World and National News

The U.S. stock market should open a very slight decline on Thursday. The index futures are predicting a small opening in lower indices on Wall Street. Futures on the Standard & Poor's 500 symbolically retreating from 0.02% to 1 081.50 points and those on the Nasdaq 100 grappillent 0.04% to 1 820.50 points. On Wednesday, the NYSE boosted by the publication of an indicator better than expected U.S. manufacturing, which has eased concerns over the takeover led to depression of investors in August surged forward. The Dow, which fell 4.3% in August, its worst performance this month for nine years, rebounded 2.54% to 10,269 points.The Nasdaq gained 2.97% to 2177 points while the S & P advanced 2.95% to 1080 points.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro was up slightly against the dollar in the morning, but struggled to increase its gains amid anxiety before the monthly monetary policy decision of the European Central Bank (ECB) and on the eve the very important report on employment and unemployment in the United States. The European currency traded at 1.2819 dollars against 1.2807 dollars late Wednesday afternoon.

Overseas, a new set of indicators is the program on Thursday, pending the release of employment figures tomorrow.Investors await including weekly claims for unemployment benefits, the second estimate of productivity in the second quarter, industrial orders for July and the promises of home sales for the month of July.

On the side of values, the automotive sector should stand today. The month of August has actually been the worst for U.S. auto industry since 1983. Sales fell 21% to 11.47 million vehicles. Ford Motor has reported a sales decline of 11%. General Motors, which is preparing an offering of securities to reduce by nearly 61% of the state capital, reflecting a drop in its sales by 25%.

Always on the side of values, the U.S. computer giant Apple has unveiled the updated version of its iPod portable should be very surrounded.The Apple brand has also significantly lowered the price of its Apple TV boxes, for playback on a television screen high definition video from a computer.

Also note, Henri Termeer, the boss of the U.S. biotech Genzyme, acknowledged that his company sought after by Sanofi-Aventis is for sale. Genzyme is good to sell, "but not at $ 69 per share, or $ 18.5 billion in total, as proposed by the French said parton biotech.

Essilor International shows a rebound in sales of 15.8% in the first half to 1,926 billion euros. The world of ophthalmic lenses has seen its sales boosted by several acquisitions such as U.S. and Signet FGXI Armolite. In all, Essilor has acquired or increased its stake in thirteen companies in the first half, representing an additional turnover of approximately 80 million euros.

Excluding currency and acquisitions, growth in turnover is 5.9%, "in line with its annual target," the company said in a statement.

Sales of optical equipment and lenses, more than 92% of group turnover, rose by 10.7% as reported. North America, Essilor which makes 43.5% of its activity, grew by 8.1% as reported.The rise of Europe, which represents 39.6% of sales, rose slightly less (6.4%). Latin America, however, mark a sharp increase of 47.1% to 88.6 million euros, barely 5% of sales.

Net income for Essilor is down slightly from 1.3% to 197.5 million euros. The group is penalized by the provision of 41.5 million euros to pay the fine imposed by the German competition authority (Bundeskartellamt) for formation of cartels.Adjusted for this provision, net income reached 238.8 million euros, an increase of 19.3%.

Essilor confirms its annual targets

"In the second half of 2010, in a context of renewed activity still fragile, Essilor will pursue the strict implementation of its strategy of growth based on new products, geographical expansion, acquisitions and organic conquer the environment range, "the group said.

This announcement had already acquired majority stakes in two U.S. since the end of the first semester in the laboratory and in the Gulf States Pasch. Essilor has also sold its stake in early August Sperian Protection which represented 15% of capital.This sale will record a gain of 27 million euros in its accounts in the second half.

The manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses confirms target for 2010 sales up 5% to 7%, excluding currency and strategic acquisitions, and margin contribution stable excluding acquisitions and strategic change IFRS. In the first half of 2010, the margin of Essilor has eroded slightly over the same period in 2009, yielding 0.1 percentage points to 18%.

At the Paris Bourse, the title Essilor yields 2.74% to 46.88 euros at 10:00. It displays the largest drop and the CAC 40, itself in decline 0.62%.

LE FIGARO. – How do you improve your sales and your profits in the first half?

Benoît Potier. – It's an interesting semester. It marks both a recovery in volumes directly linked to the global economy and an upturn in industrial projects. The industry again expressed his interest in the preparation of the future.

We found the pre-crisis levels in virtually all market segments. Only construction accuses six to twelve months behind schedule. Offset restart cycles. Overall, growth in volumes that logically resulted in 10% of our turnover, which grows in all businesses and geographies. However, Air Liquide is one of the industries that were more resistant, with a decline of only 5% in 2009. Moreover, our turnover is 4% higher than the first half of 2008.In this period of euphoria that some groups show up to 30% growth, it is important to see what is the basis for comparison. Our results were up 12% over the same period in 2008.

You can find levels of profitability higher than pre-crisis. Your business has changed significantly in two years?

There is a real disconnect between emerging and mature economies. Our sales increased by 6% in mature economies and 30% in emerging which represent 20% "only" the activity of the group, or two thirds of our growth. In twelve months, the distribution of our investments has changed structurally. It went from 50/50 between emerging and mature to 80/20.However, be careful not to bury the mature markets, growth of 6% is good, there are many industries that satisfied with them.

But to give you an example, our sales in China in the first half of 2010 rose 65% and they had also increased last year. China is catching up with the level of industrialized countries in streamlining its industry. There is no excess production capacity. Typically, we have seen closure of four sites steelmakers, grouped into a larger one. The latter now invests in technology and modern capabilities. All the industrial world benefit.

Chemistry, property and equipment, how do you explain that the whole industry registered a sharp improvement in its growth and profitability?

The crisis has hit so hard that companies do not have any choice.They had to rest fundamental questions about their structures, their capacity, so their exposure to market, their management parameters. I think all industries are now much stronger than before the crisis. Faced with problems of liquidity and access to financing, companies have strengthened their balance sheets. Their debts are either stable – for those who invest and continue to grow, it is the case of Air Liquide – is declining.

What do you recommend to stop the loss of competitiveness of French industry?

It is a vast subject. The ideal solutions for the industry have not yet been found in Europe and in different countries. Whether as a planned or coordinated, it seems that Europe has not sufficiently defined what strategies or industrial sectors in which it wants to occupy a leadership position.It means rather the leaders speak on a national solution, which is logical, but we do not have European body for industrial communication, unlike the U.S., China and Japan which are three countries integrated and better than us in the definition of industrial strategy. We are losing a major card: The strength in unity. In addition it must maintain a production base in Europe, since that's where ideas materialize. Without production, we have more innovation, but only for research.

European standards they penalize the industry?

Europe does not want to be a hindrance, but it seems to suffer from the narrowness of the missions that have been determined in different organs. The European Central Bank is there to control inflation while the Fed has a wider role.The European Commission organizes the market, ensures fluidity but has no mandate to make Europe competitive beyond its borders. It does not take sufficient account of the external markets. The European institutions can improve.

What makes you confident for the end of the year and may be beyond?

The resumption of growth projects. Signing of contracts shows that the client is ready to commit and so are we. Every time we sign a contract, we bring a stone to the growth of 2012-2013, or even 2015.

You do not fear a relapse of the economy?

The answer is clear: no. We have seen nothing that points in the first half as a direct risk. Since the crisis, we follow the weekly volume of gas consumed by our customers.In case of "double deep", it would stop producing customers, making maintenance. This is not the case. The situation is normal. It must occur because the world consumes. We are almost out of the zone of turbulence to go toward growth, even if the signal "attached belt" remains lit.

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The recovery continues across the Atlantic. But two of the twelve regional branches of the Fed said the pace of activity has slowed recently, Chicago and Atlanta, and two others have found a stable economic situation in Cleveland and Kansas City.

The Beige Book released Wednesday evening by the U.S. Federal Reserve and state is a better overall economy than before.Both at the point of manufacturing and services.

Sightseeing, the report underscores the strong momentum in the areas of San Francisco, New York, Minneapolis, Richmond, Kansas City and Atlanta, although the latter regrets a decline in leisure travel in the Gulf of Mexico, an area affected by the noirée tide.

On the consumer front, consumer spending during the early summer have increased overall, particularly in Dallas, but in most areas, this growth has remained low.

In the property and the trend is less successful.While the tax credit to Etats6unis expired last April 30, the Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Kansas City have suffered declines in construction activity, one can read in the Beige Book.

Finally, employment has gradually improved in several areas, like New York, Chicago, Richmond and Atlanta, but has stagnated for example, Boston and Dallas.

On Wall Street, the investor response is negative. The major indexes have bent the publication of the Beige Book (20 hours, Paris time). In the end, the Dow Jones ended up on a decline of 0.38% to 10,497.96 points, the Nasdaq is up 1.04% to 226.56 points and the S & P by 0.69% to 1106.13 points.

Note that this information valuable as its Chairman of the institution, Bernanke said there just a week before Congress the slow recovery, without announcing new measures to support the economy.Please note that Friday, all eyes will be the publication of the first estimate of U.S. GDP for the second quarter of 2010.

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The U.S. equity market, should try to regain a little high on Monday. The index futures indeed predict a slightly higher opening on Wall Street. Futures on Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq 100 advancing in effect 0.55% to 1 070.50 points and 0.51% to 1 812.10 points. On Friday, the New York Stock Exchange had fallen heavily, cooled by the low morale of American consumers and a series of disappointments on corporate earnings. The Dow Jones lost 2.51% to 10,099.26 points and the Nasdaq 3.11% at 2 179.05 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 broad, fell 2.88% to 1 064.91 points.

Today on the foreign exchange market, the euro off again on the rise against the dollar in the morning.Investors took advantage of a slight decrease of the single currency during the weekend to make purchases on the cheap, while the greenback was penalized by fears about the strength of the U.S. recovery. The euro was at 1.2959 dollars against 1.2926 dollars on Friday night.

Week decisive

The week will be decisive promises to Wall Street.

The main highlight at the macroeconomic level should be bi-annual speech of the President of the Fed Ben Bernanke on the economy and monetary policy before two congressional committees. He will testify first before the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday, the day when President Barack Obama enact the law on the reform of regulation of Wall Street.And the next day, he will address the Financial Services Commission of the House of Representatives.

As for the days to come, is also a whole bunch of statistics, including real estate, with housing starts tomorrow and sales of existing homes on Thursday.

The week will also see another round of results.

According to specialists of Aurel BGC, the main publications of the week are those of IBM (now), Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo, State Street and Johnson & Johnson (Tuesday), Altria, of Eaton, eBay, EMC, Coca Cola, Wells Fargo and Qualcomm (Wednesday), 3M, AT & T, Caterpillar, UPS and Microsoft (Thursday) as well as those of Schlumberger and Verizon (Friday).

Also note, always on the side of values, the Wall Street Journal, Motorola is close to a deal to sell its business network supplier Nokia Siemens Networks for 1.2 billion dollars. Last month, Motorola announced its desire to split the company into two in the first quarter of 2011 with a side activities supplier network and the other the mobile phone business.

Also according to the Wall Street Journal the company Emirates Emirates Airline is expected to announce today an order for 30 aircraft over long-haul Boeing 777 aircraft.

Optimism in the sky world. A few days before the opening of the Farnborough Airshow in the United Kingdom, Boeing set the tone. The American manufacturer has announced on Thursday it had revised upwards its forecast of orders for new aircraft by 2029.

In a report released in London, Boeing presented its annual outlook 2010. "The global market is in much better shape than last year, but challenges remain," said Randy Tinseth, vice president for marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the branch's civil aviation manufacturer.Capitalizing on global growth than expected, Boeing expects that "the air traffic registered an increase this year, both for passengers and freight," said Randy Tinseth.

In the long term, Boeing said a total of 30.900 anticipate orders to the horizon 2029, a figure up 6.5% compared to the forecast of 29,000 made last year. These new orders represent a total 3.6 trillion dollars (2.788 trillion euros). For Boeing, the demand will be sustained in particular by increasing the number of LCCs and Acceleration replacement by airlines for their aircraft models écononomes fuel. And of course, by the "economic recovery".

A recovery that will boost air traffic.According to Boeing, the world air traffic will increase by 5.3% per year by 2029, with the number of passengers carried increased 4.2% per year over this period.

The most prominent aisle

To meet this demand, Boeing is betting on the single-aisle aircraft segment, which will benefit from the appetite of companies to lower costs. This type of aircraft has become the face of long-haul for a decade, says the U.S. group's report. "The airlines will choose to offer more flights using aircraft with more efficient (in terms of fuel consumption, Ed), rather than managing fleets of aircraft much larger," says Boeing. Consequently, the market for large aircraft (type 747 and beyond, namely the Airbus A380's competitor) will account for only 720 units, totaling 220 billion dollars.

Finally, over the next two decades, Boeing sees the Asia-Pacific than in North America as the first global airline market. According to the manufacturer's calculations, the Asia-Pacific will account for 43% of global air traffic by 2029.

To further extend the Dreamliner?

In this horizon rather than a black cloud emerged, however: the delivery of first Boeing Dreamliner could be postponed until early next year while the U.S. aircraft maker said earlier this month that it would intervene in the fourth quarter 2010. If ever the first delivery was a new delayed, the delay from the original schedule – May 2008 – would exceed two and a half years.

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The U.S. stock markets started Wednesday's session in hesitation, but soon found the beautiful colors at the beginning of the meeting, brought by investors reassured by better earnings prospects in the banking sector. An enthusiasm that was accentuated throughout the meeting: at the close, the Dow Jones climbed 2.82% to 10,018 points (best performance since May 27), again surpassing the psychological barrier of 10,000 points for the first time since June 28, the S & P flies from 3.13% to 1060 points and the Nasdaq similarly 3.1% to 2159 points.

State Street Bank (9.9% to U.S. $ 36.64) outperformed all other banks, which also have very good performances, like Bank of New York Mellon (6.35%), Northern Trust Corp. (+ 6.92%), JP Morgan (4.95%), BoA (4.55 %)…

On the foreign exchange market, the euro remained stable against the dollar.It was trading at 1.2628 dollar. The day before, the euro had increased after the publication of an improvement less-than-expected activity in the services sector in the United States, highlighted by the index of purchasing managers published by IMS .

After the disappointment of Friday on the employment figures, investors should be particularly careful this week to weekly figures for unemployment benefits that are to be published Thursday.

At the dawn of interim results

On Wall Street as on most other major world places, operators should play the card of caution this week before the opening of the interim results season.

Today, the discount retailer Family Dollar Stores (-8.14% 36.23 dollar) has released disappointing interim results. This is the only company in the S & P 500 to publish its results this week.Within the Dow, the ball begins, as always, with results from Alcoa (3.23% to 10.54 dollars) July 12, next Monday.

Always on the side of values, Google (3.24% to 450.2 U.S. dollars) said Wednesday that it still awaiting a decision on renewing its operating license in China, needed to operate the largest Internet market in the world, said a spokesman for the American company and a Chinese official.

At almost exactly the meeting between Eric Woerth and civil service unions on Friday morning, turned to dialogue as Marchais Duhamel: "Maybe it was not your question, my answer is yes, but …" The Representatives of the eight federations have asked the public to appropriate Minister if the increase of 0.5% of the index, promised two years ago by the same Eric Woerth, would take place on 1 July. It has not responded, sticking to the planned agenda – a review of the changing purchasing power of workers over the past year.Unions have all left the meeting, half an hour after its opening.

The Minister of Labour and Public Service has, in fact, provided that the arbitration were not made, ironically on the fact that it seemed "much more difficult to reach agreement between the government trade unions" … He returned the answer to your next appointment, which could take place Tuesday morning.

A lesser evil

A few minutes later, however, at Matignon, the prime minister seemed to reassure staff: "This commitment is not undermined," said Francois Fillon.A way of saying that a freeze point clue is the lesser evil … Then the purchasing power of civil servants grew by 3.6% the previous year, taking into account the effects of seniority , promotions or revaluations granted to certain categories of staff. An old debate: the unions, they do take into account that the index points in their calculations, because it benefits all agents.

These unions – united for the first time in years – in any case have expressed their displeasure at the end of the meeting Friday. "The minister has stirred every red rag" has annoyed Elizabeth David (UNSA).

Despite his attempt to play the holdouts last-minute income Multimedia Group (MRG) was not accepted Monday by the band The World as a candidate for his recovery. In a statement released Monday, The World soberly describes the proposed "new expression of interest" without being recognized among the bids recovery group. "The world has so far received two offers from investors. This group BY SFA (holding the Nouvel Observateur) Claude Perdriel ally groups Prisa and Orange, and the consortium formed by MM. Bergé, Niel and Pigasse, "he says. Now, the two trios competing trying to convince companies and individuals. Hearings began Monday afternoon and will continue today.The company personnel, who have somehow a veto on the appointment of their successor, will express their preference in a general meeting on 24 and 25 June

Reportedly, the two bids, some thirty pages each, are accurate. The trio SFA-Prisa-France Telecom plans to inject 100 million euros (10 million from a bank loan) in the group for 67% of the capital. Perdriel propose to hold 45% of the capital, against 35% and 20% for Prisa for France Telecom. Stephane Richard's group plans to inject about 40 million euro offer for the shares of Lagardere, whose 7 million for the participation of 17.27% in Le Monde and 33 million for the 34% interest in the Interactive World .This values the total equity of the group (after debt) to around 40 million euros …

Create a foundation

For its part, the trio offers Pigasse-Niel-Bergé would book the group's employees a surprise. In addition to 110 million euros available for 65% of the capital, the trio was ready to fund "the possibility of personal companies of the group to return to their blocking minority," a reliable source. Thus, Pierre Bergé undertake, if its bid is successful, to create a foundation in which he would pay ten million for the company personnel can see their share increase by 20% (at the end of recapitalization) to 33%, the blocking minority."The relevance of this investment lies in the fact that it would pay the passage of the tickets out of shareholders Lagardère and Prisa diluted by the recapitalization," says one.

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A conciliator bedside World

No change in the short term. But the door remains ajar for two more months. Nicolas Sarkozy held a meeting this FRIDAY on pension reform in the presence of several ministers: Baroin (Budget), Georges Tron (Public Service) and Eric Woerth (Labour). Following this meeting, the President of the Republic has decided to send as is the bill (see the text in its entirety) to the Councils for review. No editing for now, is therefore proposed for this text which provides a gradual increase in the age of retirement until age 62 in 2018.

However, the executive says ready to developments on three issues dear to the CFDT: the situation of people who started working before age 18, taking into account the hardship and treatment of poly-pensioners (of persons covered by several pension plans) low fee payday advance. The special case of poly-pensioners had hitherto not been mentioned in the text of the reform presented Wednesday.

Nicolas Sarkozy has asked Eric Woerth offer him "at the latest before the start of parliamentary debate in September, possible developments on these topics.

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