Hot Economic News Releases

American International Group (AIG) publishes quarterly results better than expected and announced that he had initiated discussions to be free from state control.

The U.S. insurer, owned nearly 80% by the state since his emergency rescue in September 2008, published for the second quarter a net loss of 2.7 billion dollars (2.05 billion euros) or $ 3.96 per share, against a profit of $ 1.8 billion ($ 2.3 per share) over the corresponding period last year.

The loss resulted primarily from an impairment charge of $ 3.3 billion.

Adjusted data, AIG reports a profit of 1.3 billion dollars ($ 1.99 per share), against 1.1 billion dollar ($ 1.71 per share) a year earlier.

"The situation is quite stable," said Bill Bergman, an analyst at Morningstar. "Stabilization does not mean growth or strong growth, but it seems to take this path."

The panel also said he began talking with the New York Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and directors of AIG Credit Facility Trust on a strategy to "enable the State to break its relationship with AIG owner" .

BOND EXCHANGE OF TITLE

On Wall Street, AIG earned under 5.2%, to 41.98 dollars around 1400 GMT, while the Dow Jones index yielded 0.2%.Since the beginning of the action took 33% while the S & P's insurance sector grew by only 7%.

The general insurance business of AIG, Chartis, posted an operating profit of $ 955 million before taking into account net realized capital gains, cons generated one billion dollars a year earlier.

Chartis had to record $ 287 million of losses from catastrophes in the quarter, including that relating to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"There are a result of major operational and stable in general insurance business," said Bill Bergman.

SunAmerica Financial Group, a division of AIG specializes in retirement services and life insurance, for its part, recorded an operating income excluding net realized capital gains of $ 1.1 billion, against 254 million generated a year earlier.

"The results of operations of the insurance company remains strong and continues to implement its restructuring plans and to prepare its separation from the U.S. government," said AIG Chief Executive Robert Benmosche .

The latter looks to the future with AIG SunAmerica and Chartis the heart of its business.

The Life business group have generated earnings before taxes of $ 604 million while $ 314 million a year earlier.

American International Assurance (AIA), which should be introduced on the stock exchange after its failed sale to Prudential, has made the most of this result, through its investments.

AIG Financial Products, a subsidiary of derivative origin of the troubles the group in 2008, reduced the notional amount of derivatives in its portfolio of approximately 602.4 billion dollars at June 30, down 36% compared the end of 2009.

Procter & Gamble announces earnings below expectations during the fourth quarter, sales growth could not offset higher marketing expenses.

The group of consumer products said that investments in new products launched this year – Pampers Dry Max, ProGlide Fusion razor and tooth whitening strips Crest 3D White outpaced growth of 5% of turnover 'net sales.

"Next year will be another great year of innovation for us and we will invest accordingly," said CFO Jon Moeller, during a teleconference with the press.

Net income for the quarter ended June 30 was $ 2.19 billion, or 71 cents per share, against 2.47 billion (80 cents) a year earlier.The Thomson Reuters consensus I / B / E / S gave an EPS of 73 cents.

The turnover stood at 18.93 billion dollars (19.1 billion consensus).

P & G expects earnings per share of 97 cents to $ 1.01 in the first quarter of the year, and an organic growth of 3% to 5%.

Effects of unfavorable exchange rates would reduce net revenue growth of 3%.

Analysts are waiting for their share of $ 1.04 a share, in the first quarter.

The share lost 5.3% to 59.77 dollars in pre-market after these announcements.

U.S. stocks opened lower after the announcement of a sharper than expected slowdown in economic growth in the U.S. in the second quarter.

In the first exchanges, the Dow Jones lost 0.8% or 80.53 points to 10,386 points while the Standard & Poor's 500 index yielded 0.9% or 10.25 points to 1090 points and the composite index the Nasdaq fell by 1.2% or 27.41 points to 2224.54 points.

The U.S. economy slowed sharply in the second quarter at an annualized rate of 2.4% against 3.7% in the first quarter, according to figures published Friday in the first estimate by the Commerce Department. The market was expecting growth of 2.5%.

On the values front, Merck was down 1.6%.The pharmaceutical company has yet reported Friday in quarterly earnings above expectations.

Chevron was down 0.8% despite a profit tripled in the second quarter.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) intends to increase its lending capacity of 750-1000 billion dollars to prevent future financial crises, the Financial Times.

The organization wishes to enter into agreements to advance on a case by case basis with member states, rather than offering loans under certain conditions, the newspaper said without citing sources.

"Even during periods of crisis, a large fund that can take massive can help prevent crises," explained Dominique Strauss Kahn, IMF managing director, in the columns of the Sunday edition of the FT.

"The fact that the decreasing financial role does not mean we can do without a big fire power (…) A fund of 1.000 billion is a wise prediction," he says.

South Korea, which currently chairs the G20 group, hopes to convince its partners to approve the draft at the next summit of the organization, to be held in November in Seoul, says the author of the article.

Industrial production increased in the U.S. in June, against all expectations, above-normal seasonal temperatures have boosted the use of air conditioning and therefore the production of electricity, official statistics show the Federal Reserve.

Production was up 0.1% in June while economists and analysts polled by Reuters had forecast an average decline of 0.1%.

The May figure was confirmed at 1.3%.

For the second quarter as a whole, industrial production has emerged up 6.6% yoy, lower than the 7.0% increase recorded during the first three months of the year.

The production sector of utilities rose 2.7%, higher than the Fed said the sharp rise in the use of air conditioning.

Manufacturing output fell for its 0.4%.

The utilization of production capacity has remained stable at 74.1%, but remains below 6.5 points to its average over the period 1972-2009.

The Federal Reserve is closely monitoring these statistics to assess the possible inflationary pressures, which could affect its monetary policy.

The oil has closed lower Wednesday on the physical market in New York after the publication of the minutes of the last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Federal Reserve.

The text of the Fed shows that its members say they have to be ready to take further measures to support the economy if the climate deteriorates.

The contract on August U.S. light crude ended on a down 11 cents, or 0.14%, to 77.04 dollars a barrel.

The Nikkei closed up 0.52% Friday, and closed the week on a 4% gain, its largest weekly increase in seven months.

The Nikkei index closed at 9585.32 points and the broader TOPIX, took 0.02% to 861.21 points.

Japanese stocks have benefited from renewed investor confidence, new optimism for the resumption of the U.S. economy and the euro area.

The courses have been particularly supported by the exporters, thus earning the title Canon 1.02% to 3,480 yen on expectations of a tripling of operating income to about 182 billion yen (1.62 billion euros) .

The title however Inpex has weighed on prices, registering losses of up to 14% on the session to finally close down 12.82% after announcing an equity issue of 6.7 billion dollars threatening to dilute the value of shares already issued more than 50%.

The Belgian bank insurer KBC sold its derivatives in Asia for about $ one billion, as part of restructuring promised in exchange for public assistance received during the crisis.

The buyer of Global Convertible Bond and Asian Equity Derivatives is Daiwa Capital Markets, the investment banking arm of Daiwa Securities of Japan.

The transaction will result in a strengthening of the capital of KBC and an increase of ten basis points from its Tier One ratio of liabilities to equity reported "hard".

The group, which received seven billion euros in state aid during the crisis, has agreed, in agreement with the European Commission to reduce its risky assets of 39 billion euros between 2008 and 2013, mainly by reducing its activities on financial markets and corporate lending internationally.

For its part, Daiwa seeks to develop its activities in Asia to take advantage of growth in the region after reducing its alliance in investment banking business with the Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.

KBC also said Monday it had sold to the Australian insurer QBE Insurance Secura its reinsurance subsidiary based in Brussels for 267 million euros.

QBE has made over 75 acquisitions over the last ten years to be present in 47 countries.

In May, KBC has raised 1.35 billion euros by selling its private banking arm KBL European Private Bankers to the Indian company Hinduja Group.

KBC closed the business in Japan in March. Analysts, traders and sellers of office of KBC in Tokyo have been committed by BNP Paribas.

U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed Saturday to say that nothing positive would come out for the damage to the oil company BP reported a member of the British delegation.

The two leaders met in Toronto on the sidelines of the meeting of the G20 countries.

On Friday, the head of the new British government had requested more clarity on the costs that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico exposed the British oil company.

Action BP fell Friday to its lowest level in fourteen years since the accident last April 20 on the platform Deepwater Horizon, the company's market capitalization has shrunk by $ 100 billion.

The British employers as well as pension funds and other shareholder groups have called for Cameron to take BP's defense against criticism of Obama as being too severe.

The subject has been discussed by Cameron during a bilateral meeting Saturday, the first of the two men since the leader of the Conservative Party succeeded last month in Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street.

"Both agreed that nothing good would come out of the damage to BP, reported a member of the UK delegation."Both agreed that BP would meet its obligations to plug the leak, clean it and pay the costs of legitimate compensation," he added.

BP said they paid $ 2.35 billion since the beginning of this oil spill is unprecedented in the history of the United States.

The company also announced the creation of a special fund of 20 billion dollars expected to cover the costs of the environmental and economic disaster.

BP, formerly British company essentially is now a company whose capital is split into two main groups: 40% of its shareholders are based in Britain and 40% also in the United States.

Areva announced an additional provision of around 400 million euros for the Finnish EPR OL3 because of new construction delays.

The Finnish power company TVO said in early June that the new-generation nuclear reactor would begin producing electricity until early 2013, is almost three and a half years later than originally planned.

Areva had recorded 2.3 billion euros of provisions before it announced Wednesday.The group's president and CEO Anne Lauvergeon had publicly described the level of "comfortable" in early March.

Because of the new provision announced Wednesday, the group said in a statement that its operating profit "should register loss in H1 2010.

The reactor Areva Finnish EPR is the first to have been initiated in Europe.

The French group has also reported that its talks with EDF on the conditions for stopping the Georges Besse enrichment plant in a Tricastin (Drôme) continued.

The dispute over the uranium enrichment plant is on the possible orders of EDF in 2011 and 2012, the last two years this site until the entry into service of the Georges Besse II site.

"Outside additional provision OL3 and potential impact of shut-down conditions of the Georges Besse plant 1, the group's operating margin should be around 4% in the first half of 2010, Areva said.

THE BACKLOG IN NET INCREASE

Net income group share the first six months of the year, however, incorporate the added value of 1.3 billion euros achieved in respect of sale of the Transmission and Distribution (T & D) tandem Alstom, Schneider and record as a "significant increase" compared to first half of 2009.

The group's backlog at June 30 for its part should reach over 43 billion euros, an increase of one billion a year and 500 million over the end of 2009, while sales of the first half will move forward "on the order of 2%" over the same period of 2009.

"For all of fiscal 2010, the Group confirms its expectation of a significant increase in backlog and revenues," said Areva.

"Operating income is expected to improve, before the provision, gains on dilution and possible impact of closure conditions of the Georges Besse 1. Finally, net income Group share up sharply compared to the fiscal 2009, particularly through the most gain on the sale of T & D. "