European shares opened lower Friday, risk aversion intensified significantly after Fitch downgraded Greece Moody's and that of several Spanish banks.
At 9:02, the CAC 40 index, which lost 1.2% Thursday, yields 0.74% to 2989.85 points.
The London Stock Exchange drops 0.88%, the Frankfurt up 0.9% and 2.02% fall of Madrid. The pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 index fell by 1.03%.
Fitch Ratings downgraded the sovereign rating Thursday of Greece "B-" to "CCC", citing the growing risk of the country leaving the eurozone.
Moody's lowered the rating Thursday from 16 Spanish banks, including Santander SAN.MC, the largest in the euro area, suggesting the reduced capacity of the Spanish State to provide financial support to ; more of them.
The Stoxx European banks index was down 1.56%.
Illustrating the renewed risk aversion of investors, the 10-year rate of borrowing has fallen under German 1.4%, against 1.43% the day before closing.
On the foreign exchange market, the euro continues to trade at less than $ 1.27, to 1.2660 dollar.
The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, however, considered that the current turmoil in financial markets should subside within one to two years.
Spain has officially fallen into recession in first quarter with a new economic contraction of 0.3% over the first three months of the year, statistics showed Thursday's final National Institute of Statistics.
On the other year, the Spanish gross domestic product fell 0.4%.
Spanish GDP had dropped 0.3% in the last quarter of 2011.
"The recession is advancing at a gradual pace, but if we take into account the latest surveys on activity, it seems that the economic contraction will continue into quarters come, "said Tullia Bucco, an economist at UniCredit.
The Spanish manufacturing sector contracted at its fastest pace in almost three years in April, while the service industry fell for the tenth month of row, according to the purchasing managers' index.
The export sector, the only one that has progressed over the last two quarters, slowed from January to March, the main economic partners of Spain is also experiencing the recession or slowdown.
Madrid seeks to convince investors that Spain is able to consolidate its public finances while reducing expenses, but the cost of restructuring its banking sector worries the markets .
The premium demanded by investors to acquire the Spanish debt rather than German debt has reached this week its highest level since the introduction of the euro, more than 500 basis points.
Lagardère announced Monday the launch of a bid for the company LeGuide.com, publisher of the website of the same name, at a price of 24 euros per share, valuing the comparator prices at about 84 million euros.
The media group headed by Arnaud Lagardère hopes to complete its digital portfolio that already includes the particular site or financial information Boursier.com Doctissimo.fr , bought in 2008.
The offer of the media group, which is the entire capital of LeGuide.com, will be open from 9 May to 12 June
The price represents a premium of 31.2% over the average as the company three months, 25.4% on average in one month and 20.5% from its last closing price, May 4, Lagardere said in a statement.
"Lagardere Active wishes to preserve the autonomy of management and leadership team LeGuide.com maintain the policy of employment and entrepreneurial culture that made its success since its inception" the company adds.
Present in 14 European countries, LeGuide.com, which compares the offers of more than 76,000 online merchants, claiming an audience of 28.9 million unique visitors.
For the offer to be validated, the total shares held by Lagardère and tendered should be at least 51% stake in the company.
The operation will also receive a green light from regulatory authorities in Germany and Austria.
Bank of Japan announced Friday a further easing of monetary policy, pledging one hand to increase its program of asset purchases of 10,000 billion yen (94 billion euros) and secondly to acquire government bonds of longer maturities.
Despite signs of growing a resumed third largest economy, Japan's central bank and takes measures to support activity for the second time in just over two months and displays its determination to fight against the phenomenon of deflation beating down the country for over ten years.
Economists had expected an increase in the program of asset purchases two times lower. The BoJ has also surprised by announcing that it would expand its purchases of riskier assets such as Exchange Traded Funds and REITs.
"The BoJ has a bit more than what we expected, then its decision is a surprise" said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan Securities.
"The bank is trying to get the message that it supports the market and economic recovery, as it did in February. This is a step in the right direction and we believe that the BoJ should do more to encourage the economy. "
The BoJ's decision, taken unanimously, carries its asset purchase program to 40,000 billion yen. The rate remains unchanged in a range of zero to 0.1%.
Immediately after the decision of the BoJ, the yen fell against the dollar. He was subsequently erased its losses and, to 6:40 GMT, gaining more than 0.3% against the greenback and the euro.
The BoJ has estimated that it would not "too long" to reach its inflation target of 1%, which could dampen expectations of further aggressive monetary easing measures.
It also found more and more evident that the third world economy was on the road to recovery. A series of indicators released Friday abounded in his direction.
Japan's industrial production rose 1.0% in March, posting its largest gain in three months in favor of a stabilizing external demand and the reconstruction of areas hit the country ; es by the earthquake and tsunami a year ago.
Also in March, retail sales jumped 10.3% year on year, against a 9.8% increase expected by analysts, while household expenditure increased by 3 4% in real terms, after growing 2.3% in February.
The unemployment rate meanwhile remained steady last month at 4.5%.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange closed up over 1% Friday, the good performance of the action Fast Retailing and relief related to the failure of the rocket launch North Korea has than offset the disappointment that followed the publication of a Chinese GDP worse than expected.
The Nikkei gained 1.19% or 113.20 points to 9,637.99 and the Topix broader took 5.60 points (0.69%) to 815.48.
Growth of the Chinese economy slowed to its slowest pace in almost three years in the first quarter, to 8.1% annual rate against 8.9% last quarter , said Friday the Chinese central statistics office.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected an annual growth of 8.3% of gross domestic product (GDP).
The title Fast Retailing jumped 8.59% after the chain of clothing stores, owner of the Uniqlo brand, announced Thursday a second quarter earnings of its 2011-2012 fiscal year and a soaring increase in its annual targets.
North Korea conducted Friday to fire a rocket at the origin of a strong condemnation from the international community but this attempt was officially ended in failure.
Molson Coors Brewing will buy the fund CVC Capital Partners brewer of Eastern Europe StarBev to 2.65 billion euros, the U.S. group is keen to develop its presence in the market s emerging.
Molson Coors has prevailed over the Japanese Asahi Group, which was not willing to pay more than three billion dollars for StarBev, according to people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. brewer is mainly present in mature markets such as USA, Canada and Great Britain with brands such as Carling, Coors Light and Blue Moon.
With this acquisition, expected to be accretive in the first year, the share of emerging sales expected to rise from the bottom of a single-digit margin to around 15%, estimated Molson Coors.
StarBev is present in the Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovakia.
Nevertheless, analysts are wondering about the synergies of the transaction, which is why the action lost nearly 3% to 44.35 dollars on Wall Street.
"Being present in emerging markets is positive but this acquisition seems quite devoid of potential for synergies," said Kaumil Gajrawala, an analyst at UBS.
The transaction represents about 11 times Ebitda of StarBev, 241 million euros, which also carries a turnover of 700 million euros.
CVC bought StarBev to Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer, in December 2009 and had sold given the interest shown by several brewers among which, besides Asahi is believed to know, were Carlsberg, Heineken and SABMiller.
CVC had paid for its acquisition of approximately $ 2.2 billion.
Nicolas Sarkozy is the "worst manager in history," Friday accuse Michel Sapin and Jerome Cahuzac, two experts on public finance team of Francois Hollande.
This attack follows the satisfaction of the Head of State after the announcement of a 2011 deficit lower than expected.
"Nicolas Sarkozy is carrying the six worst deficits in history recent budget," wrote the former finance minister and the chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, in a statement.
They recall that before the crisis, the largest deficits of the Fifth Republic had been achieved when Nicolas Sarkozy was budget minister (1993-1995).
"The figure of 5.2% budget deficit in 2011 compared to the GDP hides the continuing and disturbing increase in debt of France," they continue.
"The other significant figure announced by INSEE, is that the increased revenue from taxes paid by the French," they add.
Nicolas Sarkozy promised if elected to bring the public accounts in balance in 2016, for the first time since 1974. Francois Hollande provides balance in 2017.
The leaders will present on Wednesday at Opel supervisory board of the European subsidiary of General Motors a project involving the closure of two plants in Europe to reduce by about 30% production capacity , it was learned from several sources informed of the discussions within the company.
PSA Peugeot Citroën, the new French ally GM meets Friday a European group committee three weeks after the announcement of the merger between the two groups, while unions' s question the social and industrial benefits of the project.
"GM repeats regularly with excess capacity equivalent to 500.000 cars a year, we have two factories in too, and the new manufacturing manager visited the sites one after the other by playing against each other, "said Thursday a representative union of Opel's supervisory board, who requested anonymity
. "We know the main points of the strategic plan that could be Wednesday presented: it includes plant closures and no growth for the company, "he added. "If it is voted, the entire union side will vote against this plan."
A GM spokesman declined to comment on possible closures, but reiterated previous statements of the group under which the management is working closely with unions and works councils to improve profitability.
A source at Opel said no decision had been made on possible plant closures in Europe, but added that the bargaining Management was extremely limited due to the current slump in the European car market.
"Business in Europe are really bad for the whole industry right now and there is no sign of reversal," said this source.
"When things go so badly, we must take action, so the question is not what we want or what the unions want, which is the context so requires."
"We can not afford to lose time."
PRESSURE ON PSA
Employee representatives can not block a decision by management, but they have already warned that the presentation of such a project would destroy the Wednesday born Negotiations opened so far.
Factories in Bochum, Germany, and Ellesmere Port, United Kingdom, are considered most at risk even if the chief executive of Opel Karl-Friedrich Stracke has de ; clared a few days ago that he would respect the commitment not to close any site before the end of 2014.
The managing director of GM Dan Akerson has repeatedly expressed his impatience with chronic losses suffered by the European branch of the group, which reached $ 747 million (563 million) the last year.
Earlier this month, he said that two years may be needed to restore the finances of Opel in the green.
For Dan Akerson, the European automotive sector has a total of between seven and 10 plants in too. The closure of one or two sites by GM could therefore increase the pressure on PSA for a commitment on the same track.
Interviewed in early March at the Geneva Motor Show on the possible eventual closure of one or more sites of PSA after the alliance with GM, Denis Martin, director of industrial group franç ais, nor had responded in the affirmative or the negative.
Plants PSA Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) and Madrid are considered most at risk in case of restructuring the group's production.
The question may also be asked to Sevelnord (North), where nothing is currently planned to fill the void let what Fiat, the Italian manufacturer has decided not to extend its partnership with PSA on the site beyond 2017.
Ireland's GDP fell 0.2% in the fourth quarter after falling 1.1% in the third. A nasty surprise which should limit growth to 0.5% this year.
The Irish economy contracted by 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2011, bringing the country back into recession after a third quarter also negative, according to official figures released Thursday. Over the whole of 2011, however the country has grown by 0.7% thanks to a good start to the year, said the Central Statistical Office (CSO) in Ireland. The gross domestic product (GDP) had contracted during the previous three years.
GDP fell 0.2% in the fourth quarter, after -1.1% in the third quarter, according to a revised figure of CSO. The country is thus technically back in recession, it characterized by a decline in GDP for at least two consecutive quarters. This return is in recession and takes a nasty surprise against the foot of the forecasts International Monetary Fund (IMF), who still believed in early March that the country was to escape thanks to the good performance of exports in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and computer.
The institution was then once again commended the efforts made after the international bailout of 85 billion euros in 2010 concluded with the EU and the IMF to help Ireland to meet a deficit abyss caused by the sinking its banking sector. She pledged in return to a consolidation of public finances through a severe austerity measures, whose implementation is complicated by growth at half-mast, synonymous with lower financial income for the state.
"Net exports have disappointed this time," said Sonia Pangusion Thursday, economist at IHS Global Insight firm. The Irish economy is in fact based largely on exports, making it vulnerable to economic conditions in the rest of the euro area, while domestic demand remains very depressed. "Households continue to save rather than spend it in a context of fiscal austerity and unemployment high," said Alan McQuaid and, Bloxham economist Dublin firm, which expects growth of 0.5% this year. The Irish government hopes for its part "at least 1%" growth in 2012, stated the Minister of Finance, Michael Noonan, in a recent interview with AFP.
In 2011, annual growth has been fueled by sectors of industry and agriculture, whose growth has offset the decline in construction or services. Gross national product (GNP), which excludes the activity of many multinational companies based in the island, for its part, declined 2.5% last year.
The car wipes the biggest decline on Tuesday sectoral European markets, affected by fears of a slowdown in sales growth in Russia and China.
At 11:15, the European Index of automotive values lost 4.1%, falling from 4.98% to 5.45% of Daimler and Continental. In Paris, PSA yielded 3.6% to 13.265 Euro, Renault 3.72% to 40.010 euros, Faurecia 3.48% to 21.895 and 39.735% to 4.63 Valeo.
According to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Minister, Alexei Rakhmanov, auto sales are expected to increase only 6% in Russia this year to 2.8 million units, down sharply from to 23% increase over the period January / February.
Traders also refer to statements reported in the press, an official of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers that growth of sales in China would be less than the 2012 target set by the association because of slower growth.
"People are afraid from these statements. But for me, it's not a real concern, the prospects in China remain excellent medium term "said an analyst
. Despite this decline, the automotive sector index still shows a 28% increase since the beginning of the year. Renault and Peugeot won 48% 43% over the same pe period
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