Friday Liberation and Ouest-France.

The highest French court, which must rule on May 24, could simply cancel the entire procedure conducted since the disaster in December 1999, according to two dailies.

Senior judges make this recommendation in their conclusions with the main argument that the wreck, which caused the pollution of 400 km of coastline, has not occurred in French waters, writes Libération ration and Ouest-France.

The Erika disaster led to two trials in 2007 at trial and on appeal in 2009. The judgment established each time the liability of defendants, which the charterer Total.

The oil company could not be contacted immediately to make a comment.

CaixaBank Monday agreed to buy Banca Civica to 1.97 euro per share, valuing the latter 980 million euros, said on Monday close to the matter.

A second wave of consolidation is currently at work in the Spanish banking sector, many banks needing fresh capital to cover losses related to the break at the end 2007 a real estate boom a decade.

The newspaper Cinco Dias reported on Monday that would propose CaixaBank 2.2 euros per share Banca Civica through a share exchange transaction valuing the target at 1.1 billion euros .

Airbus officials, airlines and engine manufacturers in Europe have written to the Old Continent's political leaders urging them to resolve the dispute caused by the introduction into the European Union a tax on carbon emissions.

The signatories believe that retaliation from China and other countries opposed to the European level of taxation of carbon emissions (ETS) have serious consequences for the sector, of bitter ; s a statement released Monday by Airbus, a subsidiary of aerospace consortium EADS.

The aircraft manufacturer, China has already suspended $ 12 billion (9.14 billion) of orders, which could lead, according to him, the destruction of over 1,000 jobs in-house and at least 1,000 in additional subcontractors. 

The nine general managers signed the letter addressed to Prime Ministers English, French, Spanish and German Chancellor expect that the list of cancellations of orders continues to s' thicken.

They ask the urgent opening of negotiations at the European Council and with third states opposed the carbon tax, while the situation becomes, they say, "intolerable for the sector of the Aviation ".

"The aim must be to find a compromise solution and to stop these punitive measures before it is too late," say company executives quoted in the press release.

"We always thought that only a global solution would be adequate to solve the problem of aviation emissions."

The tax on carbon emissions is an added cost of about two euros per passenger for a path between the Europe and China

. Airbus addition, the letter is signed by the heads of British Airways and Iberia, the two components of International Airlines Group, Air Berlin, Air France, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, Safran and MTU Aero

. pre Entrepreneurs ; advocates of the opening of negotiations with the states concerned in the Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a UN entity

… A GLOBAL SOLUTION …… STILL EXPECTED

In a separate letter sent to the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, Airbus CEO Tom Enders deplored the "serious situation" caused by the threat of retaliation from China and other states. 

"It seems that these threats are now becoming very real and translate into concrete actions, which begins to have serious consequences on the European sector of the aviation, "he says in this letter, which Reuters had access.

Friday, the Environment Ministers of 27 EU countries have reaffirmed their support for the carbon tax.

The European Commission has called for its forced to act unilaterally, unless a viable proposal and applicable globally from ICAO.

"Nobody would be happier than the European Union" if ICAO could provide a solution that is at least as good as that of the EU assured Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Action climate. 

"We are fighting for this since 1997," she told Reuters last week. "We work very hard internally with ICAO."

China, where the aviation market is experiencing its strongest growth, is a major customer of Airbus and Boeing.

Beijing seeks to control aircraft in large quantities, through a central purchasing, before allocating the units to different airlines. Its final green light is necessary for the delivery of the aircraft.

On the occasion of International Women's Day, overview of the remaining inequalities in employment, wages, retirement and everyday life. Of employees in an office in Caracas Noticias24.com website.

March 8 is International Day of Women. On this occasion, INSEE publishes a study entitled "Women and Men-Glance Parity". The text leading real progress for twenty years, but disparities remain. The proof of ten digits.

4:01: This is the time spent by women in domestic work (household shopping, child care, gardening etc). It is twice more than men who do not spend as 2:13. Moreover, women do most of their children. They spend an hour, against just under half an hour for men.

4:45: This is the free time available to women. It's half an hour less than men. And the difference is striking in games and Internet (16 minutes for men), television (13 minutes) and sports (8 minutes). However, women spend more time with their family and friends (7 minutes).

39%: Women managers more now. They were 30% there twenty years. Side of the gap in labor force participation between men and women, it is reduced from 66% for women (59% in 1990), against 75% for men. Concerned, the most frequent interruption of their careers to care for their children. In 2010, 18% of women aged 30 to 35 were inactive against 4% of men.

31% of employed women work part-time, against 7% of their male colleagues. This proportion has increased in recent years since it was 24% in 1990. The use of part-time is common in low-skilled occupations in the tertiary, exercised mostly by women. he is busy 62% of women today, against 56% in 1990.

25%: Women still earn less than men. But the gap has slightly reduced from 29% in 1991 to 25% in 2009. Involved, hourly wages, which are lower for women. In private, the income gap is 20% and 15% in the public. Involved: the number of days worked less over the year, and part-time.

833 euros is the average amount of pension for women. This is twice less than men that affect Euro 1743. This reflects the differences in position on the labor market. Women retire later on average than men (61.8 years for women, against 61.4 years for men in 2009 in the general plan).

20.8%: This is the percentage of women present in the boards of the CAC 40 (15.3% in 2010 and 10.5% in 2009) and 2% of female CEOs. In the State civil service, women constitute 51.7% of the total and only 20.3% of managerial positions.

22%: This is the proportion of women elected to the Senate. It increased in the last ten years from 11% in 2001 to 22% in 2011. But they remain a minority. Same to the Assembly nationale.Un just under 14% are mayors.

Age 85: this is the life expectancy of a woman, against 78 years for men. They can expect to live a healthy year and 7 months longer than men.

7: On a scale of 1 to 10, men and women have a life satisfaction than 7. On this point, they come together …