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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Latin American stocks end week at 8-month highs as commodity prices boost recovery hopes

Latin American stocks end week at 8-month highs as commodity prices boost recovery hopes

(Souce Yahoo Finance)
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Latin American stocks were mixed Friday but ended the week at eight-month highs as rising commodity prices boosted outlooks for some of the region's top exporters and suggested a deeper economic recovery.
Brazil's benchmark Ibovespa index gained 0.3 percent to 53,198, its highest close since Sept. 3, with shares in steel maker Gerdau SA climbing 1 percent. The Porto Alegre-based company comprises about 3.7 percent of the index.

Brazil's currency strengthened 2 percent to 1.97 reals to the U.S. dollar, ending the day below the 2-real mark for the first time since Oct. 1. The currency has gained about 28 percent since its three-year low in December as the government sold billions in dollar reserves to weaken demand for the greenback.

"The sustained appreciation trend is not only a reflection of Brazil's more optimistic outlook, but also is common to many other currencies in Latin America," Barclays Capital said in a note to investors. "As risk aversion dwindles, the dollar's role as a safe haven has tended to come down and we have seen a joint pickup in investments in emerging markets."

The real's outlook is so strong that Brazil's central bank has resumed buying dollars, and analysts say it may not let the dollar slip much below the 2-real mark in order to keep Brazilian exports more competitive. Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes this week warned that a less than 2-real dollar may hurt Brazilian crop sales.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Latin-American-stocks-end-apf-15389363.html?.v=2
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Saudi Billionaire With HSBC Stake Has Accounts Frozen

Saudi Billionaire With HSBC Stake Has Accounts Frozen

May 31 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s central bank ordered the country’s banks to freeze the accounts of Maan al-Sanea, the Saudi billionaire who owns a stake in HSBC Holdings Plc, people familiar with the instructions said.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency sent circulars to the legal departments of Saudi-based banks on May 28 and May 30 telling the lenders to freeze the accounts, including credit cards, of al-Sanea, his wife and four family members, according to one person who read the documents. SAMA didn’t say why it took the action, according to the person, who declined to be identified because the information is confidential.

Al-Sanea, who is chairman of the Khobar-based Saad Group, also manages The International Banking Corp. B.S.C., a unit of Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Co., according to an Algosaibi official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Algosaibi said last week that TIBC’s creditors weren’t paid “pending a debt restructuring exercise.” The bank has $2.2 billion of short-and medium-term debt, according to a May 16 report by Capital Intelligence, a credit analysis and ratings company.

“Although Mr. al-Sanea was at one time named as a managing director of Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Co., he has not acted in such capacity for many years and is not involved in the operations of Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Co. in any way,” a London-based spokesman said on behalf of Saad Group in response to questions from Bloomberg News. The spokesman said al-Sanea doesn’t manage TIBC.

$7 Billion Fortune

People in the Saudi banking industry said their employers had received instructions to freeze al-Sanea’s credit lines, though they hadn’t seen the documents. They spoke on condition that they not be identified because the information is confidential and they’re not authorized to speak to the press.

The central bank didn’t respond to two e-mails seeking comment on al-Sanea after the governor’s office asked for questions to be submitted electronically.

Al-Sanea’s net worth is $7 billion, ranking him as the world’s 62nd richest person, Forbes magazine reported March 11.

As of Dec. 30, al-Sanea indirectly held 359.1 million shares, or 2.97 percent, of London-based HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, according to an HSBC filing. The stake is worth about 2 billion pounds ($3.28 billion).

Al-Sanea’s Saad Investment Co. received a $2.82 billion loan from a group of 26 European, U.S., Asian and Arab banks in September 2007 as the global credit crisis damped demand for debt. Earlier that year, Saad Trading Contracting & Financial Services Co., part of al-Sanea’s Saad Group of companies, said it would borrow $5 billion as part of a 20-year plan to diversify investments inside and outside the kingdom.

MEED Report

The Middle East Economic Digest reported on May 23 that Algosaibi had defaulted on $1 billion of foreign exchange transactions, trade finance loans and swap agreements. The magazine cited unidentified bankers.

The default by TIBC, Algosaibi’s Bahrain-based unit, was a “conscious decision not to honor debt payments,” even though the bank’s $400 million equity portfolio means it had enough money to do so, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said May 12.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a71Eo4dH6iVE&refer=home
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Friday, May 29, 2009

Dow 10,000, Revisited: Paul Kedrosky Sees Stocks "Considerably Higher" by Year-End

Dow 10,000, Revisited: Paul Kedrosky Sees Stocks "Considerably Higher" by Year-End

CARLSBAD, CALIF. -- Stocks rallied sharply Wednesday, resuming the climb off the March lows, a move Paul Kedrosky attributes to the "‘the world hasn't ended' trade plus inventory restocking."

Citing the ongoing skepticism in the rally's staying power (a contrarian indicator), the Infectious Greed blogger and senior research advisor to Ten Asset Management believes the market is likely to "saw-tooth [its] way considerably higher through the rest of the year."

How considerably?

Kedrosky thinks the S&P could approach 1100 by year-end, which would translate into the Dow well above 10,000.

Monday, May 18, 2009

India shines among weaker bourses

LONDON (Reuters) - Equities in Europe and Japan fell on Monday although emerging markets got a big boost from Indian elections which raised hopes of a stable, pro-economic reform government.
The dollar strengthened slightly against major currencies after last's week four-month low.
India was a bright spot for equity investors with the benchmark 30-share BSE index .BSESN surging more than 17 percent before trading was halted for the day.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition defied predictions of a tight election result and was only about 11 seats short of an outright majority following the vote count.
A strong Indian coalition, free of the pressures from its former communist partners, has boosted the prospect of reforms to encourage growth in Asia's third-largest economy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSTRE54B01U20090518
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Thursday, May 14, 2009

A Royal Investment

An Oil Giant Shakes Off Its Slumber
by Naureen Malik
A Royal Investment 5/13/2009

Barrons.com's Naureen Malik explains why beaten-down shares of oil giant Shell are set for a comeback.
With improving fundamentals and a 7% dividend yield, Royal Dutch Shell looks like an appealing investment. (Barrons Video)

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

U.S. retail sales fall again in April

INSTANT VIEW: U.S. retail sales fall again in April

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sales at U.S. retailers fell for a second straight month in April, pulled down by sluggish gasoline and electronic goods purchases, government data showed on Wednesday.
U.S. import prices climbed again in April as imported oil prices posted their sharpest jump in more than seven years, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday.

KEY POINTS:

RETAILS SALES * The Commerce Department said total retail sales slipped 0.4 percent after falling by a revised 1.3 percent in March, previously reported as a 1.2 percent drop. * Excluding motor vehicles and parts, sales dipped 0.5 percent in April, compared to a 1.2 percent decline the prior month. Vehicles and parts sales rose 0.2 percent after a 2.0 percent plunge in March. * Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales to be flat in April. Excluding motor vehicles, sales had been predicted to rise 0.2 percent. Read Article...
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE54C3B520090513
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Monday, May 11, 2009

Analysts Turning Bearish on S&P 500 After 14% Rally

Analysts Turning Bearish on S&P 500 After 14% Rally

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- The biggest earnings-season rally since 2002 has pushed 34 percent of the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index above analysts’ price targets for the next year, raising concerns about the pace of the recovery.
The S&P 500 is within 5 percent of the combined price projections of more than 1,700 securities analysts after gaining 14 percent since Alcoa Inc. reported first-quarter results on April 7. Caterpillar Inc., the largest maker of excavators, and Citigroup Inc., the bank rescued by $45 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds, are among 170 companies that trade above their average price estimates, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
So far, analysts have resisted lifting price and earnings targets after the S&P 500 surged 37 percent from a 12-year low in March. The combination of falling profit predictions, rising valuations and higher costs for options that insure against losses are raising investor concerns that the rally may have come too far, too fast.
“To expect this to continue to move onward and upward from here would be unrealistic,” said Leo Grohowski, chief investment officer at Bank of New York Mellon Wealth Management, which oversees $132 billion in New York. “It would be healthy for the market to take a breather and allow some of the fundamentals to catch up.” Read Article...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVxRKebyGa5o&refer=home

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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Unilever first quarter 2009 results

Unilever first quarter 2009 results

On Thursday 7th May 2009 at 7am (UK time) Unilever released its first quarter results for 2009First quarter results, Thursday 7th May 2009

Format Title Date File size
PDF Q1 2009 Results announcement 07/05/2009 120.4Kb

Q1 2009 Results announcement.
PDF Q1 2009 Results highlights 07/05/2009 66.7Kb

Q1 2009 Results highlights.
PDF Q1 2009 Results presentation 07/05/2009 1144.1Kb

Presentation by Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Lawrence, Chief Financial Officer, on Q1 2009 results.
PDF Q1 2009 Results speech 07/05/2009 56.5Kb

Speech by Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Lawrence, Chief Financial Officer, on Q1 2009 results.

Download page: http://www.unilever.com/investorrelations/results/

do 07 mei 2009, 11:41
Unilever wil volumes terug
http://www.telegraaf.nl/dft/bedrijven/unilever_c/3865336/__Unilever_wil_volumes_terug__.html

(Bron: DFT)
ROTTERDAM (AFN) - Was- en voedingsmiddelenconcern Unilever wil hogere volumes halen. Met name in West-Europa verkoopt Unilever minder producten en dat moet veranderen. De pas aangetreden topman Paul Polman zegt acties te hebben genomen om al in het tweede kwartaal hogere volumes te boeken.
Unilever zal in het lopende tweede kwartaal het tempo van innovaties opvoeren en meer ondersteuning geven aan de merken. Dit laatste moet resulteren in de hogere volumes, maar zal wel de brutowinstmarge drukken door hogere uitgaven aan advertenties. De winstmarge staat ook onder druk van de nog steeds hoge grondstofprijzen.
Donderdag presenteerde het Brits-Nederlandse concern bekend van merken als Knorr, Unox en Ola de eerstekwartaalcijfers. Unilever spreekt van “een solide start van 2009”.

Het concern behaalde een 1 procent lagere omzet dan een jaar eerder van 9,51 miljard euro. De onderliggende omzetgroei - de verkopen tegen constante wisselkoersen en exclusief aan- en verkopen van onderdelen- bedroeg 4,8 procent. Dit was te danken aan prijsverhogingen, want de verkopen daalden met 1,8 procent.
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good for America?

The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good for America?

(Source: Time Magazine Permalink)
In the early 1980s, around the time Ronald Reagan became President and Wall Street's great modern bull market began, we started gambling (and winning!) and thinking magically. From 1980 to 2007, the median price of a new American home quadrupled. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed from 803 in the summer of 1982 to 14,165 in the fall of 2007. From the beginning of the '80s through 2007, the share of disposable income that each household spent servicing its mortgage and consumer debt increased 35%. Back in 1982, the average household saved 11% of its disposable income. By 2007 that number was less than 1%. (See TIME's top 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

The same zeitgeist made gambling ubiquitous: until the late '80s, only Nevada and New Jersey had casinos, but now 12 states do, and 48 have some form of legalized betting. It's as if we decided that Mardi Gras and Christmas are so much fun, we ought to make them a year-round way of life. And we started living large literally as well as figuratively. From the beginning to the end of the long boom, the size of the average new house increased by about half. Meanwhile, the average American gained about a pound a year, so that an adult of a given age is now at least 20 lb. heavier than someone the same age back then. In the late '70s, 15% of Americans were obese; now a third are. (Read "What's the Best Diet? Eating Less Food.")
We saw what was happening for years, for decades, but we ignored it or shrugged it off, preferring to imagine that we weren't really headed over the falls. The U.S. auto industry has been in deep trouble for more than a quarter-century. The median household income has been steadily declining this century ... but, but, but our houses and our 401(k)s were ballooning in value, right? Even smart, proudly rational people engaged in magical thinking, acting as if the new power of the Internet and its New Economy would miraculously make everything copacetic again. We all clapped our hands and believed in fairies. Read Article...
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1887728,00.html?iid=perma_share

The popular culture tried to warn us. For 20 years, we've had Homer Simpson's spot-on caricature of the quintessential American: childish, irresponsible, willfully oblivious, fat and happy. And more recently we winced at the ultra-Homerized former earthlings of WALL•E.

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Business Update: BofA shock absorbed

Business Update: BofA shock absorbed
(01:09) Report Reuters Video

May 6 - Asian markets remained largely unchanged after Bank of America said it may sell Chinese stakes, tempered by optimism Chinese manufacturing would spur growth in regional exporters.



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Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Fed Stress Test Results May Show 10 U.S. Banks Need Capital

Fed Stress Test Results May Show 10 U.S. Banks Need Capital

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve plans to deliver results of stress tests on U.S. banks to executives today that may show about 10 companies need additional capital to weather a deeper recession, people familiar with the matter said.

Banks are formulating plans for filling their capital requirements, much of which would likely come from conversions of preferred shares, the people said. Many of the 19 lenders under review and the government are set to discuss publicly the examinations after markets close May 7, the people said.
Financial shares jumped the most in almost a month yesterday on optimism about the tests. The Treasury and regulators have presented different options for the banks to shore up their books without taking taxpayer money, including selling assets, seeking private capital and converting previous government investments from preferred to common shares.
“Maybe the capital that’s required from these tests is going to be smaller than the market had been anticipating,” said Blake Howells, an analyst at Becker Capital Management, which oversees $1.7 billion in Portland, Oregon, and owns shares of U.S. Bancorp and KeyCorp, referring to the stock rally.

Still, “for the stress test to have any sort of legitimacy, some of the banks are going to have to raise capital,” he said.

Fed Meeting
Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment. The Fed’s Board of Governors met late on May 3rd to discuss the stress tests, according to a posting on the central bank’s Web site, the second Sunday evening meeting on the matter in three weeks.
Last week, the Fed delayed the release of the tests, originally scheduled for yesterday, as banks challenged some of the conclusions. Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. were among the banks found to need additional capital, people familiar with the matter have said. Read Article...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiw0TbO.lTsM&refer=home
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