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Sodexo and Publicis still considered the best candidates for CAC 40

Sodexo and Publicis are the best candidates for an entry in the CAC 40 if a change in the composition of the index consider Friday traders and analysts surveyed by Reuters.

Similarly, they cite Lagardère and Accor among potential exits.

The date of the quarterly meeting of the scientific evidence of NYSE Euronext is not official, but the rule is that the announcement of possible changes to make at least two weeks prior to their implementation, expected by Friday 17 experts September after-hours trade.

If this were the case, the announcement of these changes would take place and by the opening of markets on Monday.

In NYSE-Euronext, it provides no details relating to the timing of the board index this month.

Anyway, despite rumors of "spring cleaning" in the ACC, experts expect instead that the board does not make big changes, consistent with its having indices relatively stable in their composition .

"The board will be rather conservative.I do not see a huge overhaul with multiple inputs and outputs of the ACC, "said a quantitative analyst, who declined to be identified.

LAST CHANGE: REPLACED BY TECHNIP FRANCE AIR

In a recent note available on the market, Exane BNP Paribas said it expects "no more than a change" in the ACC.

The last change in the composition of the CAC held a year ago with the release of Air France-KLM, which had been replaced by Technip.

In addition to Sodexo and Publicis, the experts also cite Natixis as a title of CAC Next 20, CAC 40's antechamber, the best position to take the step, under the criteria for capitalization and liquidity cash loans.

However, despite its increase of 24% since the beginning of the year, the already substantial weight in the ACC Bank, an extremely volatile, could play against her.

"Sodexo and Publicis Groupe candidates are the most balanced. Liquidity Sodexo is not as good as the Publicis Groupe, but its market capitalization is greater than the group of advertising," wrote analysts at Exane.

"If I had to choose, I choose Sodexo, which is the largest value of the relatively liquid CAC Next 20," said a quantitative analyst based in London."But they could also decide to do nothing at all," he adds.

Side exits, Dexia is also cited as potential exits, but the board index could drop to the negative impact this could have on the bank in trouble, say some stakeholders.

Lagardere, by far the lowest capitalization of the CAC 40, and Accor, whose size has declined since the graduation of its services business Edenred are most clearly eligible, they are likely to emphasize.

Changes in the composition of indices cause movements in the securities on the part of managers that replicate indices.For example Sodexo and Publicis, an entry in the ACC lead, respectively, equivalent to 13.1 purchases and 8.6 days of trading, while for Lagardere, would represent an output equivalent to 14.3 days sales transactions, Exane analysts said.

Wall Street opens up, driven by mergers and acquisitions

Wall Street opened on earnings Monday, investors regaining confidence through several projects of mergers and acquisitions.

A few minutes after the start of trading, the Dow Jones gained 0.54% to 10,268.56 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 index 0.58% to 1077.89 points and the Nasdaq Composite 0.67% to 2194.34 points.

Hewlett-Packard on Monday launched an offer of 1.6 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros) to acquire the data storage company 3PAR, competing with the offer of its rival Dell issued last week.

Titles 3PAR Dell responded to the rise of this announcement, gaining 0.83% respectively and 42%, while HP lost 0.27% at the opening.

The group Campbell Soup gained 0.19% after announcing consider an offer of 1.5 billion pounds (2.3 billion dollars) on the activities of Britain's United Biscuits cookies.

Finally, 3M took the 1.10% group is likely to spend about two billion dollars (1.6 billion) in acquisitions this year, twice more than its previous estimate.

"This suggests that companies have reached a point where they want to grow their cash. (…) This is obviously a positive sign for markets," said Michael O'Rourke, a specialist market with BTIG LLC.

Wall Street ends in red, anxious for employment

Wall Street ended lower on Thursday, concerned about the unexpected rise in jobless claims and mixed numbers on sales of major distributors in July, which underlined the fragility of the economic climate on the eve of the monthly employment statistics.

The Dow Jones closed at a decline of 5.45 points, or 0.05%, to 10,674.98.The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.43 point (-0.13%) to 1,125.81 and the Nasdaq composite 10.51 points assigned to (-0.46%) to 2293.06.

The jobless claims rose to 479,000 last week, while the market awaited them down.

This figure disappointed investors and urged them to exercise caution on the eve of the monthly report on employment in the Department of Labor, which should show a further rise in the unemployment rate in July.

"The entries do not persist in fall and this could foreshadow a bad time tomorrow," said Bruce Zaro, responsible for technical strategist for Delta Global Advisors.

Economists polled by Reuters expect for July 65.000 jobs were non-agricultural, particularly because of the end of many fixed-term contracts in the public related to the decennial census of population.The private sector, he should have created 90,000 jobs.

These uncertainties on the employment front are fears of a continued weak consumer spending, the main engine of the U.S. economy.

As for July, 28 retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters have reported an increase of 2.9% over one year of their store sales, while analysts had forecast to 3.1%.

NEWS CORP SOUGHT AFTER RESULTS

The Morgan Stanley sector yielded 0.35%.

Several values of the retail sales of which have consistently been disappointed penalized, like JC Penney, which yielded 7.7%, and Dillards (-5.2%).

"We are now in a situation where dollars are increasingly scarce in the pockets of consumers, thus able to compete for these dollars is intensifying," said Lawrence Creatura, manager at Federated Clover Investment Advisers.

If July is the 11th month of improvement in retail sales according to data from Thomson Reuters, analysts point out that comparisons to last year will be less favorable over the month.

Large groups have published their results on Wednesday or Thursday experienced divergent fates: while News Corp. gained 3.6% thanks to strong performance of its cable networks and the resumption of advertising revenue from its newspapers, Viacom yielded nearly 1 %, analysts have been disappointed by the stagnation of its turnover.

Also note the sharp increase in fertilizer producers, such as CF Industries (+3.5%) and Mosaic (+1.8%) in the wake of wheat prices after the announcement of the interruption of Russian exports .

In after-hours trading just after the closing, Kraft Foods gained 2.8% in response to the publication of its quarterly. The title had ended in decline 0.3% on the New York Stock Exchange.

Axa, focus on margins rather than growth in 2010

Axa announced Wednesday better than expected financial results for the first half despite an increase in half-mast, a performance in line with its objective to give priority to the recovery in margins rather than its development.

The second group of European insurance by market capitalization has reaffirmed its commitment to reallocate capital to its geographical margins of the most promising, even to withdraw from certain activities in mature areas.

"That does not mean that we do not have aggressive strategies in certain areas at present" said CEO Henri de Castries, and in an interview broadcast by the insurance group.

The manager has shown this strategy through the recent sale of several business lines in Britain and a willingness to invest in countries and trades in Asia, South America or Eastern Europe.

"This strategy is not as simple as when the whole world was growing at the same pace," he said.

Axa has benefited in the first half of rebounding financial markets and a better performance of its life insurance business, savings and pensions business, which offset the damage, which has suffered many natural disasters earlier this year .

NO CHANGE OF SENTIMENT

If these results are rather a good surprise, two analysts issued notes in the wake of the results fell they should not substantially change investor sentiment vis-à-vis the company.

At 09:15, the title was up 1.4% at 14.94 euros, after opening up over 2.6%, while the CAC 40 index yielded 0.2%.

Axa has lost about 10.9% since the beginning of the year, underperforming the European index DJStoxx insurance, which gained 3.16% over the same period.

The group's net profit stood at 944 million euros, a figure well above the 623 million approached by the consensus of analysts conducted by the editor of Reuters.

If the result is displayed down 28% over the same period last year, this drop is due to the supply of 1.478 billion euros spent by the group following the sale of assets United Kingdom, cited by Henri de Castries.

Without this extraordinary loss, net income would rise by 81% while revenues only increased it by 1% to 49.925 billion euros.

The decline in operating income amounted to 3% to 2.082 billion euros, superior performance under one billion to 1.884 to Reuters.

Axa has not commented on the offer of 11.5 billion dollars from the National Australia Bank on its subsidiary AXA Asia Pacific.

The subsidiary has announced a profit of 219.2 million Australian dollars for the first six months of the year, a figure in line with market expectations.

The offer, which clashed with the Australian authorities to the competition runs until August 31.

The Paris Bourse ended down 0.24% to 3643.14 points

With the exception of Frankfurt, the European stock markets ended in retreat, investors are showing more hesitant after the session dealing with conflicting U.S. indicators, the Paris stock exchange for ending its declining share of 0.24% in 3643 , 14 points.

The pan-European Eurofirst 300 index closed the week down 0.76% but gained 5.3% on the month of July, its biggest gain in four months.

As for values, the construction sector takes prices back down, falling by 3.89% Lafarge, punishing investors lowering the forecast cement demand for 2010.

Prices, however, were supported by some solid corporate results found.Total and closing up 0.94% after posting earnings growth in the second quarter.

Alcatel-Lucent, which announced on Friday its annual targets, jumped 11.07% on the session.

The title, however, BP has lost 1.81% due to new fears about the evolution of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Spir stabilizes its margin despite a further fall in sales

Spir Communication has again suffered in the first half of the decline in sales in the free advertising press, but cost reductions have allowed it to stabilize its margin.

The media group and distribution of printed materials and packages still struggling to develop its model based on formerly free press announcements, but he expects further restructuring to achieve its objective of restoring the balance operational 2010.

Spir has declined by about 10% of its total turnover in the first half to 280.7 million euros, with a fall of 15% of cluster media, press and internet, and 6% of the segment distribution of printed advertising.

"In the context of an advertising market remains uncertain, Spir Communication is continuing its transformation and is maintaining its target for operating profit to breakeven in the year 2010," the group wrote in a statement.

The operating margin improved slightly semester to 1.7% (+0.2 points) thanks to cost efficiencies, including through a plan for adapting the press division, started in 2009, which reduced by 22% operating losses of this segment in the first half.

The group aims to reduce the share of sales made in the traditional activities of the press free to print ads in favor of a growth in Internet sales.

The press had in the first half for nearly 30% of total turnover, against 12% for sales generated by the division of Internet media.

The action Spir stable closed Tuesday at 16.40 euros in a market capitalization of just over 100 million euros.

Tokyo stocks end down 0.23%

The Nikkei ended down 0.23% Wednesday, penalized by concerns about the strong yen and doubts over the sustainability of U.S. economic recovery.

The Nikkei lost 21.63 points to 9,278.83 and the broader TOPIX, sold 2.9 points (0.35%) to 829.35.

While studies suggest that the Chartists fall posted recently by the Japanese stock markets draws to a close, the lack of enthusiasm shown by the indicators U.S. leaves investors hungry.

The other major concern is the expectations raised by the publication Friday of the test results of resistance experienced by 91 European banks.

For values, trading companies sector has experienced a painful session after the publication of an article revealing that Daiwa Securities Nikkei was likely to report a loss for the period April to June due to instability markets after the crisis of European sovereign debt.

Daiwa Securities dropped 3.46% and its rival Nomura Holdings fell 3.81%.

Pason Group meanwhile plunged 5.77%, the investment group of employees who predicted an annual loss due to the hardness of the labor market.

Wall Street ends sharply down

The NYSE has ended sharply lower Friday, the Dow Jones industrial yielding 30 261.41 points, or 2.52%, to 10,097.90 points.

The S & P 500 is broader, lost 31.62 points, or 2.88% at 1064.86 points.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 70.03 points on his side (3.11%) to 2179.05 points.

Santander bought the German commercial banking division of SEB

Santander is one step closer Monday toward its goal of becoming a bank offering a full service commercial bank in Germany with the acquisition for 555 million euros in the division for the subject of Swedish SEB.

Santander seeks to expand its presence in Europe, especially Germany and Great Britain, and the high growth markets such as Latin America.

"Germany is an important market for Santander.This acquisition is an important step towards achieving our goal of being a commercial bank offering a full service in Europe, "said its chairman Emilio Botin said in a statement.

The Spanish bank believes that its ratio of Tier One capital could fall by ten basis points due to the acquisition, the amount is close to 500 million previously reported by sources close to the situation.

According to head of operations in Latin America, Santander, Francisco Luzon, quoted by the Financial Times, Santander plans to strengthen Colombia and Peru, where its market shares are between 10 and 20%.

Around 9:15 GMT, Santander and SEB yielded respectively 0.69% and 0.76%, while the Stoxx index comprising the major European banking stocks lost 0.66%.

Airbus booked 131 orders in first half

Airbus announced that it garnered 131 gross orders in the first half, thanks to the mega-command of 32 A380s from Emirates announced in June at the show in Berlin.

A subsidiary of EADS, which shows 117 net orders adjusted for cancellations, said it had delivered 250 aircraft since the beginning of the year, including seven A380.

The order from Emirates, which had enabled Airbus to open with fanfare the Berlin air show, however usually less prolific ones Farnborough (England) or Le Bourget, is estimated at some 11 billion dollars based on list price purely indicative.

Airbus also won 27 orders in the first half for the single-aisle A320s and 25 A350-900.On both models, Boeing has received command of the Brazilian airline TAM also announced in Berlin for 20 A320s and five A350-900s with a total value estimated at $ 2.9 billion at list prices.

The backlog of the manufacturer revealed six cancellations A330-300 in June, including two from the Finnish airline Finnair.

Airbus did not identify the company behind the other four cancellations of orders for A330s, but industry observers have estimated that Gulf Air (Bahrain,) four units could reduce its order for 20 A330s.

According to the latest data from Airbus, DAE Capital (Dubai), who said renegotiate its orders with Airbus and Boeing, has so far not received his order of 100 Airbus.