The New York Stock Exchange opened down sharply Friday after the release of monthly statistics of employment in the United States, generally poorer than expected.
The U.S. economy has destroyed 131,000 non-farm jobs in July, mainly because of the end of temporary contracts linked to the census, and the private sector hired less than expected.
Economists and analysts polled by Reuters on average expected destruction of 65,000 jobs.
A few minutes after the start of trading, the Dow Jones lost 0.7% to 10,600.59 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 gave up 0.72% to 1117.69 points and the Nasdaq in 2273 yielded 0.83%, 99.
The persistence of high unemployment (the rate remained unchanged at 9.5% last month) is seen as an obstacle to sustained recovery and statistics on Friday are likely to feed fears of a prolonged weak growth or a relapse into recession.
"What it mostly means is that our economy is stagnating.We are not creating jobs, or it should be the case now, "said Wayne Thomas, head of analysis at John Thomas Financial.
The statistics of the labor market may affect the speech will keep the Federal Reserve after its monetary policy meeting next Tuesday, even if the market anticipates no change in interest rates.
Among the main contributors to the decline of the Dow are industry groups such as 3M (-1.2%) and Boeing (-1.4%).
Among the few values increase in the index, gained 1.3% Kraft Foods after its results.The number one food in North America has published a quarterly profit above expectations and raised its target to reduce costs after the acquisition of Cadbury.
American International Group took over 3.5% after its own results and the announcement of the opening of discussions for an early withdrawal of the state capital.
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 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.
Registrations of new cars in France fell 12.9% in July over a year to reach 169,804 units with the continued weakening of the effect "scrappage" announced the Committee of French Automobile (CCFA).
The month of July had 21 working days, against 22 last year.A comparable number of working days, the decline in sales stood at 8.7%.
Of the first seven months of 2010, registrations in France, however, still stand up 2.8% in raw data to 1,382,240 units, and 2.1% in comparable number of working days compared the same period of 2009.
Sales only French brands fell 15.4% in July, while those of foreign brands fell 9.9%.
Car sales of PSA Peugeot Citroen shrank 15.0% last month, and those of Renault were down 7.6%.
Registrations only Dacia (Logan, Sandero and Duster) jumped 47.5% on month, while those of Renault fell 15.9%.
For PSA, sales of the Citroen were down by 17.0% and Peugeot were down by 13.3%.
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.
Puma anticipates an increase in its adjusted operating profit in 2010 compared to 2009, the global economic recovery had a positive effect on demand for sporting goods.
In exchange, Puma loses 2.6% in the first exchanges in a market up slightly.
The world's third largest industry, behind the U.S. and fellow Nike Adidas, had a first revised upwards its 2010 targets in April.
He then said he planned to grow its annual turnover between 0% and 5% but closer to the bottom of this range, and a growth of at least 70% of its taxable income.He confirmed that goal Thursday.
Consumer confidence has reached a peak of 26 in July in the euro area, which gradually takes shape of the debt crisis but the longer-term prospects remain uncertain.
The adjusted operating profit came out of Puma up 1.7% to 64.1 million euros in the second quarter, slightly below a Reuters poll that gave 69 million.
Turnover increased 2.5% to 615.4 million euros (consensus of 628 million), while net income increased by 16.4% to 44.8 million (consensus: 49.1 million).
The subsidiary of PPR, which also announced Thursday the launch of a share repurchase program, has a PER of 13.7, whereas it is 15.1 to 17.1 for Adidas and Nike, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.
The action gives 2.3% to 230.45 euros in early morning.
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.
Wall Street operates on a hesitant note in early trading, pending the publication of monthly statistics of sales of new homes.
The major indexes started up after raising earnings forecasts from FedEx Group but they quickly moved into the red.
Ten minutes into trading, the Dow Jones was almost in equilibrium at 10,427.27 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 index was virtually unchanged at 1102.91 points and the Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 0.16 % to 2265.93 points.
FedEx earned more than 4% after raising its earnings forecast for the quarter and year.
Values pharmaceutical react to rumors of acquisition of biotech company Genzyme. Genzyme earned the title at 5.33% 65.85 dollars in early trade.
Finally, the BP side as New York took 2.79% to 37.89 dollars before the board meeting, scheduled for Monday evening, which could define the modalities of the departure of CEO Tony Hayward and announce his replacement by Bob Dudley, the American leader who also oversees the fight against the oil spill.
French banks BNP Paribas, SocGen, Credit Agricole and BPCE, parent company Natixis, have passed the stress tests conducted by European authorities said on Friday the Bank of France.
In a statement, the regulator said that following the test on a scenario of economic decline worse than expected and a new crisis on the European sovereign debt, the four French banks show a ratio of Tier One financial solvency through 9 3% at end 2011.
In this scenario, which holds a particular hypothesis of two years of recession in the euro area in 2010 and 2011, European regulators demanded that they tested 91 European banks show a ratio of at least 6%.
"This is a satisfactory result, not surprisingly, is quite comforting," said Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France at a press briefing.
Christian Noyer, who is also member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, said that the total exposure of the four French banks, European sovereign debt amounted to 240 billion euros at end-March, which accounted for 43 billion in their "trading book" (portfolio of financial assets).
He also explained that a risk of default on sovereign debt of a sovereign state had been excluded from testing scenarios.
To restore investor confidence, the European Union 91 European banks submitted to stress tests to ensure that their capital was adequate to cope with a worsening economic conditions and financial market shocks.
Led by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) and drawing lessons from the debt crisis of Greek, tests have included discounts which reduce the market value of some bonds.
Fears of contagion in Europe of the fiscal crisis of Greece has weighed heavily in recent months on financial stocks.
The sector index Stoxx 600 European banks yields almost 5% since the beginning of the year.
Plastic Omnium said Thursday confident the second half after a first half of the year marked a rebound in net income and revenue thanks to the automobile and the environment.
The group specializes in large plastic parts for the vehicle (body and tanks) or for the collection of waste (containers), posted first half net profit of 72.3 million euros, against eight million a year earlier.The results of the last six months is more than double that achieved all of 2009.
"The activities of Compagnie Plastic Omnium will continue to appear dynamically in the second half of 2010," the group said in a statement.
The title, which earns more than 106% since the beginning of the year, bringing its market capitalization to nearly $ 700 million, has risen by 4.5% to 39.82 euros ten minutes after the opening of trading Paris.
If the turnover of Plastic Omnium has fallen 15% in France, total sales were up by 28.5% to 1.52 billion thanks to a near doubling of sales in North America and Asia.
Emerging markets (Brazil, Russia, India and China) now account for 9% of turnover Automotive Group, a proportion expected to rise "significantly in the next three years," said Plastic Omnium.
This balance, which specifically involves the construction of five new plants should help offset the slowdown in the European car market anticipated the second half of the year with the gradual disappearance of the last car scrapping.
Plastic Omnium has also stated that the acquisition of 50% of the Belgian Solvay Inergy Automotive Systems, a leading global fuel systems and fuel tanks, which the project was announced in June, is expected to close shortly and completed by the end of the year if the competition authorities give green light to the operation.
In the environment, the group's turnover increased by 6.2% in the first half thanks to the development of sorting and of underground containers for the collection.