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 European Commission on Friday gave the green light to unconditional takeover of Edison by EDF Italian electricity.

"In a decision dated May 10, 2012, the European Commission has approved without conditions the acquisition of sole control by EDF Edison under the European regulations on the control of concentrations, "said the EU executive said in a statement.

"This decision raises the condition precedent to the completion of this transaction related to obtaining permission from the relevant competition authorities," added the Commission. 

Upon publication of its turnover, Thursday, EDF said it has completed the first quarter of the takeover of Edison, for which the French electricity has increased to 0.89 its offer per share to minority shareholders. This new proposal represented for him a net additional cost of 25 million euros.

Already facing a bleak economic environment, banks must now confront a French real estate market in full contraction, marked by a sharp slowdown in mortgage lending in France during the first quarter.

According to data from the Observatory CSA-Credit Housing, real estate loan production fell by 26.1% during the first quarter, with a dip of 35% on the month of January 2012 . Between early January and late March, the fall is larger, down 30.8%.

"The improvement observed in autumn 2011, aftermath of demand expectations of late 2011, was not enough to reverse the recessive market and weighed heavily on the month of January 2012, "note the analysts of the Observatory in its quarterly survey released Thursday.

"The market downturn has become a true reality," they continue.

The quarterly results of French banks, released Thursday and Friday, continues the trend. In recent years, rising real estate loans had helped to swell the volume of lending to the economy, especially during the financial crisis after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

"During the crisis period in 2009, 2010 and 2011, the housing credit has been a growth engine for retail banking in France," said Christophe Nijdam, an analyst at AlphaValue . "It was the engine and it was welcome, because of other activities such as retail banking abroad, were very, trè s disappointing. "

"But this year, instead of having a GNP (net banking, Ed) with growth rates of 3% to 5%, we could have a no-growth or GNP is decreasing "he says.

IMPACT ON THE MARGINS

Societe Generale said Thursday that net profit down 20% in the first quarter, has reported a decline of 26.2% of production mortgages in France between January and March.

Crédit Agricole d'Ile de France, which also released its results, the housing loans fell by 16.6% during the first quarter. 

For its part, BNP Paribas speaks of "a continued deceleration of home loans", without giving precise figures for the production of home loans in France.

The rating agency Standard & Poor's expects a contraction of about 20% to 30% of the flow of new loans in France this year. It also anticipates a decline of 15% of property prices in 2012 and 2013.

"French banks should not be significantly affected by the decline in house prices that we anticipate in our economic forecasts," said S & P.

The agency said the contraction of the flow of new credit this year "could weigh on banks' interest margin, although this negative volume effect would be partly offset by increased levels of these new credits. "

Incumbent President warns that Europe is still recovering and that if France relaxed its efforts to reduce the deficit, it would suffer the same fate as Spain. During a meeting place de la Concorde in Paris, Sunday, April 15, Nicolas Sarkozy called for the ECB to support European growth.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that there was "more likely to collapse of the euro", but that Europe was "recovering", warning that any "loosening" in the reduction of deficits would convey to France "the fate of Spain."

"The risk of implosion of the euro no longer exists, but Europe is recovering, it is a reality and we have no room for error," the president said on RTL candidate. According to him, "the minute we let up the pressure on spending cuts, deficit reduction, debt, France experienced the fate of Spain."

"France has raised 8 billion before yesterday (Wednesday, ed) to finance its debt. It did so in a historically low, below 3%. Spain, at the same minute, borrows to finance its debt, twice the price of France. The same causes produce the same effects, "he said.

"During the 2007 campaign, Ségolène Royal, PS candidate, praised the example of Spain, and Mr. Holland was received" during the election campaign "by one Prime Minister (Jose Luis Rodriguez) Zapatero," former Spanish Prime Minister, Socialist. "I do not know if the Spanish example is still relevant," he added.

The Spanish government announced Monday that he wanted to save ten billion euros in the areas of health and education.

"We need to cut unnecessary costs, streamline the sectors that do not work well, because if we do not, we can not guarantee the viability of the system," said Minister of Economy, Luis de Guindos, invited the SER radio.

The government of Mariano Rajoy last week presented a draft budget for 2012 includes € 27 billion reduction in public spending as part of a reorganization plan intended to bring the public deficit to 5.3% of GDP against 8.5% last year.

Expected savings on health and education in addition to this effort. 

The Spanish health system, shared between central government and executives of the 17 autonomous regions, is a debt of 15 billion euros.

According to Luis de Guindos, one of the lines of inquiry could focus on free public health services offered to the Spaniards, whatever their income.

"We need to open the debate, both within the central government in the regions, on whether health should be free for someone earning 100,000 euros (per year)", said the minister. 

In terms of education, Spanish media report that the government would consider a lower number of teachers, that would offset an increase in the number of students per class , and higher tuition fees in universities.

The Popular Party (PP) Mariano Rajoy, who has an absolute majority in Parliament, also controls eleven of the 17 autonomous regions.

Total accelerates its fall Tuesday afternoon in Paris Bourse, in a climate of growing concern about the consequences of the gas leak occurred Sunday on its platform of Elgin-Franklin North Sea.

At 4:16 p.m., the action of the oil giant posted the largest decline in the CAC 40, yielding 6.57% to 38.31 euros, its lowest level in three months. The title acknowledges its biggest drop since December 2008 and saw its market capitalization and nearly melted almost six billion euros.

Total, by far the highest weight of the ACC, led the Paris index, which yielded 0.68% while the other major European markets were stable and the sector index Europé in commodities advanced 0.53%.

At this stage, investors are more concerned about the impact of leakage on the group's production and its consequences on the environment and the prudent play while waiting to get an idea pre Cise of the magnitude of the disaster.

"Investors apply the precautionary principle in a situation still uncertain, in memory with the recent accident that affected BP," said Romain Burnand, co-director of Moneta Asset Management. 

The explosion and sinking and the Deepwater Horizon, in the Gulf of Mexico, eleven had died in April 2010. Some 4.9 million barrels of crude oil had escaped from the Macondo well, drilled on behalf of the "major" British Petroleum. After the disaster, BP had lost more than 52% of its stock value in less than two months.

"With the memory of Macondo, the market remains very nervous about this kind of news until the problem is not quantified," says one trader.

"This event will impact Total's production and creates a risk of pollution, limited at this stage, but not yet identified," he says, noting that the group is still undecided in his faç ; we deal with the incident.

TWO OPTIONS

Total has indeed explained explore all possible options to deal with the gas leak on the platform Elgin-Franklin, including drilling a relief well, an operation that could take six months.

"There are two options for intervention. One is to drill a relief well, which could take about six months. The other is an intervention on the platform to seal the well (…) what would be a faster option, "he told Reuters David Hainsworth, safety manager, health and environment at Total Exploration & Production UK

. "We plan to decide on a course in the coming days," he In addition to mobilizing added

. 10 to 20 engineers, the group has engaged the services of Wild Well Control, society that occurred during the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010

. Total said Monday it has stopped production and have evacuated its staff on site (238 people), after the leak occurred Sunday. 

The platform was producing nine million cubic meters of gas per day, equivalent to 3% of UK production of natural gas and 60,000 barrels per day of light crude.

The gas cloud that formed around the platform, located off Scotland to 240 kilometers east of Aberdeen, has forced Shell to evacuate employees of two neighboring platforms for safety reasons.

The leak has formed a cloud dense enough to be visible to other platforms in the North Sea. Shell has decided to suspend, as a precaution, to drill on one of them.

The environmental consequences of leakage of natural gas condensates are much less serious than those of oil spills, has informed the British Minister of Energy.

An exclusion zone of sea and air, however, was declared around the platform, said Total.

The title Exonhit significantly lower Thursday at the Paris Bourse after the publication of 2011 results considered very encouraging for the future of the biotechnology company, according to stakeholders.

For the past year, Exonhit reduced its loss to 7.1 million euros, against a loss of 7.7 million in 2010, and indicated that on 31 December 2011, his strated ; Flow was $ 12.9 million, giving it about 24 months of cash.

She also announced today have repaid all its long-term debt.

Turnover dropped to 5 million euros last year, against 8.4 million a year earlier. 

The company claims to have achieved savings in 2011 of two million euros in a full year after abandoning a planned acquisition and cut expenses on clinical Aclarus DX, the blood test of Alzheimer's disease.

Present equally in the market for drugs for neurodegenerative diseases and the diagnosis, Exonhit gives no numerical targets for 2012 merely say "more than ever" confident in achieving its prospects.

"The year 2012 will Exonhit to that of expanding our portfolio of diagnostic products, its own or in collaboration, while maintaining a solid financial structure," said the pre Chairman of the Executive Loïc Maurel, said in the statement of results. 

At 11:10, the action Exonhit lost 9.36% to 1.84 euros in large volumes, showing a market capitalization of 62.78 million euros. At this price level, the title was up 73.6% since the beginning of the year, after a loss of 48.29% last year.

At Bryan Garnier, Sebastien Malafosse the analyst points out that the market "expects a start-up Exonhit as it invests in its future development rather than focus on reducing of its cost structure ".

The views of the steps taken in 2011, he continues, "the road is still long for Exonhit and maturity of 24 months of cash could happen quickly."

With other analysts, however, it notes that the action has Exonhit, like those of other biotechs, gained much ground in recent sessions, so the decline of this morning can also be explained by profit taking.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange ended down Monday on profit-taking after gaining 3.7% during the previous two sessions and over 17% since the beginning of year.

The Nikkei lost 39.88 points (0.4%) to 9,889.86. Topix abandons 3.43 points (0.4%) to 845.28.

The Nikkei has reached in a meeting peak of 10,021.51, the highest since August 2011.

Salzgitter, the second German steelmaker, on Monday issued a pretax profit increased fourfold, as expected by investors, but warned that the year 2012 would not as favorable as 2011, a forecast that is significantly reducing its share price.

The title fell by 5.16% to 42.97 euros at 8:22 GMT, while the Dax gave up 0.69% and the sector index Stoxx 600 Basic Resources yielded 1.47%.

Salzgitter said he expects this year to at least stable sales and a positive taxable income, while explaining that it would be "difficult" to do as well in 2011.

Last year, pretax profit rose to 201.6 million euros against 49 million in 2010, a result consistent with its forecast in Reuters poll, which gave 196 million . 

ThyssenKrupp, the German number one steel, has plunged into the red last three months of 2011 and was told last month unable to provide reliable predictions for all of its 2011 fiscal year -2012, which ends in September, due to economic uncertainties.

PPR said Thursday a sharp increase in its annual results, driven by the brilliant performances of its luxury brands, and was confident for 2012.

"The results of PPR are excellent and we are confident for 2012," said chief financial officer, Jean-François Palus, during a conference call.

The group that owns Gucci, Puma, Fnac and Redcats, saw sales increase by 11.1% last year to 12.23 billion euros, a figure slightly higher Interior to the Reuters poll of 12.13 billion. At constant exchange rates, sales growth stood at 9.3%.

The increase in turnover has been hampered by the poor performance against the Fnac, whose sales fell 3.6%, while those in the luxury division jumped 22.2 % and that of Puma significantly accelerated (10.5%).

On luxury, the CFO said that January sales were as good or better than those of the fourth quarter, which signed an organic growth of 18.6%, significantly exceeded expectations of analysts polled by Reuters (17%).

The annual operating profit rose 17% to 1.60 billion euros, slightly above consensus ($ 1.55 billion). 

For 2012, the group said anticipating growth "supported" by its turnover and a further increase in its results.

PPR accounts no longer include figures of Redcats, a subsidiary of distance selling, nor those of FNAC in Italy, these assets are to be sold and which, under accounting standards be deconsolidated from the perimeter.

Net income, up 26.4% in spring 1.05 billion euros and the proposed dividend is unchanged at 3.50 euros.