International Business News

The net private capital flight from Russia has already reached $ 43 billion in April. At this rate the figure of 80.5 billion recorded in 2011 could be beaten. Vladimir Putin.

The election of Vladimir Putin in March may have ended the political uncertainties but not the flight of private capital observed for two years in Russia. "Capital flight continued in April, to $ 8 billion, according to our preliminary estimates," said Monday the Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency. And the Russian official expects a continuation of mouvenment in May.

"Capital flight is much stronger than expected," added Mr. Klepach. In April, the Russian Central Bank (BCR) had indicated that net private capital flight from Russia had reached nearly $ 35.1 billion in first quarter 2012. In 2011, she had more than doubled compared to last year, to $ 80.5 billion, against $ 34.4 billion in 2010.

To explain this phenomenon, the leaders of the Russian Central Bank has repeatedly complained of the poor investment climate in Russia. The acceleration of this phenomenon is also due to the global financial crisis, making loans harder to obtain, put a stop to capital inflow in Russia, according to rating agency Standard and Poor's. The agency had also discussed the "political uncertainties" that weighed before the presidential election of March 4, won by the country's strongman, Vladimir Putin.

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The British telecoms operator BT said on Thursday a 12% increase in its annual dividend, its cost savings and solid demand in broadband that led to its beneficial ; fice and its cash flow despite an overall decline in sales.

BT, which has relied in recent years of spending cuts and efficiencies to power its cash, has also pledged that his dividend increased by 10 to 15% per year over the next three years.

"In what remains a difficult environment, we recorded another year of earnings growth and free cash flow," said CEO Ian Livingston. 

BT, which competes with Virgin Media and TalkTalk, shows a steady improvement in its performance since the profit warnings issued in 2008 and 2009, and because of the strict control its costs.

The full year, earnings from main businesses grew 3% to 6.1 billion pounds despite a 4% drop in sales , to 19 billion pounds (23.65 billion euros).

The cash flow appears considerably higher than projected at 2.5 billion pounds.

BT results were supported by an agreement in March to fill the deficit of 4.1 billion pounds pension fund's staff decided more quickly than before. The announcement was relieved investors by opening the door to a potential increase in dividends.

"It is not possible to renegotiate the pact budget", said on Monday a spokesman for German Chancellor. This ensures that Francois Hollande will be welcomed "with open arms." German Chancellor Angela Merkel (the Bundestag by December 2, 2011).

Germany has raised its conditions Monday to President-elect Francois Hollande, ruling out any renegotiation of the European fiscal pact and all initiatives "growth deficit".

"It is not possible to renegotiate the fiscal pact", which has already been "signed by 25 of the 27 member states of the European Union", which aims to strengthen discipline in public finance management, said the spokesman of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Steffen Seibert, during a press conference.

He was asked about the willingness of Mr. Holland to add a component to the pact on growth. In this regard, Mr. Seibert also reiterated the conditions of Berlin: Germany does not want "a growth deficit, but growth through structural reforms."

Clearly, there is no question for the Merkel government in Europe to promote recovery policies, but to promote the path chosen by Germany and the labor market reforms implemented by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder .

French President elect had scored on his victory speech by his willingness to "give to the European dimension of growth, employment, prosperity, the future" and explain in Berlin and other partners that "the austerity could no longer be inevitable. "

A little later, Angela Merkel said that Francois Hollande is welcomed "with open arms" during his first visit to Germany, taking place after the handover. "We work well together and intensively," said Merkel at a news conference in Berlin, stressing that "the Franco-German cooperation is essential for Europe and we all want Europe to succeed" .

Wall Street fell more than 1.2% Friday, accusing them of this fact its worst weekly performance since the beginning of the year, within the scope of the announcement of a number of new jobs for the month of April far below expectations.

The Dow Jones Industrial 30 yielded 1.27%, or 168.32 points to 13,038.27. The S & P-500, wider, lost 22.47 points, or 1.61%, to 1369.10. The Nasdaq Composite fell on its side of 67.96 points (-2.25%) to 2,956.34.

On the whole week, the Dow has sold 1.4%, the S & P 500 2.4% and Nasdaq 3.7%. The latter two had their worst week since November and December respectively.

Some 115,000 people were recruited in the nonagricultural sector last month, announced Friday the Labor Department, against 154,000 in March and 259,000 in February, two figures it is true revised ; s up (for a cumulative total of 53,000).

Economists anticipated 170,000 net new jobs for the month of April after the 120,000 originally announced for March.

The unemployment rate, calculated from a separate survey, returned to 8.1% of the workforce, against 8.2% in March and 8.3% in February, a level not seen since January 2009 when it was 7.8%. 

Despite this recent positive development, the market players have mostly retained the figure for job creation, which leads them to fear a slowdown in U.S. growth.

At its current level, it is already considered insufficient to significantly reduce unemployment.

The approach of elections in Greece and France and any uncertainties they may have a Europe which still has not put the debt crisis behind it also contributed to stopping the coast.

"Market participants liquidated their positions after the employment figures and should not change posture throughout the weekend," said Frank Lesh, an analyst at FuturePath Trading LLC. 

The energy values ​​were strongly accused the coup after the employment statistics, due to fears of a possible slowdown weigh on demand black.

Because of these fears, the price per barrel of U.S. light crude also fell 4%, from below $ 100 for the first time since February. The S & P compartment of the energy of Wall Street has sold 2.17%.

The action Exxon Mobil sold 1.26% to 84.57 dollars and Chevron that of 2.14% to 103.72 dollars, the two values ​​are among the largest declines in the Dow Jones .

The area composed of values ​​related to utilities, considered defensive in times of uncertainty, is the only one that ended in the green, with a gain of 0.16%.

The action Estee Lauder has lost 5.35% to 60.72 dollars after the U.S. cosmetics group announced earnings guidance deemed disappointing for the fourth quarter of fiscal year and expressed his concerns about the slowdown in China. 

The way LinkedIn has instead won 7.21% to 117.30 dollars after the professional social network has raised its annual results after better than expected first quarter, supported by strong growth in business services.

The action took Dole 7.69% to 9.39 dollars after the distributor of fruits and vegetables said he could split some divisions following a strategic review its activities.

Wall Street ended higher Friday, as a result of strong corporate earnings often, especially high tech values ​​such as Amazon. Com and Expedia began to counterbalance the economic indicators for the less mixed lately, like the GDP released Friday.

The Dow Jones gained 23.69 points (0.18%) to 13,228.31. The S & P 500 is 3.38 points (0.24%) to 1,403.36. The Nasdaq Composite gained 18.59 points (0.61%) to 3,069.20.

Over the whole week, the Dow shows a gain of 1.5%, the S & P 500 gained 1.8%, while the Nasdaq 2.3% advance.

The Dow and S & P and enroll their weekly gain the highest since mid-March. For the Nasdaq, is the more substantial gain since early February.

Of the 287 companies in the S & P 500 that have published their accounts, 73% of the students have exceeded the consensus, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The gains of the day, even though moderate minimal, yet allow Wall Street to make its best weekly performance since more than a month.

Growth of the U.S. economy slowed in the first quarter mainly because of declining business investment, although the strength of the automotive market has helped ease the movement.

Another statistic was published on Friday, held better than GDP. 

The U.S. consumer sentiment improved slightly in April to its highest level since February 2011, according to final data from the monthly survey Thomson Reuters -University of Michigan.

Values, Amazon.com and the online travel agency Expedia surged 15.75% respectively and 23.54%, the two companies that reported results Thursday at the higher consensus and having allowed the Nasdaq Composite to register a gain slightly higher than the Dow or S & P.

Procter & Gamble lowered its earnings forecast Friday yearly because of the fragility of developed markets, more aggressive pricing of its competitors on certain products and pressure on prices in Venezuela in particular.

The action yields 3.63%. 

Ford announced Friday a drop in quarterly profit, a result of his difficulties outside of the U.S. market, but the results exceeded the expectations of investors.

The action coward 2.27%.

Chevron released Friday net profit up 4% in the first quarter, boosted by higher oil prices and improved margins in its refining background of declining its oil and gas.

The action ended unchanged.

Merck published Friday quarterly earnings slightly above expectations, boosted by tighter control of costs, but revenue has however disappointed expectations facing generic competition.

The action eventually stationary.

The new lawyer's former trader Jerome Kerviel, who was sentenced in 2010 to five years in prison for three farm loss of 4.9 billion suffered by the bank Société Générale ; eral in 2008, renewed the assault of his former company.

David Koubbi me, who just succeeded Olivier Metzner to defend the prisoner for his appeal hearing in June, wrote to the chairmen of the Assembly Finance e and Senate to be surprised that SocGen could receive a tax deduction of nearly 1.7 billion euros in compensation from the e episode.

In his letter obtained by Reuters has learned me Koubbi asks Jérôme Cahuzac Philippe Marini and the convening of a commission on this episode. This request will remain a dead letter at least for now, the Parliament sitting over pending legislative elections in June

But it is a way for Jerome Kerviel, also condemned in first instance to repay 4.9 billion euros, to start the assault on his former company , it has always accused of being informed of their risk practices and turning a blind eye as they pertained.

Koubbi is me in his letter that a tax deduction for exceptional loss is legally possible that if there were no obvious deficiency in the controls. Now this is the case, since the Banking Commission fined 4 million euros to SocGen in 2008 for this failure.

"It seems to me that the allocation of that amount in favor of Societe Generale goes against the established case law applicable to the deduction tax (…) I therefore ask you to convene a committee to inform our citizens, "the lawyer wrote in his letters.

Convicted of embezzlement, forgery and using false and fraudulent intrusion into a system of data processing, Jerome Kerviel, who was also sentenced to ; repay the loss, is currently free and still has not paid, the appeal is suspensive. 

The trial court ruled that he had deliberately violated his professional engagements and hidden the reality of its position in its hierarchy.

The young man admitted pronouncements risk of dizzy from 2005 to 2008 on European equity market indices, reaching nearly 50 billion euros, and camouflaged by other reversals of orders fictitious market, expected to cover the risk.

Unsettled after the announcement of their discovery by the bank, in full rout of financial markets, these positions, which were once largely the beneficiaries, ultimately caused a net loss of 4.9 billion euros.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena suffered a net loss of 4.69 billion euros last year and said Thursday it would pay no dividend for fiscal 2011, which is tumbling the stock exchange.

The market was expecting a loss twice as heavy, according to Thomson Reuters consensus I / B / E / S was -2.13 billion.

The third Italian bank, which is restructuring and has also undertaken to reduce the size of its balance sheet, recorded in its accounts for 4.51 billion euros of writedowns in total.

The capital ratio "hard" was 8.5% at end-2011 excluding 1.9 billion euros of bonds guaranteed by the state written in 2009 to strengthen its capital.

At 10:45 GMT, the share was down 8.2% to 0.3314 Euro, by far the worst performance of the European banking sector index (-1.37%). 

The competitors UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo also recorded huge writedowns on their fiscal 2011.

But analysts say Montepaschi particularly vulnerable because it has to find 3.3 billion euros of capital by June to comply with new European regulatory requirements.

European shares ended Wednesday at their lowest closing levels for three weeks, concerns about U.S. growth and the fiscal situation of Spain showing the above.

In Paris the CAC 40 lost 1.14% to close at 3430.15 points, just below its 50-day moving average and its lowest in March 23.

The London Stock Exchange yielded 1.03% and 1.13% in Frankfurt. The benchmark index of the Madrid Stock Exchange dropped 1.96%.

Of the European indices, the Eurostoxx 50 was down 1.13% to 2,496.68 points – in its 50-day moving average – and Eurofirst 300 lost 1.02% to 1,072.48 points – just above his own.

"The markets were down with the bank, especially Spanish because of sluggish economic outlook in Spain, and durable goods orders subdued in the U.S.," said Alexandre Le Drogoff, manager special ; cialist of technical analysis in Talence Management.

He believes that the next support is at 3396 points for the CAC 40 or the "gap" opened on March 8, then from 3350 to 3360 points, its lowest points in February and March. 

As for values, Total (-1.4%) again weighed on the CAC 40, as before, following the gas leak on one of its deposits in the North Sea.

Bank stocks were cyclical and the most affected by the current sales, including Spanish banks Banco Popular, which lost 3.31% and Bankia which lost 3.61%.

Oil prices fell back, Brent losing 1.3% to 123.92 dollars a barrel, after rising more than expected U.S. inventories last week.

The German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has admitted for the first time Monday that the initiative to introduce a tax on financial transactions in the euro area was bound to e failure.

"We simply can not do it, even in the euro area alone," said Schaeuble in Berlin, referring to the Franco-German initiative to bail out of public finances with by the financial crisis. "We will therefore try something else."

Britain and other European countries do not support this tax, commonly known as "Robin Hood Tax," he said Schäuble, adding that the establishment of such a tax n ' was conceivable that across the EU.

A working paper of the European Commission is the basis for thinking of this tax, which could raise up to 57 billion euros, mainly from London, the leading financial center of the EU.

France must introduce in the coming months its own tax, similar to stamp duty imposed on the London stock exchange transactions.

Net inflows of life insurance has turned positive in February for the first time since August. But the lights are far from all being returned to green. Explanations.

Life insurance finds the appeal to the French. Net new money (deposits less withdrawals) was positive in February in France, to the tune of 300 million euros for the first time in seven months, according to figures released Friday by the two main associations of insurers. This figure confirms the recent comments from several insurers, which reported a relative normalization of the market after a very difficult semester, unprecedented in the history of this offering.

Withdrawals down

The return to the green net inflows is primarily attributable to a sharp slowdown in redemptions (withdrawals), down 24% compared to January. They are still 21% above their level in February 2011. At the same time, payments recorded a more moderate decline of 14% compared to January 2012 and 13.5% compared with February 2011, according to figures released by the French Association of Insurance (AFA), that meets the French Federation of Insurance Companies (FFSA) and the Group of mutual insurance companies (Gema). The total amount placed on life insurance contracts has increased from 1.369 billion to 1.377 billion in January end in late February.

These figures tend to confirm the speech held by many insurers, who announced several weeks back to "a sense of normalcy," the term used by the CEO of AXA France, Nicolas Moreau, mid-February. "The movement announced inflection is confirmed over the last month," he told AFP the president of the FFSA, Bernard Spitz, while calling for caution. "It is far too early to see a trend," he warned. Life insurance, however, seems out of the rut, after a year-end nightmare.

Crisis in the eurozone and sluggish economy

The product has suffered because of the deepening crisis in the euro area, which prompted investors to favor short-term investments. But many of these products were already pushed forcefully by banks, launched a hunt for deposits in view of the arrival of the new regulatory framework, says Basel III.

Climate degradation, but also the planned reduction of Scellier, also resulted in the postponement of significant financial investments to real estate. "There was an overall campaign debt", marked, among other things, a wave of mortgage repayments, observed Mr. Moreau. He said "it is possible that at the peak of the crisis, our people have chosen to pay off debt rather than reinvest."

Calming the markets

The normalization of markets, beginning in 2012, supported by advances on Greece and off operations of the European Central Bank (ECB), have provided some form of appeasement. "The purchases have decreased significantly, people are less worried" at the end of 2011, said Thursday the CEO of the insurance arm of BNP Paribas, Eric Lombard. "On the first months of 2012, Aviva is pleased with the evolution of the collection," said Aviva France Friday. However, several factors unfavorable to life remain, primarily the arrival of the retired generation "baby boom" and the continued decline in yields. Last month, the CEO of CNP Assurances, Gilles Benoist, and had talked about "turning point".  

"Life insurance is going to find his true vocation, which is not to compete with short-term banking products, but to constitute a real reserve of long-term savings and fund pensions and dependency," he had said. A vocation that does not seem challenged by the candidates in the presidential election in a position to be elected. "On the substantive issues, there is a line of force that consensus on the left and right is one that returns a favor long-term savings," said Mr. Spitz. For him, "everybody understands that to have growth, you need investment and therefore long-term savings. I have no fear as long as this message has gone."