Business & Financial News

Global stock markets dive back Thursday after several sessions of relative calm, rising fears of a global economic relapse accentuating aversion to risky assets and the "flight to quality".

In this context, also marked by the sovereign debt crisis, the safe havens like government bonds offer the best signature (U.S. Treasuries and German Bunds) or gold, multiply the record as is a succession of bad news .

"It puts money under the mattress.It no longer seeks the return but the absolute safety record even if out of stock losses, "said Alexandre Baradez, market analyst at Saxo Bank.

In Europe, the European stock markets saw another black day and extremely volatile, Morgan Stanley has set fire to the powder at the beginning of the session after reducing its forecast for global growth for 2011 and 2012, and fears about the liquidity of banks had increased.

In a note, the U.S. investment bank now expects growth in global gross domestic product (GDP) of 3.9% in 2011, against 4.2% previously and 3.8% in 2012, instead of 4 5%.

Sealed by the values ​​of automobiles (-7.4%), the construction sector (-7.1%) and banks (-6.7%), the CAC 40 index finished in fall of 5.5% EuroStoxx 50 and has dropped 5.3%.Implied volatility index jumped pan 34.6%.

ON THE BUBBLE OR

In New York, the S & P 500 drops 4% to 6:45 p.m. ET the CBOE volatility index, also known as the "fear index", is up 29%.

The president of the New York Fed had to ensure that the Federal Reserve deal the same way the U.S. and European banks after a Wall Street Journal who raised an intensified investigation of the Fed on the subsidiaries of European banks to the States United for fear of a contagion of debt.

"We will find asset classes with security even if they do not report anything like gold, which explains the records recorded regularly by the metal end," said Alexandre Baradez, referring to the new record registered by the Gold 1825.99 dollars an ounce.

Valerie Gastaldy, an analyst at Day By Day graphics, warned in a note that a bubble is also trying to form on gold.

"Gold is the star of the summer, with new regular summits and soon the psychological threshold of $ 2,000" an ounce, said she. "We note an acceleration of the uptrend and into bubble.The objective of the current movement is between 2,060 and 2,080 dollars, "

In turn, the futures contract on the German Bund to 10 years, part of the euro zone, reached a record high at 136.26, or 211 basis points more than the end of the day, after announcement of an index of business conditions from the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia fell to its lowest level since March 2009.

Similarly, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries rose for the first time below the threshold of 2% to 1.976%, before rising to 2.09%.

Down time due to possible liquidity injections from the Swiss National Bank raised by traders, the Swiss franc, seen as another safe haven, now earns 0.6% against the euro at 1.1318 francs to one euro. The euro has evolved in a range between 1.1241 and 1.1510 francs.

The President of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet wants a decision this Sunday on the redemption of bonds by the ECB Italian officials said a source close to the institution.

A conference call of the ECB is expected in the afternoon.No communication is scheduled at the end of the meeting, they added the same source.

Thursday the ECB has reactivated its share repurchase program of sovereign debt in order to calm soaring interest rates of some countries in the euro area bond markets but has so far bought only small quantities of Irish debt and Portuguese, while speculation is focused on Italy and Spain.

If the decision to intervene is taken, the ECB and national central banks will begin to redeem bonds at market opening Monday, it was even said.

Wall Street opened Monday's session down as investors worried about the stalled negotiations on the U.S. budget, a few days of the date by which Washington could face a default situation.

The elected Democrats and Republicans in Congress have failed to agree on a compromise and decided to work separately on separate projects.

A few minutes after the start of trading, the Dow Jones yielded 0.84% ​​to 12,574.56 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 index 0.84% ​​to 1333.72 points and the Nasdaq Composite 0.87% to 2834.04 points.

On the values ​​front, the title Kimberly-Clark fell by 0.4%.The manufacturer of tissue paper announced that its earnings per share for the year could end up in the bottom of the expected range.

Research In Motion lost 1.66% after its comprehensive cost optimization program, which includes 2,000 job cuts.

Philips on Monday announced an unexpected loss of 1.345 billion euros in the second quarter, attributed to lower growth than expected and exceptional charges, and a plan to save 500 million euros.

The Dutch conglomerate had announced in late June that it expected a strong decrease in its second quarter results, while warning that caused a fall in the title.

Philips said in a statement having spent a provision of EUR 1.4 billion for impairment of assets on its lighting business and health.

The group warned last month that its second quarter results would be much lower than the previous one, with a slowdown in sales growth in lighting and consumer devices.

"It's generally a signal that consumers do not really head out of the water," said Hans Slob, an analyst at Rabobank.

Philips is the world's leading lights, one of three leading global medical equipment and the leading European producer of electronic devices.

The announcement of this loss takes the market by surprise, who expected a profit of 72.8 million for the second quarter.The group made a loss from operations (EBIT) of 1.123 billion euros (against a profit of 180 million expected) based on 5.2 billion in revenue (5.213 billion expected by the consensus).

Dutch electronics company has also announced a share buyback of two billion euros and a cost reduction plan which should enable it to achieve 500 million euros in savings.

The group announced build by 2013 a growth in turnover of about 4 to 6% – based on an average growth of GDP of 3-4% per year – with a margin EBITA of between 10-12% and return on invested capital of 12-14%.

CEO Frans van Houten said on CNBC that the stock repurchase program gave him enough financial margin to carry out targeted acquisitions and had no plans to close factories.

Shortly after 12:30, the title fell by 1.01% to 17.19 euros.

The group Total SA said Tuesday opt-out of the Consolidated Global Profit (BMC), which does not provide any tax benefit.

Only a few French multinationals are using this system, which integrates in taxable income results in France (and therefore the potential deficit) of foreign subsidiaries under their control. This "niche" tax is regularly called into question because it would allow them to pay less tax.

In an interview published on the site of Les Echos, the financial director of the oil company argued that this system has no benefit for the group since its only loss-making French operations are today.

"The BMC can be charged in France for losses incurred abroad.But insofar as we record losses in France, we do not pay corporate taxes in France, "observes Patrick of Chevardière.

"The refining business has been in deficit since 2008, amounting to almost 600 million euros last year.The last time the regime of worldwide profits had a positive impact on our taxes, it was in 2001, "he says.

The ability to waive this system had already been mentioned the last weekend by the CEO of Total, Christophe de Margerie.

The group has repeatedly reminded, however, he brought some 800 million euros in tax revenues to France, notably through the withholding tax on dividends, business tax, property taxes.

The airline Thai Airways International announced Monday it had approved the purchase of 37 new aircraft to 118.6 billion baht (3.9 billion euros) over the period 2011-2017.

Fifteen of these aircraft will be purchased for $ 49.5 billion baht, while the remaining 22 will be acquired through a leasing agreement for about 69 billion baht.

The command, as expected, was split between Boeing aircraft with 14 lines 777 and 787, and Airbus, with 23 series units 350 and 320.

Lot of fifteen units will include six Boeing 777-300ER will be delivered between 2014 and 2015, four Airbus 350-900 delivered between 2016 and 2017, and five Airbus 320-200 delivered between 2014 and 2015.

Thai Airways also plans to buy leased to International Lease Finance Corporation, six Boeing 787-8 delivered between 2014 and 2015, and two Boeing 787-9 delivered in 2017.

Six A350-900 delivered between 2016 and 2017 will be leased to Aviation Lease and Finance and two other CIT Aerospace International.

Finally, six A320-200s will be leased to RBS Aerospace Limited from 2012-2013.

These 22 orders leasing will be spread over twelve years.

Thai Air is valued at 2.1 billion, and belongs to the Thai state to 51%.

European shares ended stalls Tuesday, after falling during the four previous meetings, pending a second bailout plan for Greece.

Professionals, however, believe that we must expect more setbacks in the future because the crisis of sovereign debt in Europe is still there and feeding global growth concerns.

In Paris the CAC 40 shows a gain of 8.52 points (0.22%) to 3871.92 points.Regarding the other major European markets, London has gained 0.03% and Frankfurt was up 0.26%, while the Eurofirst 300 fell 0.08%.

The IMF said Tuesday that the release of its share of a new tranche of aid for the benefit of Greece implies that difficult decisions are taken in Europe.

"One can easily imagine a decline of 10% more for the stock market and it would give me a good opportunity to buy. Policies are not yet dealt with the issue of sovereign debt. All these bailouts are only delaying the inevitable, "said David Coombs (Rathbone Brothers).

The mining and values ​​of the utilities sector recorded the strongest gains. The first index gained 0.65% and 1.24% that of the second.

Eurazeo announced Monday the acquisition for 418 million euros from 45% of the French specialist in luxury clothing Moncler became its largest shareholder.

The redemption of Moncler, whose enterprise value of EUR 1.2 billion represents 12 times its Ebitda reached in 2010, should be completed in the third quarter, Eurazeo said in a statement.

Remo Ruffini, president and artistic director of Moncler, will retain 32% of Carlyle Capital and 17.8%.

Founded in 1952 in Grenoble, Moncler develops five brands: Moncler, Henry Cotton's, Marina Yachting, Weber & Ahaus Coast, and a license 18CRR81 Cerruti.

Originally a technical brand specializing in down jackets, Moncler has a network of 55 stores in Europe, Asia and North America in 2010 and achieved a turnover of 429 million euros. It employs over 1,000 employees.

Portugal and Ireland would be at risk of lowering their rating several notches sovereign default of Greece, plunging them into speculative grade, told Reuters the head of Moody's credit for the Europe-Middle East -Africa.

"A failure would be highly destabilizing and Greek would have implications for the creditworthiness of issuers across Europe," said Alastair Wilson during a telephone interview.

"This would lead to an even more polarized in terms of solvency and notes on (borrowing) in the euro zone sovereigns, the countries strongest maintaining very high marks and most fragile countries struggling to remain in investment grade ."

Alastair Wilson stressed that market attention would then turn to Lisbon and Dublin, who also sought the assistance of the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Asked if Portugal and Ireland were at risk of falling into speculative grade default of Greece, part of the rating agency said: "Potentially, yes (…) Should Greek to be lacking, it could potentially be a downgrade of several notches (transmitters) sovereigns most fragile. "

He added that Spain, Italy and Belgium would not be in the same case as Portugal and Ireland, but have to face significant pressure from the markets.

Alastair Wilson, however, refused to estimate the probability of default on debt Greek.

The Governor of the Bank of France Christian Noyer, a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank said Tuesday that restructuring the public debt of Greece would be the "horror scenario" and it was very likely that a lengthening of maturities of its loans is considered equivalent to a fault.

While a report intended to involve doctors who prescribed the Mediator as an appetite suppressant to compensation to victims, the health minister said Sunday that only pay Servier.

The Health Minister Xavier Bertrand has sought to extinguish incipient controversy Sunday with the doctors on compensation for victims of the Mediator. "Doctors will not be paying. I say this very clearly," said the Minister in issuing C. Policy on France 5.

He was reacting to the outrage among doctors According to information published Saturday in Le Figaro on the public fund to compensate victims of the Mediator to be introduced Wednesday in the Cabinet.

The newspaper cited an unnamed source "who participated in drafting the text" and assured that "will be paying the Servier Laboratory, or the doctors who prescribed the Mediator outside the accepted indications."

"In other words, doctors who prescribed the drug limited to antidiabetics in persons wishing to lose weight, could be targeted," added the daily.

This article was written "on the basis of preparatory documents and not from the text itself" to be presented by the Council of Ministers, assured Xavier Bertrand. Questioned by AFP, the Department of Health said on Saturday that doctors could be called to "go into the process" to compensate victims of the Mediator."Doctors may be asked to participate in the compensation of victims after it is established medical expertise they have some responsibility," had they added the same source.

However, Sunday, Xavier Bertrand assured: after reviewing the file and if there is "prejudice", "the Oniam turns against the laboratory Servier. Point. Because it is precisely that produced the Mediator." "The Oniam will not seek the responsibility of a doctor," he stressed. The compensation fund will be managed by the National Compensation medical accidents, iatrogenic and nosocomial infections (Oniam).

Anti-diabetic widely misused as an appetite suppressant, the Mediator would have done in 33 years between 500 and 2,000 deaths, before being withdrawn from the French market in November 2009. Hundreds of complaints have been filed to date.

Physician unions reacted strongly Sunday to a possible defendant. "I find it particularly outrageous that one looks for scapegoats in this case through the prescribers," he told Europe 1 Claude Leicher, President of MG France, the leading syndicate generalists. "We have documents that show that when doctors had doubts and questioned the laboratory, they were told that this product does not pose any particular problem," he added.

For Dr. Michel Chassang, president of the Confederation of French Medical Unions (CSMF), largest union of private practitioners, this "direct indictment of physicians" is "completely ridiculous". "If an institution must be questioned is the one who authorized the sale of the drug, it seems logical. The doctor comes entirely downstream," he told AFP.

Receives a request from a victim, Oniam Servier will turn to systematically asking him to directly compensate the person for a specific amount. If the pharmaceutical company refuses, the Oniam indemnify the victim to court to obtain reimbursement from Servier accompanied by a significant penalty.