Financial, Business, Personal Finance News

European markets down slightly, investors cautious

Investors continue to play it safe Friday in anticipation of monthly U.S. employment. The European stock markets opened slightly down in the wake of the fence undecided on Wall Street, the CAC 40, FTSE 100 and the DAX lost between 0, 1% and 0.3%.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange ended down after three sessions of consecutive increases.

In the Greek case, the European Central Bank (ECB) is studying how to contribute to the bailout of Greece in Athens and could make profits earned on Greek bonds it holds, by circumventing the prohibition of direct financing of the States.

Values, Volvo earns 1.8%. The Swedish manufacturer of heavy trucks has yet reported an operating profit below expectations for the fourth quarter of 2011.

LVMH lost 1.5%, a victim of profit taking after the publication of its 2011 results.

Munich Re expects a rebound in profits in 2012

Munich Re has done better than expected in 2011 with a net profit of 710 million euros, supported by the positive fiscal impact of damage paid last year, and expects to find in 2012 profit levels achieved in previous years.

The annual result of the German reinsurer, before deduction of minority interests, is significantly higher than the 590 million euros expected on average by four analysts polled by Reuters, while being significantly lower than the net profit of 2.43 billion euros achieved in 2010.

"Munich Re expects for 2012 a return to results equivalent to those recorded before the year 2011," we learn in a statement. 

The world of reinsurance also announced in a statement that it intends to maintain its dividend for 2011 to 6.25 euros per share.

The title Munich Re was stable around 13h00. He lost nearly 12% of its value in one year as a result of earthquakes that hit Japan and New Zealand and storms in the United States.

Japanese stocks ended up Thursday in the wake of coordinated action by central banks to release the funding of banks has seized up with the debt crisis in Europe.

The Nikkei gained 1.93% or 162.77 points to 8597.38 points and the Topix, broader, took 1.59% or 11.55 points to 740.01 points.

Financials have been sought. The banking index gained 1.59%. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group gained almost 3%.

Daiichi Sankyo has gained nearly 2% to 1,400 yen.

This is what the UMP Hervé Mariton. The Liberal member for the Drôme also wish not to replace two out of three employees retiring. Manifestation officials Paris in January 2009.

The former UMP minister Hervé Mariton calls Tuesday to increase the working time of officials "without additional compensation" and not to replace, for three years, two out of three employees who retire, two against one now. The Liberal member for the Drôme this Tuesday night on behalf of his political club Reform and Modernity, 24 proposals to be the presidential debate of 2012.

One suggestion is to increase the working time of employees without additional compensation.The increase in working hours would be modulated depending on the grade: an extra hour per week for officials in grade C (lower level), two hours in class B and three hours in Category A.

Hervé Mariton also wants to go beyond the rule of non-replacement of an official two retiring, established in 2007 by the government. It offers up to two of the three officers for three years. He also wants to convert some officials to "priority tasks" and launch a RGPP (General Review of Public Policy) "local".

Among his other proposals, Hervé Mariton wants to "prohibit" any public aid to enterprises, "except for research," "decentralize" employment center and introduce "a quarter of alternation," "mandatory and paid" at the end of class first.

The European equity markets and U.S. signed remarkable performance under the agreement Wednesday night in Europe on Greek debt restructuring, capacity building fund to support the euro and the recapitalization of banks in Europe.

European authorities have in fact agreed to recapitalize the banking system of the European Union to the tune of 106 billion euros and received in exchange for bankers they divide by two the value of government debt securities held in their accounts to try to stem the debt crisis in the eurozone.

"You have to remove the interest-free loan in the old"

Faced with the housing crisis, Marc Pigeon, president of the federation of real estate developers, advocates PTZ redeploy funds to benefit the construction of new housing. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanlouis_zimmermann/271745826/sizes/z/in/photostream/ You publish a white paper under the title The housing priority for the Republic. Is it a guide to good ideas for presidential candidates?

Why not? What is certain is that the current situation is no longer tenable. We are in a deep housing crisis that it is imperative to get out. Housing is on average nearly a quarter of the household budget, a record.Between 2000 and 2010, the purchasing power of households grew by 43%, while new home prices jumped 84% and those of existing homes soared by 241%! This discrepancy between the increase in household incomes and rising house prices is no longer eligible. Why this situation? When you look over a long period, there was only after a vigorous effort for building the "Thirty Glorious Years", a break occurred during a decade (1975-1988) where the number of homes built has remained well below changing needs. It is as if an unmet demand for housing was made that was never resolved thereafter, creating a persistent quantitative imbalance between supply and demand for housing.One solution to overcome the present crisis: build much more! For this, we must mobilize all the levers.

You state that the modification of zoning regulations is the first project that must be addressed?

There is no point to heaps of money on the table if the planning rules do not change. Land use planning should be the keystone of the edifice. This means first a simplification in the process of granting building permits: we can divide the time by two. Then we have to stop wanting to build the city over the city. Instead, we must develop new urban spaces. Grounds exist. Look at the periphery of city centers, there are always lots available to build new shopping centers. Why not build there, of new housing by bringing all the necessary public services.This can be done since France is a country in Europe or the population density per square kilometer is the lowest in Europe.

Should we return to the products of tax exemption?

No. But it can not happen today financial resources of the private investor to build more. But it is absolutely necessary condition these tax benefits. More rents out these programs will be low, more tax benefits will be significant. That's an interesting idea to take off social housing or intermediate.

Precisely, one of the evils of this crisis is the blocking of social housing. How to get out?

It is true that the system of social housing is completely blocked: the gap between rents and those of the public park private park is so huge that people refuse to leave a public housing even when their family or financial situation would allow the.Where waiting lists and the freezing of rotations. We must break this deadlock. The idea is to create private law firms, 50% owned by private companies and 50% by housing agencies. Their main objective is to develop a rental housing through: that is to say housing where rents are cheaper than in the private sector but more expensive than social housing. Families could then leave the park freeing HLM housing. One could imagine a system where after ten years, tenants become owners of their homes. With this system, social housing finds its primary function: housing the poor.

Unlocking the social home ownership?

In 1990, the lower fringe of the middle class represented 80% of home buyers. Today, they are more than 30%.Therefore restoring the purchasing power of these households. We spend huge sums in interest-free loan without reaching resolvabiliser these households. I propose that the 1.3 billion spent in the financing of PTZ in the former are redeployed. € 900 million could be spent to finance the construction of new homes on the market with price caps and revenue caps for buyers. The remaining 400 million could be used to fund social home in the former in exchange for renovations heat.

European banks must be recapitalized, says Juncker

Several European banks must be recapitalized, said Friday the president of the Eurogroup Jean-Claude Juncker, adding that intensive discussions on the subject would begin next Monday.

Luxembourg Prime Minister said at the microphone of the German radio Deutschland Funk that the problems of banks and debt of the States were going to get worse and you need a custom solution for banks.

Asked if a forced recapitalization was intended to force the banks to contribute more, Jean-Claude Juncker said: "Banks should be aware that if the current voluntary creditors is not sufficient (…), then we must realize that we need a mandatory participation of creditors. "

Fitch lowers ratings of banks Lloyds and RBS

Thursday Fitch lowered the long-term issuer credit rating of Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland to A, AA-cons before, considering that the probability of the British government come to their rescue had fallen.

Friday, its rival Moody's had downgraded 12 financial institutions in the UK, including Lloyds and RBS, also citing the likelihood of public support for any future crisis.

The rating agency, has downgraded its rating floors for UK banks of systemic importance, says in a statement placing the Barclays notes under review with negative implications, highlighting its exposure to volatile market activities .

"The dynamics of support are changing in the UK," Judge Fitch.

"Not only the banking system is large compared to the rest of the UK economy, but there is also increased political will to reduce the implicit support for banks."

Lloyds and RBS are held respectively 41% and 83% by the British state.

Around 1:50 p.m. GMT, action Lloyds lost 4.66% to the London Stock Exchange, while RBS yielded 2.91% and 5.08% Barclays. The Stoxx Europe 600 sector at the same time gave up 3.58%.

The trade deficit is reduced by Airbus

The French trade deficit narrowed to less than 5 billion euros in August, against more than 6 billion in July. But he reached the summits Enco: January 1, the accumulated balance in the trade balance was -48.5 miliard. Assembly plant of Airbus A380 in Toulouse

The trade deficit of France was a switchblade in August. It fell to 4.97 billion euros, 6.36 billion after July when adjusted for seasonal variations. The decrease was due to a sharp rise in exports of transport equipment, Customs said Friday.

"In August, the implementation of major aerospace contracts causes a sharp increase in exports of transport equipment. In addition, industrial supplies remain firm.In the end, the deficit is entirely due to the transport sector ", have they said in a statement.

The accumulated balance in the trade balance since 1 January but still reached record highs. He came to indeed -48.560 billion euros, against -33.184 billion in the first eight months of last year. And over the last twelve months, the gap between imports and exports widened to 66.8 billion euros, against 51.5 billion for 2010. Exports reached on August 37.42 billion euros, up 2.9% at three months. Imports have risen to 42.387 billion euros from 41.628 billion in July.

In August, France sold its 16 Airbus reported 1.345 million euros against 20 in July to 1.183 million.In addition, France has delivered two satellites, one in China (112 million) and the other in the United States (130 million). The performance of aerospace and aeronautics, powered shots of large contracts, are very volatile from one month to another.

Sanofi, the reconstruction of the research will be long

Sanofi is expanding its portfolio of medicines to be able to rise to valuation levels comparable to its peers, but it will take time, analysts say.

The French laboratory, shaken by the lapels of the anti-arrhythmic Multaq Iniparib and cancer, has made the past five years only two new products on the market (and Multaq Jevtana in prostate cancer). It plans to launch 19 drugs by 2015, six next year, but warns that it expects no more than 5% to 7% contribution to sales in this horizon.

Of "minibusters", ironically some analysts, however, willing to give time to a group that has appointed the head of its research Elias Zerhouni, a world-renowned scientist.Since that appointment, the European regulator, however, restricts the use of Multaq, and Iniparib proved a failure in the last phase of its development.

"Sanofi has made significant progress in improving the profitability of its research but we know the results in eight or nine years. We have to accept a long development cycle", says Michael Leacock, an analyst at RBS.

The group announced this year more positive Phase III, and for including Lemtrada Aubagio (multiple sclerosis), Zaltrap (colorectal cancer), Visamerin / Mulsevo (prevention of venous thrombosis) and Lyxumia (type II diabetes).It is the latter that analysts consider the most promising, with potential sales they estimate at about 600 dollars in 10 years.

DIFFICULT TRANSITION TO MANAGE

"This is a cohort of small to medium products that will not be enough to transform the group, but at least it has more risk (of the type of anti-obesity pills) Acomplia when suddenly a product may weigh 15% to 20% of sales and cause large deviation in the share price, "an expert in the field into perspective.

Three years after the failure of Acomplia and the arrival of CEO Chris Viehbacher, Sanofi has launched a strategy to find new sources of growth that does not depend on its research and especially not the 'blockbusters', these drugs can make more than one billion dollars in sales.

Spurred by the loss of its major patents, the group has drastically reduced its costs, carried out an extensive cleaning of its project portfolio and achieved a score of acquisitions exceeding 23 billion euros, 14.8 billion for the purchase of the U.S. biotech Genzyme.

These efforts now allow to predict an average growth in sales of at least 5% by 2015 and an increase in earnings per share higher than the turnover.

At Bryan Garnier, Eric Le Berrigaud believes that the next six launches of the group potential "of around four billion euros in full peak at the end of the decade, with an additional lever on Lemtrada if it turns out be sure. "

"Are we willing to pay 'upfront' history to be born again Sanofi in 2013, while it was still difficult to cross two years?" Asked he, however.

The title Sanofi, which has lost 13% in 2010, returned 3.5% since the beginning of the year.The stock is trading with an average ratio of price / earnings ratio (PER) expected to close in September, against nine for the European.

"There is a beautiful story of stock market recovery to play but it will not materialize quickly. The big challenge is to manage the transition between the death of the great product, the rise of products from the pipeline and related growth drivers strategy, such as diversification and emerging markets, "said one banking analyst.

Karl Heinz Koch, of Helvea, notes that "most of their products are secondary and are not first class."For him, the portfolios of Novartis and Bayer are better than Sanofi, which is comparable to those of Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, and similar but better than Merck and AstraZeneca.

Beatrice Muzard, Natixis, concedes that "Sanofi back a little better in terms of development," but believes that the group "is still far short of the very good students like Roche, Novartis and Glaxo same."

"It's not for the pipeline that we recommend buying the title," she adds. "What motivates us is the visibility of growth and the fact that the group has secured a growth of at least 5%, a level that exceeds 60% as revenue grew at double-digit ".