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The Cac 40 opens again on a positive note

Wednesday Aug 31, 2011

Since the beginning of the week, the Paris Stock Exchange began its session on a positive note from 0.62% to 3179.21 points, having closed at the balance Tuesday night. Like the Asian markets, the benchmark index of the Paris market is supported by the slight increase in U.S. markets, reassured by the Federal Reserve. Investors are indeed more and more convinced of the willingness yesterday by the U.S. central bank to act to restore growth.

In addition, the Atlantic, financial markets are close to their level of January 1, which could be an equilibrium point. Also an element of support for the Paris Bourse, even if it is far from that level (3847.63 points Jan. 3, 2011).

Chapter macroeconomic, investors will take 12 hours of knowledge in agricultural price indices in July.United States, the employment figures for August will be published in the early afternoon followed by the index of industrial activity in the Chicago area and industrial orders in July and stocks crude oil.

On the currency front, having been an upward trend since the beginning of the week, the euro fell slightly against the dollar on Wednesday after the announcement Tuesday in a poor indicator of the European economy weighed on the currency European. At about 8 am in Paris, the European currency was worth 1.4428 dollars against 1.4437 dollars late Tuesday.

Values ​​to follow

In a market with relatively low volumes since the beginning of the week is a new salvo of publication of results, broadly in line with expectations, that drives the third weekly session.

In particular Bouygues strongly supports the trend.After a brief suspsendu scoring the opening, the title of group jumped 10% to 25.40 euros. The conglomerate has finally published its results on Wednesday, not Tuesday reported on the acquisition of 11.7% of its shares for 1.25 billion euros, a 30% premium over the closing price of the security last night. In addition, the group published a half-year net profit down 27% to 391 million euros.

Similarly, Vivendi (4.17% to 16.85 euros) said it had doubled its half-year net profit to 2.5 billion euros, with a net gain of $ 1.2 billion related to the settlement of a dispute over the PTC shares in Poland.Its subsidiary, Canal +, 80% owned by Vivendi, reported first half sales of 2.39 billion euros, up 2.8% year on year, operating profit increasing by 1, 9% over this period payday loans lenders.

In turn, Carrefour is the sentence (-4.24% to 17.85 euros), after the group announced a net loss of 249 million euros in its first half. Above all, the group has revised downwards its forecasts, expects 15% drop in its earnings.

Last night, L'Oreal (-2.83% to 74.83 euros) has reported an increase in operating profit of only 2% to 1.70 billion euros in the first half.Its operating margin for its part fell 50 basis points to 16.8%, while analysts expected an increase, on average expected a figure of 17.5%.

Vinci (0.63% to 35.76 euros) for registration in the first half net profit up 15.7% year on year and raised its annual forecast.

Cac 40 off the healthy group Hermes (1.13% to 267.95 euros) is confirmed.The specialist luxury published net income up 49.5% to 290.9 million euros.

Bolloré (0.38% to 158.60 euros) saw its net profit grow by 29%, boosted by a gain from the sale of shares of the maker of seamless steel tubes Vallourec.

For its part, Havas (.98% to 2.779 euro) announced net income up 8% in the first half thanks to an improved operating margin.

Aéroports de Paris (-0.37% to 56.64 euros) it has slightly lowered its forecast for fiscal 2011.

Hi-media (-7.26 euros, 3.32 euros) back into the green in the first half, revealing a net profit of 5.1 million euros.

For its part, the oil reacts little to the continued rise in oil prices, and the strategic agreement signed between Rosneft and will explore together the Arctic and as such invest $ 3.2 billion.Technip s'ajduge 0.66% to 65.40 euros and total advance of a small 0.54%, to 33.34 euros.

For its part, Bourbon wins 0.84%, to 22.68 euros. The oil services specialist maritime published a group net profit halved in the first half, to 41 million euros, but put on a recovery in the offshore oil and gas. It also confirms the objectives of its 2011-2015 plan.

Note that Ruby, Mersen (ex-Carbone Lorraine), April, Lagardère, Outremer Telecom, Eiffage, Stef-TFE, Fleury Michon, Bongrain, GFI Informatique, Gameloft, Sopra, Virbac, Reculex, Mr. Bricolage and reveal their Guyenne et Gascogne half-year after the stock market.

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Sarkozy stops in Beijing to reassure the health of the euro

Saturday Aug 27, 2011

Crisis forces, maintaining half past two in Beijing Thursday at the Palace of the people, between Nicolas Sarkozy and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao has largely focused on economic issues. The objective of this whirlwind tour of the Pacific route to the French president, was to reassure the second largest economy in the world and world's leading investor in the resilience of Europe to the crisis of sovereign debt. "Hu is not worried about the situation in the euro area", despite the runaway budget deficits, said the head of the French state at the end of a working dinner. "He told us he had confidence in the euro (…)." "We are confident that Europe has the wisdom and ability to overcome current difficulties and maintain economic growth and stability.China will continue to make Europe a major investment markets, "for his part, Hu said.

In recent months, Beijing – which has 3,000 billion of reserves – was a major purchaser of European debt, particularly Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Identity of views

The visit was also an opportunity for Nicolas Sarkozy to reaffirm the importance of partnership with China, a few weeks G20 Cannes, chaired by France. Stressing "great convergence of views" between the two countries "on the assessment of the international situation," the Head of State stressed the importance of this summit, which is involved in the revival of global growth."This is a major issue and China has a key role," he said, accompanied by Minister of Finance, Baroin, came specifically to prepare the November summit.

For his part, Hu Jintao spoke of "great importance" to strengthen the dialogue between France and China "to the success of the summit in Cannes, for strengthening international economic cooperation and for the recovery and healthy development of economy ".

The two leaders also discussed the thorny question of the convertibility of the yuan.A subject on which Paris and Beijing "want to move forward," said Nicolas Sarkozy, but "without haste".

Finally, on Libya – Beijing was opposed to strikes from the coalition – the Chinese president said he "kindly analyze" the invitation of France to attend a conference of "Friends of Libya" that wishes organize the French president in Paris on 1 September.


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Skype invests in messages grouped

Tuesday Aug 23, 2011

GroupM was promised a destiny to Twitter and Foursquare. Like the latter, the start-up in New York was revealed at the conference Internet "South by Southwest," which was held in Texas in March. But barely a year after its creation, GroupM has already attracted the attention of the giants of the Internet and has just been bought by Skype for an estimated $ 80 million.

The operation allows the specialist to Internet telephony to build a niche in the amount of online communication: messages grouped. With services such as GroupM, users can create discussion groups on their mobile phone and communicate with others, forming "chatrooms" private SMS.In recent months, major Internet players have been enamored of such services, which range from communication, and coordination, like Facebook, which bought the Beluga service in March 2011, eight months after its creation. In addition, the social network launched mid-August, Facebook Messenger, a mobile instant messaging application.

For its part, Google has made this communication bundle a cornerstone of its community platform + Google launched in late June, with the "hangouts" spaces bundled instant messaging and video. Finally, as recently shown by the London riots, the BlackBerry is an actor to be reckoned with in this area, through its private courier BBM (BlackBerry Messenger). Now owns GroupM, Skype will better stand up to these types of communications fast cash without a hassle.

175 million monthly users of Skype

"Skype and GroupM have a common vision.GroupM's team has created a messaging experience incredibly attractive bundle that runs across the terminals and mobile platforms, making it a perfect complement in voice, video and text of the Skype family, "said Tony Bates, general manager of Skype, in a statement.

For Jared Hecht, co-founder Steve Martocci GroupM, "there is a natural affinity between Skype and GroupM.""Our goal is to continue to develop tools that allow people to easily communicate, share and keep in touch with their close relations and important," he said, arguing that integration with Skype would allow the start-up achieve its vision of "ten times faster."

The start-up is already looking forward to see the service offered to 175 million monthly users of Skype.

The acquisition of Skype by GroupM, which is the subject of discussion for several months, could also be beneficial to Microsoft. It announced the acquisition of Skype for $ 8.5 billion in May.While sentencing the operating system (OS) Windows Mobile Phone 7, the software giant could find with GroupM a valuable feature to include in its bid for smartphones.

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Wall Street opens up small

Monday Aug 15, 2011

Wall Street looks set to continue the rally that started in last weekend. On Monday, the Dow opens up 0.48% to 11,323.44 points. The Nasdaq index before for its 0.60% to 2522.93 points.

As in Asia, the U.S. markets should react positively to the announcement of a contraction much weaker than expected Japanese GDP in the second quarter. But as in Europe, they should remain cautious on the eve of an important meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the reform of the governance of the euro area. They should discuss ways to implement to prevent contagion problems of sovereign debt to the rest of the region.

But Germany has already warned investors: this meeting will lead to "nothing spectacular"."It will be a working meeting on the governance of the euro area in line with European decisions taken in late July," said the spokesman of the Ministry of Finance. The latter also confirmed the skepticism against German Eurobonds solution yet desired by many investors. "The Euro-bonds are not an option," ruled the spokesman. These ads have already resulted in demoralizing the European investors.

Real estate for

Until the final conclusions of the meeting, U.S. investors are learning that manufacturing activity in the New York area declined for the third consecutive month at -7.7, 3.9 points lower than July .

The index of the property market is expected later.

Note that the currency market, the Euro rises slightly against the greenback at 1.4287 dollar.Oil markets, oil prices opened up on Monday in New York. A barrel of "light sweet crude" for September delivery was trading at 86.13 dollars, up 75 cents. Prices were down during the European trading, erasing their gains made in Asian trade in a market nervous and still haunted by persistent concerns about global growth and the debt crisis in the eurozone payday loan lenders. A barrel of Brent North Sea crude for September delivery was trading at 107.56 dollars on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in London, down 47 cents from Friday's close.

Google swallows Motorola Mobility

On the corporate side, Estee Lauder and Sysco should publish their results on Monday.

Lowe (-0.27% to 19.37 dollars) has already reported sales below expectations in the second quarter of its fiscal year and lowered its annual targets for the second time in three months, consumers pushing their development projects until later because of sluggish growth.

Google (-0.88% to 558.94 dollars) will buy the mobile phone manufacturer Motorola Mobility for $ 12.5 billion in cash.

Time Warner (-0.43% to 65.25 dollars) has reached an agreement to buy the cable operator Insight Communications to Carlyle for three billion dollars in cash.

Bank of America (3.20% to 7.42 dollars) has announced the sale of its activities in the international credit cards in Britain, Ireland or Canada.

Boeing (0.16% to 61.84 dollars) announced it had completed with Air Lease Corp. an order valued at $ 2.5 billion on 14 737-800 aircraft and five 777-300ER.

Pfizer (2.41% to 18.29 dollars) announced Monday it had won before a U.S. court case against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries of Israel, preventing the global generics to produce a copy of Viagra before 2019 .

Transocean (2.15% to 56.81 dollars), listed in New York, wants to buy the Norwegian group Aker Drilling, for a total of 1.1 billion Swiss francs (1 billion), according to a statement Monday.Several large shareholders, representing 65% of the capital, have agreed to the deal, said the Swiss.

The American specialist craft materials Grainger (2.12% to 138.72 dollars) on Monday announced the acquisition of the Dutch distributor of fasteners Fabory Group for $ 344 million (242 million).


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The Paris Stock Exchange ended the week on a strong increase

Saturday Aug 13, 2011

The Paris Bourse closed this week very agitated in the green. This Friday, the CAC 40 ended on a net increase of 4.02% to 3213.88. The London Stock Exchange gained 3.04% at the close, the DAX 3.45% to 5997.74 points, Milan 4%. But everywhere, the sessions have been very volatile in trading volume lower than the previous day (4.84 billion euros in Paris).

The CAC 40 is thus fell into the red immediately after opening up 0.17%. It still yielded 1.59% in morning before rising slope, and show an increase of 2.09% to 3154 points in mid-session.Around 16:15, the Paris index gained 2.76% to 3174.79 even despite the publication items, across the Atlantic, two mixed macroeconomic statistics that have hampered the enthusiasm of investors in New York.

Retail sales in the U.S. in July and were up 0.5% (after 0.3% in June), but the U.S. consumer confidence has it, fell in August. According to an index released Friday by the University of Michigan, which stood at 54.9, its lowest level since it is established, either since 1966. This drop has surprised analysts who had forecast a smaller drop to 62.5.

No growth in the second quarter

On the macroeconomic front in France, INSEE reported this morning from zero growth in the second quarter in France (0.0%), against an increase of 0.9% in the first quarter.Inflation also slowed: the consumer prices fell by 0.4% in July, resulting in an increase of 1.9% over the year (against 2.1% from June 2010 to June 2011 ).

Faced with these new investors are so cautious again after a week marked by extreme market volatility, which saw the CAC 40 push the psychological threshold of 3000 points during the session Thursday. Investors were finally reassured by the announcement of a meeting between Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on August 16 to issue joint proposals on the governance of the euro area.

Bank stocks rebound

Since the ban on short selling in the securities of eleven banks and insurance companies to counter the extreme volatility of the stock market values, the latter continuing their rebound started the day before, the image of BNP Paribas (4, 91% to 37.47 euros), which issued a statement Thursday night to reaffirm the strength of its capital, Societe Generale (3.15% to 23.72 euros) and Credit Agricole (1.77% to 6 , 49 euros).

Natixis wins 7.26% to 3.06 euros and signs the largest increase in the CAC.

Carrefour jumps more than 5%

Other values ​​to follow, Carrefour pulls out of the game: the way ahead vigorously 5.13% to 18.85 euros.U.S. giant Wal-Mart have mandated UBS to investigate the acquisition of the Brazilian subsidiary of French retailer, according to Reuters citing a source familiar with the matter.

Goldman Sachs lowered its recommendation on Lafarge (-0.17% to 28.96 euros) and withdrew the title from its list of recommended values ​​in priority to the purchase.The intermediary has instead built his list to Saint-Gobain (3.72% to 34 euros) and Vinci (2.42% to 35.3 euros).

Europacorp (3.13% to 3.30 euros), the production company of Luc Besson, Thursday reaffirmed its goal of a return to balance for the current year, despite a sharp decline its turnover in the first quarter.

Derichebourg (2.98% to 3.63 euros) on Thursday confirmed its target of improving its annual net income, after recording a sharp increase in sales over the first nine months of the year.

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The pump prices will fall this week

Wednesday Aug 10, 2011

A consolation for drivers: when markets are seeing red since the deterioration of the American note, the fall in oil prices will lower the prices a few cents of gasoline. "The impact of pump prices will be automatic, mechanical, it's something we'll see this week and then in the course of next week," announced the president of the French Union of Petroleum Industries ( Ufip), Jean-Louis Schilansky Tuesday morning on Europe 1.

"A sizable decline" is expected, according to Jean-Louis Schilansky, who expects 4-5 cents less per liter of gasoline. The lead-free 98, currently at 1.52 euro and should revert to below 1.50. As for diesel, a liter will cost less than 1.30 euro.For how long? The president of the Ufip is silent: the impact takes place mechanically from one week to another and it is impossible to predict whether oil prices could erase some of their losses.

Light crude to its lowest level since September 2010

Meanwhile, the turmoil in stock markets continues to drive down oil prices, investors anticipating a slowdown in global activity fast cash online. Tuesday morning, a barrel of Brent fell heavily, breaking briefly the threshold of 100 dollars in Asia before recovering. Around 9 o'clock, it was down 0.65% to 103.07 dollars. In New York, the "light sweet crude" is, too, fell below 80 dollars and remains below this threshold, after hitting 75.71 dollars, its lowest level since September 2010.

Oil distributors in July that they had assured reverberated in the same way the rise and fall of oil prices on the prices at the pump. "To say that the price evolution is faster in one direction than another is not fair", had assured the President of the French Union of Petroleum Industries (Ufip), Jean-Louis Schilansky, to meet Critical Labour Minister Xavier Bertrand. The Energy Minister Eric Besson also stated that "Total [had] passed down as fast as the rising trend in oil prices."

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Wall Street ends up with no direction

Monday Aug 8, 2011

The speech Barack Obama optimistic about economic prospects was not enough to lighten the mood in the U.S. markets. In the aftermath of a black session, Wall Street closed Friday on a very hesitant, after playing roller coaster the entire session. The Dow Jones gained 0.54% to 11,444.61 points but the S & P lost 0.06% to 1199.39 points and the Nasdaq drops 0.94% to 2532.41 points.

The fence marks the end of the worst weekly meeting signed by the S & P 500 over two years. For the week, the Dow has sold 5.8%, the S & P 500 -7.2% -8.1% and the Nasdaq. Obama does not reassure

The announcement of a significant improvement in job creation last month has not calmed the spirits. Publications disappointing state of the U.S. economy had yet chained, challenging the idea of ​​resumption of the first global economy.This publication confirms the figures released Wednesday by ADP, reports of more new jobs than expected for the month of July.

U.S. markets also hesitant despite market rumors to the effect that the European Central Bank is ready to support the Italian and Spanish bonds, if these countries to undergo structural reforms.

Moreover, operators have learned that Americans use to consumer credit rose in June at a pace not seen since the recession began, according to figures released Friday by the central bank (Fed) of the United States.The outstanding amount of these loans has jumped on this month of 7.7% annual rate over the previous month, the biggest increase since August 2007, reaching 2,446.1 billion.

Oil pulls himself together

After a slight increase at the opening, oil prices find their way back down to 18 hours, Paris time. After working in the Russian mountains on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), a barrel of "light sweet crude" for delivery in September was finally completed in 86.88 dollars, up 25 cents from the previous day

The reassuring news, from Europe have traced the course of the euro by 1.25%. The euro traded at $ 1.43 against the greenback to 19 pm Paris time.

AIG, GM and Procter & Gamble publish their accounts

On the corporate side, the semi-annual publications still dominate the news on Friday.

For the second straight session, the group Kraft (3.21% to 34.87 dollars), which has split its U.S. branch of its activities snacking, remain top of the list of the stock market.

Thursday evening after market, the insurer AIG (-4.96% to 25.09 dollars) announced a return to the green of its accounts in the second quarter, with net earnings of $ 1.84 billion over the period, against a loss of $ 2.7 billion a year earlier. Per share, net income totaled $ 1 ($ 0.69 after tax, against $ 0.92 expected by analysts).

At the same time, and its first quarterly since its IPO on May 19, LinkedIn (-4.85% to 90.89 dollars) was positively surprised markets by announcing a turnover more than doubled the second quarter to 121 million dollars (120 euros) and net profit (4.5 million), where analysts expected a loss.

General Motors (GM) (1.23% to 26.31 dollars) Thursday reported quarterly results exceeded expectations, with a near doubling of profits over the period.

Procter & Gamble (1.71% to 60.60 dollars) released before market on Friday for the fourth quarter of fiscal offset, net income up 15% to $ 2.51 billion.Of 2010-2011, so it shows a net profit of 11.79 Annual Statement billion, down 7% from the previous year.

Viacom (0.97% to 51.85 dollars), the parent company of MTV and Comedy Central, has reported a rise than expected in earnings thanks to strong revenue growth in advertising Cable and license agreements with websites. Its quarterly results (Q3) increased to $ 574 million against 432 million

Bank of America (-7.76% to 8.15 dollars) is highly exposed to the most fragile countries in the euro zone, according to a document from the bank. The group said exposure to the tune of $ 16.7 billion (11.8 billion euros) in total to Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain in June 30Management has indicated in a document submitted to the regulatory authorities that its losses could reach up to legal $ 2.3 billion in addition to the provisions already passed for this purpose.


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Wall Street managed to bounce back

Thursday Aug 4, 2011

Wall Street played the yoyo on Wednesday, a sign of great excitement. In early trade, the Dow edged up 0.09% at 11,878 points, but half an hour later, he lost 0.32% to 11,829 points. It finally closed on a small increase of 0.25% at 11,896 points. Nasdaq and S & P ending respectively on gains of 0.89% to 2693 points and 1260 points to 0.50%.

The day before, the Dow Jones had not been reassured by the vote of Congress, which has yet avoided a last-minute failure to pay the United States. The index feature New York had dropped 2.19%, still below 12,000 points."The U.S. indices have not even seen a technical rebound in the final hours of trading, as usual … Not since October 2008, the subprime crisis, to find such a sequence of declining U.S. indexes" analysts said Aurel BGC.

The threat rating agencies

In fact, the tension is not ready to fall in markets on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite the adoption by Congress of the Agreement on raising the national debt, the rating agencies maintain pressure on the world's largest economy. "The lowering of AAA to AA + rating from the U.S. would be a major shock for the world's largest economy, one that most creditors on the planet, says Stock Exchange on Barclays.Financing costs would increase the country, making more difficult the control of its huge debt. "

Moody's has already held that the agreement was manifestly inadequate and that the note of the United States could actually be lowered. The AAA highest possible rating currently assigned to the United States, is now accompanied by a negative outlook. Moody's is the second agency to assign a negative outlook on the triple A rating from the United States, according to Standard and Poor's on April 18. The third major rating agency, Fitch Ratings, maintains a stable outlook for now.

Another rating agency, but Chinese Dagong, has already lowered the credit rating of the United States after the vote of Congress, by passing from A + to A with a negative outlook.A decision that should be only for the time being very relative impact: the rating agency, in fact follows a methodology different from that of U.S. agencies Moody's, Fitch or Standard & Poor's. Unlike the three U.S. agencies that provide the United States sesame AAA Dagong does not in Washington this maximum score, and in November had lowered from AA to A +.

The ISM services disappoints

In this context, the macroeconomic agenda of the day, to say the least fleshed out, was watched closely, a sign of investor concerns about growth in the U.S..

At 14:15, the consulting firm HR ADP unveiled its traditional and highly anticipated monthly report on employment. Higher than the 100,000 new jobs expected by analysts, job creation in the U no fax pay day loan.S. private sector employment reached 114,000 in July.

In contrast, growth in the services sector in the United States recorded a surprise slowdown in July, according to the index of purchasing managers released Wednesday by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). ISM non-manufacturing index stood at 52.7 last month, falling to its lowest level since February 2010, after 53.3 in June. Analysts on average expected a 53.6 index.

Orders for the industry fell 0.8% in June in the United States, driven down by gloom in the transport sector, said Wednesday the Commerce Department. Economists on average had expected a decline a little less strong, 0.7%. Orders were up 0.6% in May

Oil prices have again fallen back sharply Wednesday in New York as the market worried about demand for crude in an economic environment deteriorates.On the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), a barrel of "light sweet crude" for September delivery finished at 91.93 dollars, down 1.86 dollars compared to the previous day.

Concerns about U.S. energy demand were boosted by the expected increase in official reserves of oil in the week ended July 29.According to figures released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), crude oil inventories rose as expected 1.0 million barrels, those of gasoline rose more than expected 1.7 million barrels against the 100,000 barrels estimated by analysts.

Half year results: Comcast did better than expected

On the corporate side, several large quarterly publications are expected throughout the day, which should, once will not hurt, however, be overshadowed by the acute problems of sovereign debt and economic downturn.

The publications program began as microeconomic 13 hours, with, among others, the results of the second quarter of Time Warner (-1.18% to 33.60 dollars).Net income displayed increased 13.5% to 638 million.

At that moment, were released the results of Comcast (0.18% to 22.77 dollars), who, with a net profit up 16% to $ 1.02 billion, is slightly better than expected.

Garmin (-2.03% to 30.89 dollars) announced quarterly earnings down due to a fall of 19% of sales of navigation systems for cars and mobile devices. Before the opening, title Garmin gave 14%.

It will however wait until 22 hours to find out the half-year figures of Activision Blizzard (1.11% to 11.82 dollars).

Beyond the semi-annual publications, Amag Phamaceuticals (11.19% to $ 16) received an unsolicited offer to buy back the private equity investment MSMB Capital Management, valuing the pharmaceuticals group around $ 381 million.The offer, $ 18 per share offers a premium of 25% over the closing price of Amag Phamaceuticals Tuesday at 14.39 dollars.


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"Maybe a good month of August on the markets"

Friday Jul 22, 2011

Lefigaro.fr – What conclusions can we draw from the first published results toMember United?

To date, 27% of companies in the S & P 500 have released their interim results, ie 135 companies and 75.6% of them have announced profits above expectations. We left for a good year. This week, the big banks (Bank of America, Citigroup Wells Fargo), were quite surprised in a good way, even if we remain cautious on the interpretation of their figures. Past two years, they have spent many provisions in their accounts, and use it sometimes to beautify their results today. Only Goldman Sachs really disappointed. By sector, energy, basic materials, and technology are doing so well, with respectively 40.3%, 45.3% and 13.7% increase in expected profits for the second half.Note that the consumer sector is basic to the sentence, with an expected fall in profits by 2.1% over the period.

How to explain this performance better than expected?

It has been two years since the publications of societies are generally above expectations. The restructuring made by the companies during the crisis are now bearing fruit. It is currently for companies in the S & P500 on levels of operating profitability of 15% … levels rarely reached. We must remain cautious because the potential for improving these margins is now limited. On the sales side, the expected increase for 2011 is 9%.

The second reason for these surprises is simpler. Analysts are sometimes influenced by the companies that encourage them to be very cautious in their forecasts.This is to avoid disappointment in the markets.

These publications are good they had a positive impact on the markets?

Yes. Google, for example, jumped 12% on the day of the announcement of results exceeding all expectations. The same goes for Apple. While some feared an impact on the financial problems of supply of components of the iPhone (from Japan), the group announced record profits. In the process, his title was up 4.5%. However, always put these results in a corporate market. In the first quarter 2011, the markets were at their highest, and the announcement by a company results in line with forecasts had very little impact its share price Payday Loan for Bad Credit.Today it's different, a confirmation of expectations or a nice surprise on a publication is much appreciated.

If the earnings season continues on the same trend, then markets could leave freely on the rise?

It's not that simple. The market impact of the debt crisis in Europe and the United States is very strong. We are actually in the eye of the storm with these macroeconomic issues, with a market that has stalled in May and operators who are positioned defensively. However, there is a real potential to rebound … as long as the market wants good focus on microeconomics. We are quite optimistic on this point because the next ten days, operators should see much more clear about the solutions in place for at least partially solve the problems of debt.In Europe, the solution to Greece has already restored air markets. And the United States, we can not stay on the current status quo for removing the ceiling on debt. Once this is clarified, the market will again focus on the prospects, and we could have a good August. Especially with a price / earnings ratio of 14.2, we are still 15 to 16% below the valuation levels of 2007, while corporate profits are 10% higher than they were at the time.

What are the sectors that should perform better in your opinion?

Technology stocks seem on track to rebound in the wake of good results from Microsoft, IBM or Intel.The good news in the industry are also positive for the energy sector, which could also rebound strongly, especially the coal industry, where mergers are again more frequent. More generally, there is a return of large transactions, which is another favorable factor for the markets rebound. This is the case for the acquisition was announced, the U.S. by Express Scripts Medco Health to $ 29.1 billion.

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The "stress tests" insufficient to reassure markets

Monday Jul 18, 2011

Among the threats to U.S. debt and the beginnings of a sovereign contagion in Europe, investors await first the responses of States to end the unbearable uncertainty. Therefore, the announcement of the holding of an EU summit Thursday and the speed with which Italy passed an austerity plan of 47 billion euros should focus the attention of operators.

By construction, the stress tests conducted by the EBA (EBA) based in London could only disappoint. While the market test, to gauge moves in risk premiums and other diving banking stocks, the scenario of a collapse of the euro, the banking supervisor did not have policy space to go very far this path.Therefore, the 11.5 billion euros of writedowns of sovereign debt simulated by 90 banks under scrutiny seem meager 194 billion against their commitments on debt accumulated state of Greece, the Ireland and Portugal. Not to mention Spain or Italy. By this standard, too, the 2.5 billion euro recapitalization needs highlighted Friday for the European banking sector border on the ridiculous.

Analysts at Credit Suisse quickly corrected this and submitted sovereign exposures of banks, published an exhaustive Friday, at their own assumptions discounts: 50% Greece, 35% Ireland, 30% Portugal, 10% on Spain and 5% on Italy.These calculations on a small sample of 49 banks show 45 billion euros of capital inadequacy! But – and this is reassuring – the "holes" always concern the banks of the countries in oxygen tent. Domestic banks in Greece, Ireland and Portugal are, in fact, between 61 and 67% of the loans of their country of origin.

Two "Lehman year"

If the credibility of the EU suffers from a fiscal laxity apparent on the front of the State debts, however it is particularly harsh on other aspects. Cumulative, testing the assumptions made in simulating the equivalent of two years similar to 2009, the post-Lehman, cost banks some 400 billion euros of provisions, plus 352 billion of additional costs of refinancing.

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