Growth in Europe’s services and manufacturing industries accelerated to the fastest pace in more than four years in February.
A composite index based on a survey of euro-area purchasing managers in the 17-nation euro region in both industries rose to 58.4 from 57 in January, London-based Markit Economics said in an initial estimate today. That was the highest since July 2006 and above the 56.9 forecast by economists in a Bloomberg News survey. A figure above 50 indicates expansion.
“Growth has accelerated sharply since hitting a low last October, with manufacturing continuing to lead the renewed upturn in February as production rose at a pace only marginally below the 10-year peak seen in April of last year,” Markit said in a statement.
The euro-area economy is gaining strength after expanding less than economists forecast in the fourth quarter. With companies stepping up output and hiring to meet export demand, consumers are growing more optimistic even as governments toughen budget cuts cheapest personal loan rates. PPR SA, the French owner of Gucci, on Feb. 17 forecast “robust revenue growth” in 2011.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has powered the region’s expansion as countries from Spain to Ireland stepped up spending cuts to plug budget deficits. German investor confidence rose for a fourth month in February and unemployment dropped to the lowest in almost two decades last month. In France, business confidence increased more than economists forecast last month.
A foundering bond insurer on Thursday filed a civil fraud suit against Goldman Sachs over the same exotic mortgage-securities deal in which Goldman paid $550 million last summer in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. charged that Goldman helped a major client, hedge fund Paulson & Co., rig the billion-dollar deal by allowing the firm to pack it with securities backed by highly risky mortgages in early 2007 as the housing market was beginning to collapse.
ACA invested heavily in the deal, known as Abacus 2007-AC1, in the belief that Paulson had agreed to absorb the first losses, while Goldman concealed that the fund was actually betting the so-called synthetic securities would default, the suit said same day payday loans.
Goldman initially bet on the failure of the underlying bonds in the deal, but secretly sold its position to Paulson.
Paulson ultimately racked up $1 billion in profits on the deal while ACA and European banks lost that much. Besides investing $42 million, ACA wrote $909 million in insurance on the securities in the deal. When the insurer ran into financial problems, the European bank, ABN Amro, reinsured ACA’s position at Goldman’s insistence, the suit said.
Global demand for U.S. stocks, bonds and other financial assets fell in September from a month earlier, the Treasury Department reported.
Net buying of long-term equities, notes and bonds totaled $81.0 billion during the month compared with net buying of $128.7 billion in August, according to data issued today in Washington. Including short-term securities such as stock swaps, foreigners purchased a net $81.7 billion compared with net buying of $11.2 billion the previous month.
“The U.S. is still an attractive place for foreign investors, but U.S. yields were pushed lower relative to some foreign markets in anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing,” said Gary Thayer, chief macro strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors LLC in St. Louis, by telephone after the data were released. “That may have reduced the attractiveness a bit. Longer-term, we’re still the reserve currency of the world and that continues to support inflows.”
The Treasury’s reporting on long-term securities captures international purchases of government notes and bonds, stocks, corporate debt and securities issued by U.S. agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy home mortgages.
China remained the biggest foreign holder of U cash advance companies.S. Treasuries, after its holdings rose by $15.1 billion to $883.5 billion in September from $868.4 billion in August, according to the Treasury’s statistics.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, fell to 2.87 percent at 9:34 a.m. from 2.96 percent late yesterday.
Japan, Hong Kong
The Treasury’s statistics on other countries showed Japan, the second-largest holder, increased its holdings by $28.4 billion to $865 billion in September from $836.6 billion in August.
Total foreign purchases of Treasury notes and bonds were $78.3 billion in September compared with purchases of $117 billion in August. Foreign demand for U.S. agency debt from companies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac registered net selling of $8.2 billion in September after buying of $4.6 billion in August.
Net foreign purchases of equities were $20.7 billion in September after net purchases of $4.8 billion in August. Investors purchased a net $578 million in U.S. corporate debt in September after buying $10 billion in August.
Republican Senator Bob Corker called for Congress to consider narrowing the Federal Reserve’s mandate to stabilizing prices and said Congress should consider setting a target for inflation.
Corker, who met yesterday with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, said today in an interview the Fed’s dual role of fighting inflation and maintaining full employment “can create sort of a bipolar mentality as it relates to the Fed” that’s “confusing to the market.”
The Tennessee senator, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said his proposal would not prevent the Fed from addressing any threat of deflation or its program to buy $600 billion in Treasuries. The Fed cited low inflation for its decision to buy government debt securities to inject money into the lagging U.S. economy.
Congress should consider voting to set inflation targets because the Fed’s actions can cause “a lot of confusion for all concerned” he said. “The next question, do we actually vote on the Senate floor” on “an actual target for inflation?” Corker said.
“My sense is that might be a very good idea,” he said. “I am going to be talking to colleagues” about it, he said. “But minimally changing the mandate to price stability is a step in the right direction.”
A mail bomb intercepted last month at an English airport could have exploded over the East Coast of the United States, British police said Wednesday. Forensic evidence showed the device, originally sent from Yemen by way of Cologne, Germany, was timed to be detonated about six to seven hours after the cargo aircraft carrying it left the U.K. for the U.S. The package was removed by police in Britain during transit.
“If the device had not been removed from the aircraft, the activation could have occurred over the eastern seaboard of the U.S.,” police said.
In Washington, the White House said the British finding showed how serious the attack was. Earlier this month, a senior U.S. official had said that while the exact aim of the attack was unclear, evidence pointed to a plot to blow up cargo planes inside the U.S., either on runways or over American cities.
The UPS cargo plane intercepted in England left the country without the package at 3:20 a.m. GMT on Oct. 29 (11:20 p.m. EDT on Oct. 28), two hours after landing, police said. The device was timed to be activated at 9:30 a.m. GMT. (5:30 a.m. EDT), said British police.
Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic said they only narrowly thwarted the plot, in which terrorists in Yemen hid two powerful bombs inside printers and shipped them to addresses in Chicago aboard two cargo planes fast payday loan. The printer cartridges were filled with PETN, an industrial explosive that, when X-rayed, would resemble the cartridges’ ink powder.
One bomb was intercepted at central England’s East Midlands Airport and the other was discovered at a FedEx cargo facility in Dubai.
The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the bombs and has vowed to send more explosives-packed parcels.
In Washington on Wednesday, White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said: “We greatly appreciate the highly professional nature of the U.K. investigation and the spirit of partnership with which U.K. authorities have pursued this matter.”
He praised the efforts of intelligence and law enforcement professionals in the U.K., the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the United States, and said they will continue to work together “to address and counter the threat posed by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.”
The 2010 Minnesota Cup entrepreneurial competition has awarded its grand prize to EarthClean Corp., a Minneapolis-based start-up that makes an environmentally friendly fire retardant.
EarthClean received the Minnesota Cup, along with a $20,000 grand prize, at an awards ceremony Monday evening at the University of Minnesota.
The company has developed a patented gel called TetraKO that firefighters can pump through existing hoses to make water better adhere to surfaces. The company claims the gel is easier to use and more environmentally friendly than the polymer-based foams firefighters presently use to douse out fires fast cash loans. To visit EarthClean's website, click here.
EarthClean had already won $20,000 as the competition's clean tech and renewable energy division winner. To win the grand prize, it beat out four other division winners announced earlier this month. Division finalists were announced in August.
The first major newspaper endorsement has been issued in the race for New York governor — even before the Republicans pick a candidate.
The New York Daily News has endorsed the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, saying that he is far superior to either Republican contender.
"There is no point in taking further stock of the candidates vying for the Republican nomination in next month's primary," the Daily News said. "Rick Lazio and Carl Paladino have been that awful."
Most of the newspaper's editorial was devoted to the Republicans' perceived shortcomings, rather than Cuomo's attributes.
The Daily News charged that Lazio, a former congressman from Long Island, "has thrown substantive ideas to the wind in favor of demagoguery free business cards." And it accused Paladino, a Buffalo developer, of offering "proposals [that] range from ill-informed to illegal."
The editorial also referred to two controversies that dogged Paladino's campaign earlier in the year.
"Paladino is also given to insensitivities that would divide New Yorkers," it said. "He has forwarded racist and pornographic emails, including some using the N-word, and contemptibly compared [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver, an Orthodox Jew, to the anti-Christ and Hitler."
KBR has won two contracts by the Republic of Iraq Ministry of Oil through the South Refineries Co.
KBR will provide licensing and basic engineering services for the construction of fluid catalytic cracking and solvent deasphalting units at the planned grassroots Maissan Refinery in Maissan, Iraq. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Houston-based KBR (NSYE: KBR) plans to license its FCC Technology for an anticipated 47,500 barrels per day FCC unit and its “Rose” technology for a 45,000 barrels per day SDA unit poor credit personal loans.
KBR and ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co. have formed a joint marketing alliance to work on the FCC unit.
“These awards mark the first wins for KBR’s technology business in Iraq and provide KBR the opportunity to introduce two of its leading refining technologies into an important, emerging market,” Tim Challand, president of KBR Technology, said in a statement.
Yahoo Japan Corp. said on Tuesday that it will begin to switch over to Google Inc.'s search and advertising technology in the future.
The move is expected to give Google and the Japanese company that is 35 percent owned by Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) a near monopoly on search in Japan. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) has only about 3 percent of the search market in the world's second largest economy, with Yahoo Japan ( 57 percent) and Google (38 percent) making up the rest.
The Japanese telecom company Softbank Corp. owns 40 percent of Yahoo Japan.
Company officials said they began to contemplate a switch to Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) last year after Yahoo announced a partnership with Microsoft in which it is switching to the software giant's Bing search technology Low fee payday loans.
"We looked at this from many angles, but in the end we determined that Google was the better choice," Yahoo Japan CWO Masahiro Inoue said at a briefing in Tokyo.
Yahoo Japan also announced earnings, saying its net income rose 12.6 percent to $248 million in the three months ended June 30.
ATHENS, Greece — Moody’s Investors Service slashed Greece’s credit rating to junk status Monday in a new blow to the debt-ridden country that is under international scrutiny after narrowly avoiding default last month.
A Moody’s statement said it was cutting Greece’s government bond ratings by four notches to Ba1 from A3, with a stable outlook for the next 12-18 months. It was the second of the three major agencies to accord Greek bonds junk status. Standard & Poor’s did the same in late April.
The downgrades reflect concern that the country could fail to meet its obligations to cut its deficit and pay down its debt — which the Greek government says is out of the question.
Finance Ministry officials in Athens had no immediate reaction to the rating cut, which came as a delegation from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union started an interim review of the country’s efforts to pull itself out of a major debt crisis.
After amassing a vast public debt and overspending that sent its budget deficit spiraling to 13.6 percent of gross domestic product last year, Greece was saved from defaulting on its loans in May by the first installment of a joint EU and IMF bailout no credit check payday loans. It is to receive the second in September, pending implementation of a major austerity program that has sparked strong union reaction and a series of damaging strikes.
"The Ba1 rating reflects our analysis of the balance of the strengths and risks associated with the Eurozone/IMF support package," said Sarah Carlson, Moody’s lead analyst for Greece.
"The package effectively eliminates any near-term risk of a liquidity-driven default and encourages the implementation of a credible, feasible and incentive-compatible set of structural reforms, which have a high likelihood of stabilizing debt service requirements at manageable levels.
"Nevertheless, the macroeconomic and implementation risks associated with the program are substantial and more consistent with a Ba1 rating."
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