Tag Archive
Spains Pains – US-FOREX.US
Pity Spain. While stimulus packages offered by the German and French governments quickly helped lift those nations out of recession in the past quarter, Spain had no such luck, and shrank by a more-than-expected 1% quarter-on quarter, its National Statistics Institute said Friday.It also doesn’t look like the situation will pick up any time soon…. »
Retailers Cant Wait For School – US-FOREX.US
American shoppers can’t decide if they’re ready to spend again or should hold off on that new plasma screen in case they lose their job, their home or their life savings. Big retailers also can’t decide. They posted better July sales figures than some had expected but a mixed batch of second-quarter earnings. Today the… »
Auf Wiedersehen Recession – US-FOREX.US
It seems like exceptionally good news. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, has just confounded expectations and emerged from its recession, thanks to reporting a quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 0.3% for the second quarter, instead of the contraction of 0.2% that was expected. A margin of five basis points is quite a difference-but don’t get too excited…. »
France Out Of Recession Into Uncertainty – US-FOREX.US
U.S. Senator Jim Bunning famously thought he had “woken up in France” when the United States government took control of mortgage finance lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year. On Thursday, waking up in France didn’t seem like such a bad idea: The home of fine wines and luxury goods reported a surprise exit… »
U.K. Recession Triggers Social Decay – US-FOREX.US
The recession is painting a bleak picture of the future of the British society. Crime, mental health problems, domestic violence and drug addiction are set to rise as unemployment reached a 14-year high on Tuesday, a leading public sector watchdog warned on Wednesday.”We are starting to see some of these things happening. We have also… »
Attention Retail Shoppers – US-FOREX.US
Sales may be down while unemployment is up but retailers are doing well, nonetheless. Since the start of the year the sector has walloped the broad market by a wide margin. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF
gained 55% since Jan. 1 while the S&P 500 is up just over 10%. Now, with the biggest retailers reporting… »
All Quiet On The FOMC Front – US-FOREX.US
Economic improvement, nonthreatening inflation and successful quantitative easing projects should make for an uneventful Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.On Tuesday, the branch of the Fed that determines policy will meet for the sixth time this year to assess the effect of its initiatives and map out the future. The central bank… »
Britains Banking Burden Grows – US-FOREX.US
While most European banks have been celebrating a second-quarter turnaround in investment-banking profits, Royal Bank of Scotland could only look on enviously on Friday. The state-controlled bank reported a whopping 1.7 billion loss for the first six months of 2009, driven by the depressed British economy and deteriorating loan values, and said it would not… »
July Job Cuts Expected To Wane – US-FOREX.US
Wall Street may be encouraged by the waning level of job losses on Friday, but it will mean little to Americans stuck in unemployment lines and struggling to make ends meet.On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department is expected to announce that the national unemployment rate rose to 9.7% in July, as 300,000 Americans lost their… »
Commerzbank Feels Germanys Pain – US-FOREX.US
It’s not easy being Commerzbank. Whereas other European heavyweights like Barclays, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas have reported strong second-quarter profits, boosted by a turnaround in investment banking, the German lender’s heavier dependence on retail banking resulted in a second-quarter 1 billion loss on Thursday. And with Europe’s biggest economy expected to shrink 6% this… »