Market News

Mittwoch, 7. September 2011

GRAIN HIGHLIGHTS: Top Stories Of The Day

Dienstag, 6. September 2011

Venezuela Seeks To Increase Iron Output With Help From China

CARACAS -(Dow Jones)- Venezuela hopes to improve its production and transport of iron after signing three agreements with Chinese companies, state media reported Tuesday.

According to the Venezuelan News Agency, the contracts include the purchase of mining equipment, the expansion of a port in the state of Bolivar and the enlarging of a shipping lane in the Orinoco River. The deals were inked on Monday, state media said.

According to Basic Industries and Mining Minister Jose Khan, the work encompassed by the agreements will be completed in roughly 18 months, state media reported. The accords, between the South American country and Wuhan Iron & Steel Group, China Railway Group and China Communications Construction Co., are valued at $473 million, according to the government release.

Montag, 5. September 2011

ECB's Trichet convinced Greece will take action

By Daniel Flynn and Vicky Buffery

PARIS (Reuters) - ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Monday he was convinced the Greek government would take the decisions required to keep its EU-IMF bailout on track, but it had very little time to do so.

Trichet also admitted there were differences between the European Central Bank experts and International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the recapitalization needs of European banks, after IMF officials estimated a capital shortfall of 200 billion euros.

Officials from the ECB, IMF and European Union interrupted talks on a new aid tranche for Greece on Friday due to disagreements over why Athens had fallen behind schedule in cutting its deficit.

Trichet said the troika officials, who are due back to Athens in mid-September, had given Prime Minister George Papandreou's government the time needed to take decisions to keep its EU-IMF bailout program alive.

"Time is obviously extremely short for Greek government to take the decisions required by the current circumstances," Trichet said during a long interview on LCI television.

"The Greek government understands the message and will do what is needed to achieve the objectives that have been set."

Greece, which sees the deficit at about 8.1 percent of GDP, blames the fiscal slippage on a deeper-than-expected recession.

Greek officials said on Monday they were confident they would clinch the next 8 billion euro installment of EU-IMF funds, due in mid-September. Athens faces no immediate danger of bankruptcy though it must repay about 10 billion euros of debt, but any delay to the aid could jolt the financial markets.

"We are just asking them to put into practice what has been agreed up, nothing more," Trichet said. "They were spending more than they were earning and that couldn't go on ... There is still the time to return to a normal situation, (but) the measures still need to be adopted."

Turning to the health of Europe's banks, he said that ECB experts disagreed with the IMF's methodology for assessing their capital requirements.

Asked if banks' funding needs were in line with the IMF's reported 200 billion euro assessment, Trichet replied: "There is a very important disagreement on the methods for calculating the capital needs...I am convinced that the final IMF figure will not be that."

Trichet also repeated a call, which he made earlier on Monday alongside his future replacement Mario Draghi, the governor of the Bank of Italy, for euro zone states to quickly implement a decision to strengthen the region's EFSF bailout fund, agreed in July.

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn and Vicky Buffery; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Sonntag, 4. September 2011

German FDP calls delay in Greek talks blow to euro

BERLIN (Reuters) - The interruption of talks between Greece and international lenders on a new aid tranche is a blow to the stability of Europe's currency, the deputy leader of Germany's junior coalition partners said on Saturday.

Christian Lindner, general secretary of the Free Democrats, (FDP) junior coalition partners in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right government, said Athens was endangering European solidarity.

"The breakdown of talks between the Troika and Greece is a blow to the stability of the euro," he said at a news conference in Berlin.

Referring to Greece's failure to meet deficit targets set in exchange for a second bailout package, Lindner said Athens was shirking responsibilities to which it had agreed.

"This is not about non-binding statements of intent, but contractually secured reciprocity for the emergency loans," he said. "We insist these agreements are observed."

Talks between Greece and the EU, IMF and ECB were put on hold on Friday after disagreement over why Athens has fallen behind schedule in cutting its budget deficit and what it must do to catch up.

The unplanned early departure of senior inspectors from the three bodies showed tension between Athens and its lenders over reforms, as clouds gathered over the second bailout package aiming to pull the country out of a severe debt crisis.

The pro-business FDP styles itself as a defender of the German taxpayer, a stance Lindner reiterated in his statement over Greece.

"Taxpayers in Northern Europe and especially Germany cannot accept inability or reluctance. In the eyes of the FDP, Greece must reaffirm it will for stability and reform."

(Reporting by Brian Rohan)

Samstag, 3. September 2011

Apache Strikes Deal For Onshore New Zealand Exploration

--Apache will pay for exploration on more than 1 million acres on New Zealand's North Island

--TAG Oil holds 100% working interest on tracks, will cede stake to Apache as exploration phases are completed

--Apache will pay up to $100 million to meet its obligations in pact

--TAG says East Coast Basin holds equivalent of an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of oil, with potentially more locked in deep shale formations

(Adds background in paragraphs four through eight. Updates share prices in last paragraph. Adds New Zealand production data in paragraph 13.)

HOUSTON(Dow Jones)--Apache Corp. (APA) has struck a pact with Canadian oil and gas producer TAG Oil Ltd. (TAO.T) to explore more than a million acres on New Zealand's North Island.

TAG holds a 100% working interest in more than 1.7 million acres in New Zealand's East Coast Basin. The Vancouver company says its acreage potentially holds the equivalent of 1.7 billion barrels of oil in conventional reservoirs and could produce even more from deeply buried oil-bearing shale formations.

"We like the prospectivity and the opportunity," said Apache spokesman Patrick Cassidy. "It looks to be unconventional and we can bring value to those assets."

Houston-based Apache is among the U.S. companies that have pioneered using unconventional drilling techniques to extract vast reserves of oil and gas from onshore shale formations. By combining horizontal drilling techniques with a rock-cracking process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, producers have unleashed vast reserves of oil and natural gas from deeply buried rock formations in the U.S.

Now producers are taking those techniques global.

In April the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that natural gas-bearing shale formations in 32 countries contain about 5,760 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas. That's nearly seven times the amount present in the U.S., where the glut of shale gas has depressed prices to around $4 per million British thermal units, less than half the price seen three years ago.

New Zealand was not part of the EIA's study.

Apache has been an early mover among U.S. companies carrying shale drilling abroad. Last month Halliburton Ltd. (HAL), which is a leading provider of fracking services in the U.S., helped Apache complete South America's horizontal first shale well in Argentina.

In New Zealand, Apache has agreed to pay for the collection of two- and three-dimensional seismic data in the basin in exchange for stakes in the properties as well as exploratory drilling if the seismic data suggests doing so.

TAG said in a news release that the exploration work would be conducted over the next four years, with seismic operations beginning this month and drilling expected to start in early 2012.

The work, which will be done in three phases, could eventually yield Apache a 50% interest in the acreage, TAG said. If the exploration reaches that point, it will have cost Apache $100 million.

Exploration and development beyond that would then be shared equally by both companies, TAG said.

While New Zealand meets its own natural gas needs, it is currently an importer of oil, according to the EIA. In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, the country imported about 60% of the nearly 151,000 barrels of oil it consumed each day, according to the EIA.

Shares of Apache recently traded 3% lower at $98.70 amid broad market declines. TAG shares, which trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange, were recently up 7.2% at C$7.62.

Freitag, 2. September 2011

British American Tobacco Buys 170,000 Own Shares To Hold In Treasury

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- British American Tobacco PLC (BATS.LN), said Friday it purchased 170,000 of its Ordinary shares of 25 pence each, adding that The Company intends to hold these shares in Treasury.

MAIN FACTS:

-The average price was 2,769.7024 pence per share.

-The highest price paid was 2,800 pence per share and the lowest price paid was 2,754.5 pence per share.

-Following the purchase of these shares, the Company holds 49,049,554 of its shares in Treasury.

-The Company has 1,976,921,221 ordinary shares in issue excluding Treasury shares.

Donnerstag, 1. September 2011

MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stocks Falter Ahead Of Jobs Report

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks declined on Thursday, folding after a four-session winning streak, with Wall Street wary ahead of the next day's monthly jobs report.

"People are hesitant to make big bets today right in front of the big payrolls report tomorrow," said Alan Skrainka, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth Management.

Stocks resumed their decline after briefly rallying as weekly jobless claims fell and a gauge of manufacturing came in better than feared, lessening concerns about the direction of the economy.

After climbing 103 points and falling as much as 88 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) lately was down 90.21 points to 11,523.32.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (SPX) fell 11.47 points to 1,207.42, with financials hardest hit and consumer staples faring best among its 10 industry sectors.

The Nasdaq Composite (RIXF) declined 28.69 points to 2,550.77.

All three indexes advanced on Wednesday, the final trading session for August, with the S&P 500 down 6% for the month, the worst since the 'flash-crash' induced decline in May 2010 and worst August in a decade.

"Market valuations, such as the P/E ratio, fell to the lowest levels only seen during bear market bottoms," according to Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald.

For every stock rising more than two fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where 658 million shares traded as of 3 p.m. Eastern.

"In a relatively shocking turn of events, the ISM index held above 50," Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG LLC, wrote in an emailed note after the Institute for Supply Management's factor index fell to 50.6 in August from 50.9 the prior month.

The Labor Department reported applications for initial unemployment benefits last week fell by 12,000 to 409,000.

Perspective

The stock market's recent show of resilience is largely due to current valuations, which took a large hit during the five-week correction that had the S&P 500 tumble 13%, with investors currently paying less for equities on an earnings-per-share basis than they did following every recession since Ronald Reagan was president, said Skrainka at Cornerstone Wealth Management.

The trailing price-earnings ratio currently resides at 3.5% less than the average PE during the 10 recessions since 1949, and at a level last reached in 1982, the worst recession in the period after World War II "when we also had double-digit inflation," Skrainka said.

The factors underlying the low valuations include worries that deficits are going to be an enormous burden on the U.S. economy, that European banks are a crisis waiting to happen, and that the U.S. economy is headed toward a double-dip recession.

"That's the story line. But amateurs listen to stories, while professionals do the math. When I say the economy is healing, people say 'you've got to be kidding,' but I pull the numbers out, and yes it's a slow, stubborn recovery," but nowhere near as dire as many believe, said Skrainka, who adds U.S. economic growth, housing starts, auto production and employment are all much improved over where they stood in March 2009.