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April 29, 2005
by Brian Turner
Mexico’s finance minister on Thursday made good on his threat to charge TV Azteca with securities law violations if it broadcast a documentary charging financial and government improprieties in the 2001 purchase of Mexico’s largest bank by Citigroup.
The documentary was broadcast Tuesday night by TV Azteca despite the warning. The finance minister, who had ties to the bank in question, ...
by Brian Turner
The demand for credit by Indian businesses grew in 2004 faster than it has since the 1990s.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) says this is due mostly to growing demand for capital from big businesses like construction and manufacturing, although the demands for retail and consumer credit were also a factor.
Between April 2004 and January 2005, borrowing ...
by Brian Turner
The European equities market was down for the third week in a row, although the FTSE Eurofirst 300 did manage a small rally to close at 1059.7 on Friday. Despite this rally, the market ended the week as a whole down by 1.2 percent.
It was a week that largely saw declines, although Dassault Systems, the world’s largest maker of computer-aided design ...
by Brian Turner
Speculation is increasing that China is coming closer to revaluing its currency.
If this happens, it is expected that other Asian currencies would strengthen because nations would be able to let their currencies appreciate without having to lose their competitiveness against China.
All this anticipation of an impending move by China was heightened Friday by a report in the state-owned China Securities ...
by Brian Turner
A study by the Bond Market Association released on Thursday found that while transparency in European Union bond transactions is increasing, there is still room for improvement before the level of transparency reaches that of exchange-traded equities.
The study is in preparation for the beginning of European Commission talks on whether the transparency provisions of the Market Financial Instruments ...
April 28, 2005
by Brian Turner
A valuable Italian soccer-shirt sponsorship deal is reportedly in peril due to the opposition of traditionalist government leaders in a North African nation.
The deal would put the trademark of Tamoil, Libya’s state oil company, on the shirts of Italian soccer team Juventus for up to ten years.
But Saadi Gadaffi, son of Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi and a representative of Tamoil in Italy, ...
by Brian Turner
Asian markets were mixed Thursday as a new round of earnings reports were released.
The Tokyo markets were virtually flat, with the Nikkei 225 closing less than 0.1 percent higher at 11,008.90. The Topix was only fractionally down to close at 1,129.93.
In the technology sector, shares in Sony fell 1.8 percent after its electronics division reported a ...
by Brian Turner
The U.S. dollar was slightly higher Thursday as analysts debated whether gross domestic product (GDP) data meant a coming rise or fall in the dollar’s value.
In the first quarter the GDP showed growth of 3.1 percent, which was lower than expected, but the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) deflator, which the Federal Reserve prefers as a measure of inflation, rose ...
by Brian Turner
TeliaSonera, the dominant telecommunications provider in the Nordic region, is having trouble regarding its first international bond issue since its 2003 merger.
It was forced on Thursday to cancel a planned €500m 15-year bond and to pay a much higher interest rate on shorter-term bonds.
It had to widen the yield spread on a €750m 10-year bond to ...
by Brian Turner
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank, left bank rates unchanged at 6 percent on Thursday. But it raised the repo rate, the interest rate paid by banks on short-term funds overnight, by 25 basis points to 5 percent.
The RBI reported that they believed inflation would remain stable at between 5 percent and 5.5 percent in the year ...
by Brian Turner
Mexico is in the process of reforming its securities laws with an eye toward getting more companies to list on the stock market there and to give foreign investors more confidence in the Mexican stock market.
In introducing the bill to create the reforms, the country’s treasury minister cited the fact that there are only 149 companies listed on Mexico’s ...
by Brian Turner
In Mexico, a TV network has produced a documentary alleging that the 2001 acquisition of the bank Grupo Financiero Banamex by Citigroup was beset by financial irregularities and government wrongdoing.
Now TV Azteca, Mexico’s second largest broadcaster, is accusing the country’s finance minister of trying to prevent the program from airing by threatening action against TV Azteca for violation ...
April 27, 2005
by Brian Turner
The U.S. energy department released its weekly report on crude oil inventories on Wednesday with the news that crude stockpiles rose by 5.5 million barrels last week to 324.4 million barrels.
This was much more of an increase than had been expected, and was the tenth weekly increase in the past 11 weeks.
The rise was fueled by the import of 10.9 ...
by Brian Turner
Russia indicated Wednesday that it might let the rouble appreciate more than had been planned in order to ease inflation, as oil revenues feed Russia’s high inflation rate.
The first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank (CBR) said the effective exchange rate of the rouble might be allowed to appreciate as much as 9 percent this year, one ...
by Brian Turner
Disappointing quarterly earnings reports from the technology and telecommunications sectors was a primary cause in the fall of European share prices by midday on Wednesday.
The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 1.1 percent to 1,061.62, while the Xetra Dax in Germany was off 1.4 percent to 4,173.95, and in Paris the CAC-40 fell 1.2 percent to 3,944.28.
In the technology sector, chipmaker STMicroelectronics saw ...
by Brian Turner
Bond yields remained low in Japan on Tuesday, while in the U.S. and eurozone yields on government bonds were up.
In Japan, some investors were spurred to bond purchases by continuing concerns over the economy, which is stuck in a persistent round of deflation.
Other investors were in the market to earn interest next week during the ...
by Brian Turner
Fitch Ratings is looking at the possibility of separating the credit ratings of General Motors and its finance division GMAC.
Fitch and other ratings services all currently rate General Motors BBB-, the lowest investment level, and assign it a negative outlook. This suggests that the company could find itself in the high-yield market.
If this were to occur, ...
by Brian Turner
Baoshan Iron & Steel set a new record for equity fundraising in Shanghai on Tuesday when it announced that it had sold 5 billion shares priced at RMB 5.12 each for a total of RMB 25.6 billion.
The previous record there was an offering by oil group Sinopec, which raised RMB 11.8 billion. The RMB 5.12 price was near the top ...
by Brian Turner
Emirates, the airline owned by the government of Dubai, has reported a rise in full-year profits of 49 percent, bringing its net profits to $637 million.
In that year the airline carried 12.5 million passengers, up 2.1 million from the previous year.
The chairman of Emirates called it the seventeenth consecutive profitable year. This was achieved despite higher fuel prices, stiff competition, ...
by Brian Turner
There is a positive feeling surrounding the Indian equities market as new Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in the last fiscal year (which ended in March) totaled R214.32 billion, up from R178.21 billion the previous year, and only R10.39 billion the year before that. IPOs this year could be up to as much as R400 billion.
This positive feeling is somewhat ...
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Mexico’s finance minister on Thursday made good on his threat to charge TV Azteca with securities law violations if it broadcast a documentary charging financial and government improprieties in the 2001 purchase of Mexico’s largest bank by Citigroup.
The documentary was broadcast Tuesday night by TV Azteca despite the warning. The finance minister, who had ties to the bank in question, ...
A valuable Italian soccer-shirt sponsorship deal is reportedly in peril due to the opposition of traditionalist government leaders in a North African nation.
The deal would put the trademark of Tamoil, Libya’s state oil company, on the shirts of Italian soccer team Juventus for up to ten years.
But Saadi Gadaffi, son of Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi and a representative of Tamoil in Italy, ...
The U.S. energy department released its weekly report on crude oil inventories on Wednesday with the news that crude stockpiles rose by 5.5 million barrels last week to 324.4 million barrels.
This was much more of an increase than had been expected, and was the tenth weekly increase in the past 11 weeks.
The rise was fueled by the import of 10.9 ...
