Showing posts with label Volkswagen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Volkswagen. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

European and North American Markets Review – September 1st 2010

Bulls Ruled Europe and North America

Better-than-expected economic data from China and US triggered hefty gains in Europe and North America on Wednesday. DAX index jumped 158.68 points to end at 6,083.90 or up 2.68%, while FTSE 100 rallied towards 5,366.41 or gained 2.70%. North American markets also rallied, with the Dow ended at 10,269.47 after leaping 254.75 points throughout the day, Nasdaq Composite gained 2.97% to settle at 2,176.84, while S&P 500 landed at 1,080.29 after a 2.95% rise.

Data, Data, Data …

After China PMI triggered a mood swing towards positive in Asia, the effect still lingered throughout midday Europe (for China data, read previous post). Then, US data were out, and despite the ADP report went in below the expectations, ISM data posted a better-than-expected reading and thus further powered the rally among European and North American s
hares.

ADP report showed that 10,000 jobs were cut in August, against a gain of 37,000 jobs in the previous month. The market had expected an addition of 20,000 jobs into the private sector in August. T
he missed result was unable to stop the rally that already brought over 100 points of gains on Dow Jones index.

The boost came from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) index for the manufacturing sector that beat the expectation of a fall towards 53.00. Instead of falling, the index rose from 55.5 in July to 56.3 in August, indicating that manufacturing activity remained robust throughout August.

Final piece of the economic data on Wednesday was construction spending that declined 1% to $805.2 billion. June’s figure was revised down to -0.8% against prior estimate of +0.1%.

Earlier, European data showed unimpressive results. German PMI for manufacturing sector was stagnant at 58.2 in August, the same as July’s level. UK’s PMI for manufacturing unexpectedly fell from 56.9 to 54.3, below the expected rise to 57.0. Meanwhile, retail sales fell 0.3% (m/m) in Germany while on the year-on-year basis sales grew 0.8% after a 4.7% jump in prior month.

More data to come on Thursday, as US jobless claims and pending home sales will grab the market’s attention aside from other data coming from Europe. Claims were expected to rise again to 478,000 after it dropped towards 473,000. Pending home sales were e
xpected to fall 1.5% in July, at a better pace than June’s -2.6%.

Daimler AG gained significantly to €40.46 or 5.46% higher than Tuesday’s close after UBS raised its rating from SELL to NEUTRAL.

BMW bea
t Toyota’s Lexus at the American market for luxury cars in August as the sales climbed to 19,540. 1 Series and 7 Series had their sales up by 53% and 42%, respectively. Lexus however, declined 15% to 19,465. Daimler’s Mercedes sales were up 10% to 18,826 units, as the E-Class contributed a month-on-month increase of 26% in August while since the start of the year its sales were up 71%. BMW gained 2.99% at €42.91 while Volkswagen advanced 2.24% to €73.36.

Among the three, Lexus was on top with 145,490 units (+11%), Mercedes in the second place with 139,867 units (+18%), and BMW next at 139,236 units (+7.8%). Further down, Ford Motor Co. had 6,428 units of Lincoln models sold (+9.4%), Volkswagen’s Audi with 9,182
units (+14%) along with its Porsche’s sales of 2,032 units (+33%). Honda’s Acura and Nissan’s Infiniti sales were a 11,534 units (+20%) and 9,428 units (+22%), respectively.

BP will resume the work of plugging of its well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday which had been held by rough seas since August 30th. BP’s shares hovered at 388.75 pence at the end of the session.

Shares with significant gains in Europe were Daimler at the top (+5.46%), Barclays Plc. (+4.33%) and Deutsche Boerse (+3.69%).

Eyes on Apple

Apple demonstrated its new iPods, iTunes and Apple TV. It also introduced iTunes software with more social-networking features that enable users to see their friends’ downloading activities. Apple TV’s set-top box was revamped, video rentals fees were lowered, and Netflix’s content was made available for streaming. Apple unveiled iOS 4.1 at the event, which would be available next week for iPhone and iPod touch via free download. The OS will include GameCenter for multiplayer gaming. Subsequent version, iOS 4.2 will be launched later in November and it would be for iPad, with features like wireless printing, streaming videos and photos. The new iPod Nano will be 46% smaller, 42% lighter, with 24 hour audio playback battery life. The new iTunes 10 will include Ping, as music social network. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs also said that Disney’s ABC and News Corp’s Fox are available on Apple TV. The new Apple TV will cost $99, has no storage management, and can stream content from computer. It will be available in four weeks time. Apple was placed with an OUTPERFORM rating at MP Securities with price target at $290. Apple gained nearly 3% and ended the day at $250.33.

Amazon.co
m led the North American gainers on Wednesday as it leaped to $132.49 - over 6% gains – as the company was reportedly approaching media companies to start an online video-subscription service to compete with Netflix. One of them was Time Warner Inc.

From Citigroup
, the bank will lower the balance requirements of its basic account to reach more customers. The Citigold customers can now be free from monthly fees if the balance requirements are met, which was set at $50,000. Citigroup was up 3.73% at $3.85.

Other ratings revisions were Wal-Mart which was downgraded to SELL from BUY at Crowell Weeden, while Siemens AG downgraded to HOLD from BUY by Deutsche Bank. Wal-Mart ended up 2.11% at $51.20 and Siemens ended at €73.89 or up 2.94%.

Other top gainers were Bank of America with 6.08% jump to $13.21 and Halliburton Co. at $29.73 or up 5.39%.

Monday, August 30, 2010

European and North American Review – August 30th 2010

DAX and Dow Started the Week on a Weak Note

German DAX and the three North American indexes tumbled on Monday as economic data were unable to defend gains from last Friday’s rally. The DAX index settled the day at 5,912.41 or falling 0.65%, the Dow Jones index tumbled 140.92 points or 1.39% to end at 10,009.73, within striking distance to the psychological support at 10k, while Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 indexes fell to 2,119.97 and 1,048.92, respectively.

Personal spending and personal income data released on Monday showed spending increased by 0.4% in July, while personal income rose as well by 0.2
%. While the personal income was below the expected 0.3% increase, the personal spending was slightly above the expected increase of 0.3%. The mixed results turned the market’s attention to the next data, especially the non-farm payrolls which will be announced on Friday. Tuesday will see Chicago PMI data falling from 62.3 to 57.5, while consumer confidence data is expected to rise from 50.4 to 51.0.

European auto shares fell after Renault-Nissan’s CEO Carlos Ghosn said that auto sales in the US are to be below the expected level, while global sales are also not as smooth as previously expected. In ad
dition, German’s Der Spiegel reported that the sales of Daimler’s Smart are to be below 100,000 units against last year’s sales of 114,000 units. Weak demand from US and also lack of model variations were cited as the culprits. Daimler fell 0.73% to 38.12 euros, BMW and Volkswagen fell 1.33% and 0.45%, respectively.

More on M&A activities, Intel announced that it bought Infineon’s wireless unit for $1.4 billion in an effort to strengthen its position in the mobile phone business. Intel could potentially equip each of its PC with 3G feature which would put the company in a direct competition with Qualcomm who dominates the 3G business currently. Recently, Intel also bought McAfee for $7.68 billion. Intel’s rating however, got mostly downgraded. Credit Suisse downgraded Intel’s estimates, RBC Capital downgraded Intel’s target to $26 from $30, Deutsche Bank also did the same, revising its target to $25 from $27 but maintaining the BUY rating, while Lazard Capital put Intel to HOLD from BUY. Wedbush also lowered Intel’s target to $25 from $29. Intel fell 2.23% to end at $17.96.

IBM also bought its next company: Storwize after recently it bought Sterling Commerce. Its real-time data compression technology would be expandable to help IBM clients to improve data storage efficiency by up to 80%. IBM fell 1.07% to $123.40, however.

The pharmaceuticals industry will see Pfizer and Bayer AG to compete for the second spot after Boeringer Ingelheim’s Pradaxa in a blood-thinner market with the potential of $10 billion to $20 billion annually. Both companies will present their data at the meeting of European Society of Cardiology to be held on Tuesday. Afterwards, on September 20th the American regulatory body will also review the drug. Pfizer worked together with Bristol-Myers developing apixaban, while Bayer teamed up with Johnson & Johnson working on Xarelto.

Meanwhile, at Susquehanna, Texas Instruments was downgraded to NEUTRAL from POSITIVE. The shares ended at $23.25 or 3.73% below Friday’s close, joining AMD and Home Depot as worst performers of the day with AMD falling nearly 5% and Home Depot slipping 2.61%. At the top, the competing tech giants Hewlett-Packard and Dell led at 1.47% and 1.12% gains, respectively. Apple also went up slightly by 0.36%.