HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinas huge banks are poised to report strong profit growth for 2007, thanks to a surging economy and stock market bull run, but 2008 is set to be a tougher year for the top three Chinese lenders.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Inflation-proof your portfolio
Think of inflation as a menace you can manage -- if you take the right steps. Here are three things to consider to help ensure your money will last as long as you do.
Dow falls 293 as commodities slump
Gold falls under $1,000; crude oil drops 4.5%. Concerns about more write-downs at Merrill Lynch hit financial stocks. Visa shares jump 29% on the companys first day of trading. Morgan Stanley profits are better than expected.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
S.Africa manufacturing confidence at 4-1/2 year low
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Confidence in South Africas manufacturing sector plunged to a 4-1/2 year low in the first quarter of 2008, hit by slowing consumer demand, higher input prices and power shortages, a new survey showed on Monday.
S.Africa finmin Manuel warns on current account, market turmoil
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africas large current account deficit is a major chink in its armour given a low savings rate and global financial market turmoil, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Monday.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
New arrest in SocGen trading scandal
(Reuters) - Police arrested another employee of Societe Generale on Wednesday as they probe the world's biggest rogue trading scandal, Paris prosecutors said.
In January, France's second-biggest listed bank SocGen unveiled 4.9 billion euros ($7.53 billion) of losses which it blamed on rogue deals carried out by Jerome Kerviel, a 31-year old junior trader at the bank.
The losses have made SocGen a possible bid target.
The Paris prosecutor's office identified the latest person being held as a trader from a subsidiary of SocGen.
A source close to the matter said the person being held works for SG Securities, the bank's share brokerage arm.
SocGen declined to identify the person or the division.
House's Frank Says Muni-Bond Ratings Are `Ridiculous'
Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative Barney Frank said it is ``ridiculous'' that bond-rating companies apply tougher standards to local government debt as he prepares to hold a hearing on the soaring interest costs of municipalities.
California Treasurer Bill Lockyer and other state officials are calling for Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service, and Fitch Ratings to change a system they say costs taxpayers by exaggerating the risk that states and cities will default on their debts. Every state except Louisiana would be AAA if measured by the scale used for corporate borrowers, according to research by Moody's Investors Service.
``This notion of having a separate standard for the municipals because they would do too well on the other standard is ridiculous,'' Frank, the Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters in Washington yesterday.
Frank's committee today opens a hearing into how states, local governments and other tax-exempt borrowers, which have $2.6 trillion of debt outstanding, are being hurt by the crisis in confidence in U.S. financial markets. The interest costs on auction-rate securities, a type of debt used by municipalities, has almost doubled since January and investors have also demanded higher yields on tax-exempt bonds backed by insurers that are struggling to maintain their own credit ratings.
Insurers' Investments
``The bad investments they have made have dragged down the value of the municipal issuers and cost money for people who want to build schools and roads,'' Frank said in a Bloomberg Television interview today.
Lockyer at today's hearing plans to ask Congress to pressure the rating companies to change their system, spokesman Tom Dresslar said. Other witnesses set to testify include Ajit Jain, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp., Laura Levenstein, a senior managing director for Moody's, and New York's superintendent of insurance, Eric Dinallo.
``The current system makes no sense,'' said Dresslar. ``Taxpayers wind up paying billions of dollars in higher interest rates and insurance premiums.''
Because ratings are typically lower on the municipal scale, local governments have paid insurance companies to back their bonds with AAA ratings, seeking to reduce borrowers' costs. With insurers' ratings under pressure because of losses on mortgage debts, states, cities and hospitals have faced higher interest costs on floating-rate bonds backed by the guarantors as investors shun the debt.
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