News – Business & Economi

Wall Street has ended in the red Wednesday after a volatile session, thus showing its fourth consecutive decline and its sixth in seven meetings, the concerns raised by the debt crisis of the euro area continued to haunt investors.

The Dow Jones Industrial 30 yielded 0.26%, or 33.45 points, to 12,598.55. The S & P-500, wider, lost 5.86 points, or 0.44%, to 1324.80. The Nasdaq Composite fell on its side of 19.72 points (-0.68%) to 2,874.04.

Although Germany has tried to calm things down on Greece, saying she wanted to stabilize the country in the eurozone, the European Central Bank (ECB) has renewed concerns in said to have ceased to provide liquidity to certain Greek banks due to their under-capitalization.

The Greek authorities have in turn reported massive withdrawals made by the citizens of their bank accounts because of economic and political uncertainties. 

The questions about the future of Greece and possible implications for the euro area a country's output of the Economic and Monetary Union weighed on equity markets in recent weeks, with an S & P 500 has lost some 5.5% since late March.

The fact that, according to the minutes of its last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, the Federal Reserve remains open to new measures to support the economy has little impact on sentiment of market participants.

These have not benefited from more macroeconomic indicators rather positive, with one hand a higher-than-expected housing starts in April and the other , a stronger than expected rebound in industrial production. 

As for values, General Electric took 3.268% to 19.00 dollars after the division of financial conglomerate has received permission to resume the transfer of part of its profits to its parent.

GE Capital provides and to pay a special dividend of $ 4.5 billion in General Electric during the year.

The title J.C. Penney has plunged 19.72% to 26.75 dollars, its biggest daily drop in percentage terms since 1987, a day after the distributor has suspended payment of a dividend and announced results showing that its transformation implementation has more impact than expected on its activity.

Also in the distribution sector, the title has pros Target 0.44% to 55.32 dollars after the group specialized in low-cost stores raised its annual forecast .

Facebook will increase by almost a quarter the size of its IPO and could now raise up to $ 16 billion (12.6 billion euros), the strong investor demand obscuring the dice ; beats on long-term profitability of the social network.

The 2013 draft budget, which aims to reduce the fiscal deficit to 3% of GDP, is assured of a majority in the Dutch Parliament after the agreement between the two parties in the outgoing coalition and the three opposition parties, said Thursday news agency ANP.

"My party has given me the green light to the plan that we discussed," said Sybrand van Thursday Haersma Buma, leader of the Christian Democrats in the lower house of Parliament .

Stef Blok, leader of the parliamentary Liberal, has also announced that its base had agreed, as the three opposition parties, Democrats 66, Christian Union VertGauche and, depending on the television channel NOS. 

The ruling coalition broke out during the weekend due to the inability to agree on conservation measures designed to meet the reduction targets budget deficit ; silence as part of the European Union.

The government has sought to obtain a circumstantial majority in Parliament to pass his economic plan before Monday, when it is supposed to present in Brussels.

Discussions were held with the two parties forming the government (the Liberals and Christian Democrats), with three opposition parties (Democrats 66, and the Union VertGauche Christian) and with perhaps one or two other courses. 

With the support of all three opposition parties, the government will have a majority of 77 seats out of 150 in the lower house of Parliament.

Human Genome Sciences announced Thursday it had rejected an unsolicited offer of his longtime partner GlaxoSmithKline that values ​​around 2.6 billion (2 billion).

GSK's offer, to 13 dollars per share, represents a premium of 81% over the closing price of 7.17 dollars for action Human Genome Wednesday night, but the U.S. group believes it does not reflect its intrinsic value.

In pre-market Human Genome soared over 100% to trade at just over $ 15, a sign that the market is betting on a bidding war in this new battle that promises to within a pharmaceutical industry recently marked by a wave of consolidation. 

Human Genome, American laboratory that specializes in gene isolation and identification of their function in the development of new drugs, said banks have mandated Goldman Sachs and Cre Swiss said the counselor.

First British pharmaceutical company, GSK said he was disappointed in a statement of rejection of his offer without discussion. The group confirmed its offer, stating that the proposed price of $ 13 would be paid in cash.

He also said to expect the transaction provides for the realization by 2015 at least $ 200 million of cost synergies, and that it will be accretive to from 2013.

If GSK has been a tendency in the past not to buy out partners with whom he works, the rumor of an offer to GSK on its U.S. partner ran long, the two companies already collaborate ; over several treatments, including Benlysta, the first new drug against lupus in more than half a century.

Navid Malik, analyst at Cenkos Securities, indicates that GSK extremely knowledgeable Human Genome and must point to a potential value in excess of one Benlysta. 

Both groups are also working on a project called darapladib treatment of heart, now in the third and final phase of experimental tests.

If product development is going to an end, analysts see it as a "blockbuster" possible multi-billion dollar per year, although the molecule is also accompanied by a high level of risks.

A banker in the health sector considers the offer of generous and GSK believes that certain shareholders of Human Genome could accept it.

Others, however, prefer to wait an increase of the price. They know the appetite of big pharmaceutical companies for biotech in their search for new growth after the expiration of patents on several of their blockbuster drugs.

As recently as Wednesday, the American Illumina rejected a hostile bid of 6.8 billion dollars (5.2 billion euros) of the Swiss laboratory Roche Holding.

The Spanish Minister of Economy admitted on Monday that the country had fallen into recession for the second time since 2009, as investors demanded higher yields to buy debt securities the country.

Official figures on gross domestic product (GDP) of the Spanish first quarter of 2012 will not be published before April 30. The Minister of Economy, Luis de Guindos, however, said that the Spanish economy should be in the first quarter contraction similar to the last quarter of 2011, which was 0.3 % over the third quarter.

Two successive quarters of declining GDP correspond to the technical definition of recession, which was widely anticipated in Spain.

According to the minister, who gave an interview to El Mundo, the decline will however not as serious as feared.

"If you had asked me this question two months ago, I would have thought the first quarter of 2012 would have been much worse than the last quarter of last year. But this does not happen, "said Luis de Guindos

" For now, I see a first quarter like the last quarter of last year. "

These words fall in line with other recent statements by government members, suggesting Spain is in recession again

. The rightwing government of Mariano Rajoy has committed to undertake significant budget cuts. But, the markets, there is concern growing that the recession makes it impossible to goals of deficits and that Spain should seek international assistance in one form or another, to ; like Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Yields of Spanish debt to ten years have passed Monday morning above 6% for the first time since the beginning of the year, while the Spanish CDS reached new records.

CRISIS MODE

"We returned a crisis mode," said Lyn Graham Taylor, a specialist rates to Rabobank. "It seems increasingly likely that Spain would have to resort to some form of rescue. If there is no intervention (ECB), there will be no ceiling to Spanish yields . They will just keep climbing. "

The Spanish economy is in contraction or stagnation since the bursting of the real estate to ; re in 2008. While housing prices are still falling, the survival of some banks and the new government's ability to control its finances are subject to debate.

The Popular Party (PP), which won elections in November against the Socialists in place, has taken a number of measures to reduce the deficit Spanish, one of the highest the euro area.

But confidence in the ability of President Mariano Rajoy of the Government to work within budgetary limits of the euro area was tested when the head Government has unilaterally lowered the deficit target in 2012 beginning in March, which was strongly up the risk premium on Spanish debt. 

The Minister of Economy also said that the government would take further measures to help small and medium enterprises solvent to obtain credit from banks.

Moreover, the government could get involved in finances too spendthrift regions as early as May, said on Monday with the government.

If Spain has largely missed its target deficit for 2011 is largely due to the expense of regions. The 17 Spanish autonomous regions must reduce its public deficit to 1.5% of GDP in 2012, against 2.9% last year.

A law is being voted in parliament to give the central government the power to punish regions that did not comply with the objectives of deficit narrowed.

U.S. stocks closed up again Thursday due to signs of improvement in the situation in Europe and China and the first quarterly results of companies, considered encouraging .

The Dow Jones gained 1.41% or 181.19 points, to 12,986.58 points. The Standard & Poor's, wider, has advanced 1.38% or 18.86 points to 1387.57 points while the Nasdaq composite took 1.3% or 39.09 points to 3055.55 points.

The S & P 500 benchmark fund managers, rose above its 50-day moving average, as if traders felt the recent decline of nearly 5% as an opportunity to catch up with the performance of the index.

The S & P gained more than 10% since the beginning of the year.

The market did not consider the surprise hike in jobless claims last week to 380,000. Economists anticipated 355,000 claims. Some economists said the statistic is not very significant given the Easter weekend.

Bond yields in Italy and Spain fell after a strong demand during an operation launched this week by Italy.

"The decline in bond yields is a signal for investors, here, that things are not as bad as this in Europe," said Brian Gendreau, market specialists at Cetera Financial Group.

Traders also cited expectations of a pleasant surprise on the side of the figures of gross domestic product (GDP) of China, to be released Friday morning. Some are skeptical about this rumor.

"Chinese history is being misinterpreted. The Chinese government researcher who is supposed to have commented on China's GDP has talked about 9% GDP growth for all of 2012 and said he anticipated that 8.4 to 8%, 5% for the first quarter, which is in line with expectations, "said Peter Boockvar, equity specialist at Miller Tabak in New York

. The first results of companies have also published a good effect. Analysts say expectations may have been lowered too much and that the shares may now seem cheap and after the 5% decline that has just recorded the S & P. ​​

Alcoa has continued to benefit from the positive effect generated ; by its results. The value rose 2.7% after surging 6.34% on Wednesday.

Values ​​of raw materials have been sought. U.S. Steel gained 7.5% to 29.36 dollars.

Values, Hewlett-Packard jumped 7.17% to 25.09 dollars. According to Gartner, PC shipments rose in the first quarter thanks to a recovery in demand in Europe.

The number of Spaniards registered as job seekers experienced the eighth consecutive month of increase in March, companies across sectors continuing to lay off trying to resist the worsening crisis .

The increase in the number of registered unemployed was 0.8% in March from February, 38,769 more job seekers. There are a total of 4.75 million unemployed Spaniards, according to figures from the Ministry of Labour.

The unofficial unemployment rate, which includes the unregistered unemployed, rose to 22.9% in fourth quarter 2011, the highest rate of all countries of the European Union.

Nearly a third of people in 17 countries in the euro area private employment are Spaniards and half of Spaniards under 25 are unemployed, according to Eurostat statistics.

The austerity plan announced Friday by the Madrid government to reduce the budget deficit, which includes a significant decrease in state spending, is likely to affect growth more Spanish . A reform of the labor market to make it more flexible may also enhance the rise in unemployment in the short term.

"Unemployment will continue to increase because it would grow around 1.4% or 1.5% to create jobs and it does not seem feasible before 2014," said the economist of Citi, Guillaume Menuet.

"The brutal reforms of the labor market generally results in more unemployment in the short term," he adds.

The Spanish government expects an economic contraction of 1.7% this year, a forecast more optimistic than Citi, which expects -2.7% in 2012 and -1 , 2% in 2013.

A 10.8% of the workforce, the unemployment rate in the euro area in February reached its highest level in fifteen years. An employment agency in Malaga. Spain has an unemployment rate above 20%

This is a direct consequence of the crisis and the lack of growth. The unemployment rate in the euro area in February reached its highest level in fifteen years, to 10.8% of the workforce, according to data Monday from the EU statistics office, Eurostat.

According to Eurostat calculations, 17,130,000 people were unemployed in February in the euro area, or 162,000 more than the previous month. This level ever since the creation of the euro area exceeds forecasts of analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires who had forecast an unemployment rate of 10.7% in February, as the previous month.

This is the tenth consecutive month in which unemployment has reached or exceeded the threshold of 10% in the euro area. Result: the euro zone now has 1.476 million more people unemployed than a year earlier.

Throughout the European Union (EU), the unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in February against 10.1% in January. This is also setting a record, said Eurostat. Once again, Spain is the bad boy of the EU with an unemployment rate of 23.6% followed by Greece with 21% (where the latest data refer to December), Portugal (15%) and Ireland (14.7%). In Italy, unemployment reached a record high of 9.3% in February.  

In contrast, the unemployment rate the lowest were recorded in Austria (4.2%), Netherlands (4.9%), Luxembourg (5.2%) and Germany (5.7%) .

The Parisian house prices are falling for the first time since 2009. This trend can it last? The responses of Sébastien de Lafond, President of MeilleursAgents.com. Paris Real Estate, Second District, Point Trigano.

After the delirium, appeasement. The Paris property prices are going down, all professionals are unanimous, including notaries. The period October 2011 to January 2012, the price per m2 of housing in Paris and has declined slightly, to 8340 euros/m2, instead of 8370 euros previously. This represents a 0.3% decrease. The capital rappoche so the trend throughout the Paris region (-0.6% over the same period). Certainly, the decline is limited, but it denotes with previous years of sharp increase. The notice of Sébastien de Lafond is President of MeilleursAgents.com.

What do we see on the Paris market?

The Paris market has long been an exception to the French property market. If you look at the figures for previous years, between the third quarter 2009 and third quarter 2010, prices rose by 13.8% in Paris. And in 2011, the increase was 15% for old apartments. Result, the price per m2 in Paris reached 8,344 euros. The left bank has skyrocketed. First explanation: the exploding demand, strong excess relative to supply, fueled by several factors: historically low interest rates, a preference for stone instead of the stock market, investors have never been as many ( 26% of buyers, against 16% in all of France). All in a context of shortage of housing. In Ile-de-France, we need 70,000 homes a year to meet demand, then we do not built for that half hour. Another factor increase: foreign demand, which influences prices in many districts, the first in the eighth arrondissement, the 16th-but also and especially on certain types of property high-end or central ashore. This is a customer with high purchasing power, thus likely to distort the market structure high-end. Still, foreigners account for barely 5% of buyers.

The price on the Paris market have they peaked?

Today, no doubt, this market is cooling and has been since last July. The last six months, prices in Paris intra muros lost 3.5%, even lower in the inner suburbs and it is around 5% in the outer suburbs. Similarly, the transaction time is 50 days in Paris twice a year ago and 40 to 80 days in the Ile-de-France. In nine out of 10 districts, prices declined in the fourth quarter of 2011 versus the third quarter of that year. The volume of property transactions fell 15% in Paris and 20% in small and large crown.

How can we explain this decline?

On the one hand, we lost 30% of buyers from last year. First reason: the prices in Paris and the Ile de France have reached very high levels. For proof, from June 2009 to June 2011, they increased by 29%. Given this rise, many buyers say "stop". Another reason to be bullish: the banks are much more restrictive in terms of access to mortgages since the Greek crisis. Now, exit the small arrangements if you are on probation or if you have a low intake. Have a permanent and present a contribution of 5 to 10% is the rule in any bank. Moreover, the monthly credit shall not exceed 1/3 of disposable income of the borrower. Finally, we lost about 10% of buyers due to the suppression of PTZ + in the former, which was included last year in 40% of real estate transactions in the former.

On the other hand, the decline was due to the 20% of sellers and less. The sale is generally followed by a purchase. But in an economic context is not conducive to going into debt over twenty years, coupled with a fear of the future and an uncertain economy, people are more cautious. Finally, the election deadline pushes the real estate project.

The decline in the market Ile can it continue?

We announce a drop of about 5% to 10% of Paris and the Ile-de-France at least until June But this drop will not be sustainable if rates continue to decline as is currently the case in most banks. Because if interest rates fall, prices rise. However, if they increase, prices are revised downwards. This hypothesis is highly possible with the economic crisis in Spain today. The rate of OAT, (the rate at which borrows France over 10 years) may increase. However, if lending rates rise by 1%, prices could fall by 15%.

Beyond these predictions, the basic problem remains, we have a deficit of housing particularly marked in the Paris region market. Given migration, birth rates, etc.., Demand for the stone is too large to attend a substantial fall in prices in Paris, in small and large crown. The new housing shortage keeps prices. It is for this reason that the drop is, and will only be on if the new housing construction remains at this level. Buyers should not expect a substantial fall in prices. Today the market is experiencing a slight decline. This is a good time to buy in Ile-de-France.

But who can still buy in Paris?

In the capital, buyers under 30 have almost disappeared but the secondo-time buyers drive the market. Those buy for resale and are immunized against rising prices. We defined three categories of buyers. High-income couples, 30 to 40 years, may in turn seek apartments from 60 to 100 m2 through debt of 20 to 25 years. The secondly-time buyers who bought there over five years and can make a nice capital gain are now the most dynamic part of the application. But they are experiencing shortages of goods. Finally come the investors with a medium-to long term.

The Bundesbank (Buba) German has used much of its profits in 2011 to strengthen its protective mattress and its president warned Tuesday the European Central Bank (ECB) against a decision excessive risk in its rules for granting loans to banks.

The German central bank considered it prudent to increase reserves while increasing concerns about the bill that the issuing institutions in the euro zone will have to pay under rescue the European banking system.

The ECB has helped to avoid a credit crunch by injecting in the space of two months 1,000 billion euros in the area banks, through loans and rates 3 years reduced, and by relaxing its criteria for acceptance of collateral. 

The chairman of the Buba Jens Weidmann said he was concerned about the risks to the balance sheet of the ECB and national central banks of the Eurosystem, arguing that risk-taking should be lowered e, for instance by raising the quality of the collateral required for banks wishing to finance with the ECB.

But even if the Bundesbank's balance sheet reflects this concern, Jens Weidmann did not call for an immediate withdrawal of bank support.

"But that does not mean that all measures of crises must be lifted immediately, rather, it means that we, as a central bank, thinking against their abil re to organize the withdrawal of these measures."

One who is also a member of the Governing Council of the ECB played down his differences with the president of the institution in Frankfurt Mario Draghi in monetary policy. He stressed that he did not feel isolated within the council and had a good working relationship with the Italian

. "I do not feel isolated in the Governing Council of the ECB because I see that the arguments that I or others put forward are discussed "said Jens Weidmann at a press conference on the occasion of the presentation of annual results of the Buba

…. ….. He added that there was no predefined camps at voting time on the board. Last week, Mario Draghi also said that the Bundesbank was not isolated within the ECB.

The benefit of the Buba fell to 643 million euros in 2011, against 2.2 billion euros in 2010, due to an increase of 4.1 billion euros of provisions related to credit risk, foreign exchange, gold and other prices, against an increase of 1.6 billion euros the previous year.

"The main reason for the decrease in earnings is higher provisions for risk," said its president.

"The counterparty risk in repurchase program bonds and refinancing operations rose perceptibly due to higher volumes and the high degree of risk," added ; Jens Weidmann.

Fiat-Chrysler is working to find new partners in the automotive industry, said Tuesday Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Italian carmaker and CEO of its ally im Rican.

"We took action," he said in Brussels at an event organized by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. "We can be an active partner throughout the world."

Sergio Marchionne has long argued already for reconciliations of carmakers to reduce their development costs and production.

Asked if he was looking for a European partner, he replied that "there are a lot more."

"I'm interested in everybody," he added.

With regard to Asia, especially Suzuki and Mazda, he said that there were "many opportunities to explore, including the following."

Sergio Marchionne has also reacted to the announcement of a possible alliance between General Motors and PSA Peugeot-Citroen.

"It is crucial that the European situation is treated. If the hypothetical alliance materializes, I hope he will consider the issue of overcapacity. "