The U.S. indexes made a step backwards at the beginning of today’s session, which last for the current quarter after disappointing data on the labor market of today. They showed that employment in the private sector of the U.S. economy unexpectedly fell in March, with another 23 thousand people were unemployed. Market expectations were for an increase in the number of jobs by 40 thousand this month. Worse than expected and proved data on factory activity in the North Western United States, which slowed its pace of growth in March. The index of economic activity in the factory sector in the Chicago area dropped to 58.8 points in March to 62.6 in February. The indexes withdrew part of its initial decreases after it became clear that new orders for the production of manufactured goods rose for the sixth consecutive month in February. This is a good sign for the economy because it portends greater activity in the manufacturing sector in the coming months. The index that tracks the value of new factory orders rose by 0.6 percent compared to January when increased even more by 2.5% on a monthly basis. The index of 30 most traded companies with the highest market capitalization Dow Jones IA lost 0.1 percent to 10 891.7 points an hour after the start of the session. The broader S & P 500 gave up 0.1 percent to 1 171 points and Nasdaq Exchange Nasdaq Composite main index remained unchanged at 2 410.57 points.
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The latest this week in the U.S. trading session began with strong increases in three major indexes, after earlier today showed that initial unemployment in the country has fallen to its lowest level in 19 months, while factory activity in the sector reached its highest point for six years. The index of 30 largest and most traded companies in the Dow Jones IA U.S. rose by 0.7% to 10 396.82 points one hour after the start of the session. The broader S & P 500 advanced by 0.8% to 1 179.14 points and Nasdaq Exchange main index Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, added 0.7 percent in value to 2 415.13 points. Stock optimism today was supported by data on the labor market, which showed that the planned redundancies reduced for the 13th consecutive month in March, and new applications for unemployment benefits fell to its lowest level since August 2009 here. The number of long-term unemployed Americans is also reduced. Finance Minister of the United States, however, warned in a television interview today that unemployment in the U.S. can remain “unacceptably high” for an extended period of time. He stated that at this stage, the country can not afford to reduce its budget deficit at the expense of supporting the economy forward CNBC. Even better were the data after the start of today’s trading session, which showed that U.S. factory sector recover more quickly from the crisis. The index, which monitors business activity in it, rose for the eighth consecutive month in March and reached 59.6 points to its highest level in six years.
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Despite the uncertainty caused by the fiscal crisis in Greece, and fluctuations in the recovery of world economy, last month gave the stock exchanges in Asia at their strongest growth since July 2009. Almost all securities markets in the Asian and Pacific region also failed to finish the quarter and positive territory. Thus, the regional index MSCI Asia Pacific, which combines traded companies from 10 Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand, added 4 percent to its value over the past three months, said fourth quarter growth. Profits from the beginning of March amounted to 6%, which is the strongest monthly growth since July 2009 when the index increased by 8.4%. Stock optimism in Asia in March was fueled by the decision of the Bank of Japan (YATSB) to double the size of the program for the granting of emergency loans to commercial banks in the country. This month the U.S. Federal Reserve renewed its pledge to maintain low interest rates in the country in the coming months to support the fragile economic growth. Liberal monetary policy of major central banks encourage investment in shares, because the source of a large amount of money in circulation and it is also necessary for the recovery of world economy. Fiscal crisis in Greece and concerns about the future of the euro area, however, cast a shadow on financial markets worldwide earlier this year. However the last three months have brought 5 percent growth index of blue chips in Japan’s Nikkei 225, increased 9 percent for the main stock index in Indonesia and Jakarta Composite 8.1 percent increase for the Thailand index Thai. Thanks to strong inflows of external capital Thai rose 64 percent last year, and today it is 84 percent above its level at the end of March 2009.
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The Deputy Chairman of Gazprom Valery Golubev was elected Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Belarusian state gas transmission company Beltransgaz “at took place in Minsk, annual general meeting of shareholders it, RIA Novosti reported. In the Supervisory Board of Beltransgaz has already come in four representatives of Gazprom and Belarus, including Deputy Prime Minister, who until now headed the Supervisory Board and the Minister of Energy of Belarus. Representatives of Gazprom already occupy half the seats of the senior management of the Belarusian gas company, as the Russian gas giant recently completed its purchase of 50% of her shares. The contract of sale was signed in 2007, with total assets of Beltransgaz was evaluated by ABN Amro of 5 billion dollars. Under the terms of the agreement Gazprom had to acquire up to May this year, half of the shares of Beltransgaz for 2.5 billion dollars to pay for a period of 4 equal parts.
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The yield on corporate bonds goes up for the fourth consecutive quarter that has not happened since 2004, cited by Bloomberg. Their return will be increased by 2.6 percentage points in the first quarter of this year after record profits by 16% in 2009. The increase was the largest since the U.S. bank Bank of America Merrill Lynch results statistics for return on corporate bonds. Rally of the debt markets worldwide to enhance the appearance of first signs of recovery in the economy. As a result, companies worldwide have issued debt for 730 million dollars in this quarter, which is 25% more than the same period of 2009 interest rates in the U.S. and many developed economies fell near zero a year ago, and this has led investors to seek riskier assets and bring them higher returns. In this week showed that sales of high-risk corporate bonds rose to a record 38.9 billion dollars within the first three months of the year. These are corporate debt securities rated below Baa3 by the system of Moody’s.
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Mergers and acquisitions worldwide are gaining momentum in the first quarter of the year in the last three months were made over 2 thousand cross-border acquisitions and hostile takeovers 10. To contribute to this recovery in the global economy and stock market rally over the past 12 months. The value of takeovers increased by 5% annually during the first three months of this year to 498.24 billion dollars, cited by Bloomberg. Hostile acquisitions recorded growth of over 300 percent to 17.46 billion dollars. According to Mark Sharif, head of the Department of mergers and acquisitions for Citigroup, acquisitions may increase by 15-20% by the end of this year, provided that the global economy to shrink again. Last year, the realized value of acquisitions fell by 27 percent to 1.8 trillion. dollars, which is the lowest level for the past six years. Citigroup is one of the largest consultants in this field, she managed the sale of Asian life insurance unit of AIG, which was bought by Prudential of Britain’s 35.5 billion dollars earlier this year. It is the biggest deal in the market of mergers and acquisitions this year. Among the biggest deals this year and became hostile takeover of British chocolate maker Cadbury on the U.S. food manufacturer Kraft Foods. After four tense battle Cadbury has been absorbed by Kraft Foods for an amount of 21.4 billion dollars in February this year.
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Australia ended the monopoly of the stock exchange, permitting the creation of a second exchange for trading in shares in the country. Authorization is granted to Japan’s Nomura, but its purpose is to create competition to help develop the market. Among the main priorities of Australia has become the local stock market in the center of financial services in Asia-Pacific region, said Finance Minister Chris Bowen of the country, quoted by AP. According to him, higher competition should lead to cost reductions of about 6 million Australian citizens who have contributions to pension funds. “If Australia really wants to be considered a financial center if we are to global center for financial services, the monopoly days of our financial market must be completed,” said Bowen. Authorization for establishing a second exchange in the country is a company of Chi-X Global, which is part of network of Nomura Holdings.
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Today’s session on Wall Street began timidly with slight increases for the main indexes reached new highs for the past 18 months to the end of yesterday’s stock trading. Shares of extraction and cyclical companies perform best and brought out three U.S. index of positive territory despite news of the decline in sales of homes to their lowest level in nine months in February. Dow Jones IA, which unites 30 largest actively traded stock companies in the U.S., added 0.3 percent to 10 820.88 points and a half hours after the beginning of the session. The broad S & P 500 remained almost unchanged at a level of 1 166 points, having earlier climbed by nearly 0.2 per cent. On the Nasdaq Stock Exchange main index Nasdaq Composite also gravitates around the zero level of 2 393.55 points. All three indexes ended the session in positive territory Monday backed by shares in the health sector due to the adoption of health reform the House of Representatives to the Senate, cited by CNN. Shortly after today’s session it became clear that cold weather and snow storms in the U.S. in February decreased further activity in the property market, resulting in sales of existing homes decreased for the fourth consecutive month. They fell to 5.02 million residential units on an annual basis in February, which was their lowest level in nine months.
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Extractive companies and banks have brought a slight growth of Asian markets, after Australia & New Zealand Banking Group surprise their shareholders with news that will enter Taiwan, and metals prices rose. Meanwhile, companies in the residential sector of Japan and China are ranked among the losers, after local authorities in China have proceeded once again to restrict sales of land, while land prices in Japan reported its strongest decline for the past 36 years. The regional index MSCI Asia Pacific, which monitors stock markets in ten Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand, added 0.1 percent to 124.40 points during today’s session. Friday’s trading ended with significant decreases in most measures of national stock exchange in the region after the Indian central bank increased for the first time in the past two years its main interest rate as a step to combat rising inflation in the country. Most – by 0.7% to 3 053 points lower today Chinese broad index Shanghai Composite, followed by the index of blue chip Nikkei 225 in Japan, which slid 0.5 percent to 10 774 points. Of negative territory and closed stock trading in Taiwan, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, the Australian index S & P / ASX 200 rose by 0.9 percent to 4 874.8 points, led by mining and financial companies. Shares of all major banks rose, with the most – by 3%, increase the price of shares of Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.
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The bankrupt U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings made new accusations against Barclays Capital on Thursday, saying the British investment bank has benefited by 13 billion “emergency” profit from the transaction for the purchase of Lehman brokerage unit of the United States in September 2008. This week it became clear that Lehman Brothers is preparing to emerge from bankruptcy procedure and to resume its activities in asset management. U.S. banks Citigroup and JPMorgan were charged last week that helped the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Lehman has provided the court in Manhattan, dealing with the case in its bankruptcy documents show that Barclays was actually earned 13 billion dollars in acquiring the unit for managing the assets of Lehman. Barclays announced on accounting profit from the transaction is EUR 4.2 billion, Reuters reported. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection on September 15, 2008, after the mortgage crisis and the marketing of derivative financial instruments have led to its bankruptcy, which has become the largest in U.S. history. A week later iconic brokerage unit of Lehman was sold to Barclays for 1.85 billion dollars. According to lawyers of Lehman Brothers deal was hastily organized, and this allows Barclays to obtain the investment portfolio of its U.S. rival with a large discount from its fair value. Are challenged by Barclays of Lehman allegations as unfounded. Lehman, which results in legal battle against Barclays for months, claims that the deal presented to the court, not one that truly is concluded. From U.S. Bank believes that employees of Lehman, which have been offered a job in the unit, acquired by Barclays, it is arranged to receive a discount of 5 billion investment portfolios of Lehman, which includes securities to 70 billion dollars.
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