News & Financial Advice

The growth of the U.S. economy in the second quarter was much weaker estimated initially at 1.6% annualized 2.4% originally announced cons, particularly penalized by the higher increase in imports for 26 years, published revised statistics show Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters on average expected a downward revision even more pronounced at 1.4%, mainly due to higher imports and slower recovery in business inventories. (See)

Export growth was revised to 9.1% for the second quarter, while the previous estimate reported an increase of 10.3%.Imports have them, increased by 32.4%, against 28.8% in the first estimate.

Following this publication, futures on U.S. indexes have increased their gains, while European markets are back in positive territory.

Lindt & Sprungli has increased its net profit in the first half but remains cautious for the year 2010 because of the volatile commodity prices and foreign exchange.

Net income was posted at 24.8 million francs (18.8 million euros) in the first half, almost tenfold from 2.7 million achieved a year earlier, said Tuesday the Swiss chocolate.

Analysts polled by Reuters on average expected 20.4 million.

"Despite the excellent results of the first half of 2010, Lindt & Sprungli sticks to what it was made public in March 2010, the company said in a statement, citing an economic environment not yet fully consolidated and conditions still volatile.

It confirms expected this year organic growth of 5% to 7% and operating profit (EBIT) of 300 to 340 million francs.

The EBIT after exceptionals jumped by 40.7% in the first half, to 33.9 million francs, against 26.8 million expected by the market. Turnover increased 7.9% to 1056.6 million (against 1.043 million expected), after 979 million in the first half of 2009.

In value terms, the group notes that most of the chocolate market grew moderately in the first half, while in terms of volumes, it continues to see a certain stagnation.

Luxottica, the world leader in eyewear, has announced a 30% increase in net income and an increase of 13.8% of its turnover in the second quarter and said it was confident for the second half.

The Milanese group, which owns brands including Ray Ban and Oakley, said in a statement that its wholesale division has achieved the best performance in its history, its operating margin reaching 24.1% against 22.5% a a year ago.

"These results provide an excellent base to look with confidence towards the second half of the year," said in a statement the CEO Andrea Guerra.

Luxottica has made the quarter April-June net profit of 150.1 million euros, exceeding the consensus estimate of analysts Thomson Reuters I / B / E / S, which gave 145.3 million.

He said that sales were particularly strong in emerging markets and the U.S., its largest market.

In a presentation accompanying the results, Luxottica said track to achieve its annual targets. In April, he had said it expects growth of about 5% of its annual turnover.

The Paris Bourse, as all European markets ended down sharply on Thursday following the publication of a series of disappointing U.S. indicators, confirming the interruption of a long sequence of increase initiated the day before.

The CAC 40 index finished down 1.41% at 3581.82 points, after playing a note on irregular closely during most of the session. The index had already paused Wednesday (-0.13%), having won more than 9% in six sessions of consecutive increase.

London fell by 0.8% and Frankfurt 0.97%.As for the European indices, the EuroStoxx 50 yielded 1.35% and 1.14% Eurofirst 300.

'Investors are still worried about the slowdown in the United States, and after the recent good performance of markets, profit-taking seem necessary given that the risks are always present ", says Claudia Panseri, chief strategist at SG CIB .

Falling producer prices and the index of the New York Fed has cooled the enthusiasm of investors even though they had enthusiastically welcomed the results published by JPMorgan.

Similarly, producer prices have fallen more sharply than expected in June and the condition index of industrial activity were sharply down in July.

After cutting their losses in early afternoon following the publication of excellent results by JP Morgan, the banks are heavily impact the market.

Dexia largest decline of ACC, ended down 5.12% to 3.243 euros, Crédit Agricole of 3.26% to 9.287 euros and BNP Paribas 4.01% to 48.705 euros.

The values "dollar" have suffered bad news on growth overseas as the U.S. currency.

In the aerospace sector, EADS lost 4.86% to 16.550 euros and 4.59% at Saffron 20.800 euros. In the area of semiconductors, STMicroelectronics has yielded 2.08% to 6.776 euros and 8.063 to 4.91% Soitec euros.The euro is trading at 1.2906 / 08 1.2738 dollars against the previous day.

U.S. light crude lost $ 1.05 per share to 75.99 dollars a barrel.

European shares move up on Thursday morning, boosted by the continued rebound in bank stocks, as investors are increasingly likely to believe that the results of stress tests will be less catastrophic than they feared.

The bank also boosted by a change of opinion on the sector by Credit Suisse, which went to "balance line" cons "underperformance" before.

Around 9:50, the pan-European index STOXX Europe 600 Banks gained 1.76%.

In Paris, Dexia gained 3.92%, 3.42% Natixis, BNP Paribas 2.93%, 3.13% Societe Generale and Credit Agricole 1.10%.

The trend is also positive for banks in the rest of Europe.

Barclays rose as 3.72% and 1.11% of Santander Intesa 1.81%.

Offer Pigasse-Bergé-Niel got the endorsement Monday of the supervisory board of the World allows both parties to enter into exclusive negotiations to resume and recapitalization of the newspaper said Monday the company director of the editors of World.

France Telecom announced earlier in the day that it would withdraw its offer of resumption of the World after the supervisory board, with the competing offer Friday received strong support from employees every day.

Two meetings were held in the afternoon.The supervisory board of the World Ltd has approved 13 votes for and 5 abstentions, while the supervisory board of the World Partners and Associates, which owns 60% of the World Ltd, has voted with 11 votes with 9 abstentions, told Reuters Gilles Van Kote of the Society of Editors of the World.

Wall Street fell nearly 1.5% on Thursday because of concerns about the state of the economy after the lukewarm assessment of the Federal Reserve on the pace of recovery in the United States.

The Dow Jones 30 industrials surrendered 1.41% or 145.64 points at 10,152.80. The S & P 500 is broader, lost 18.35 points, or 1.68%, to 1073.69.The Nasdaq Composite fell on its side of 36.81 points (-1.63%) to 2217.42.

The U.S. stock market has also suffered from the approach end of the legislative process of the radical overhaul of financial regulation, which should translate into lower profits for banks.

It is likely that the Democrats will retain bargaining provisions to severely restrict the activities of the banks own account, and some of their investments, not changing the text at the margin.

JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America have respectively lost 2.21% to 38.03 dollars and 2.66% to 15.02 dollars while the S & P financials grouping yielded 2.07%.

The good statistics of the day – orders of durable goods fell less sharply than expected enrollment and weekly unemployment fell more than expected – were enough to overshadow the comments of the Federal Reserve recognizes the fragility of economic recovery U.S..

"There has been little good news this week and reformed the financial system has further obscured the situation," said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz Associates.

In terms of values, as Dell has lost 6.44% at 12.93 dollars, the investors had not been very convinced by the growth strategy announced in the day by the manufacturer of micro-computers.

The European Commission has condemned the French Bolloré to pay a fine of 21 million euros for price fixing in the market for carbonless paper.

The Commission fined Bolloré fined 22.68 million euros in December 2001 but the company had appealed to the European Court of Justice annulled the decision in September 2009 for procedural issues.

"The Commission has re-adopted the decision by correcting the procedural error that led to the cancellation of the 2001 decision," the EU executive said in a statement.

It has reduced the original amount of the fine to reflect the cooperation of Bolloré.