< Earlier Discussion  | PAGE 612 OF 612 |  Later Discussion > Aug-23-10    jpatlantic: Brazilian companies from Gerdau SA, to Globo Comunicacoes e Participacoes SA are refinancing a record amount of perpetual bonds after borrowing costs sank to an all-time low. Gerdau, Latin Americas largest steelmaker, said last week it plans to purchase its 8.875 percent bonds next month, the fourth Brazilian company this year to call a total $1.7 billion of the securities, the most in any year since borrowers began issuing the debt in 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Cia. Siderurgica Nacional SA and Net Servicos de Comunicacao SA may push the total to $2.6 billion. Brazilian corporate yields fell to a record low 5.91 percent last week, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Companies can cut costs by 125 basis points, or 1.25 percentage points, by redeeming perpetual notes and issuing similar debt, Sao Paulo- based Itau Unibanco Holding SA said. Globo reduced interest more than 300 basis points, or about $10 million a year, last month. If you can knock 300 basis points off your coupon, that can add up pretty quickly,� said Christopher Buck, a corporate debt analyst with Barclays Plc in New York. “Prices have improved, they can get the deal done and they can structure it in a way that investors are comfortable with.� Brazilian companies have options that allow them to retire, or call, as much as $6 billion of perpetual bonds this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Perpetual bonds, which allow companies to repay the principal at their discretion, total $7.4 billion in Brazil, the data show. Aug-10-10    jpatlantic: Venezuela may pay a yield of 15.25 percent on $3 billion of bonds, the countrys first local market sale since October, Barclays Plc said. The 12.75 percent notes, which mature in 2022 and will be sold at a price of 100 percent of face value, will offer an implicit exchange rate of 4.95 bolivars per dollar, Barclays analysts Alejandro Grisanti and Juan Cruz wrote in a report today from New York. Venezuela, which sets two exchange rates for imports and a third rate that is determined by the central bank, is seeking to meet demand for dollars among companies and individuals after President Hugo Chavez closed the unregulated currency market in May. Yields on Venezuelas benchmark 9.25 percent bonds due in 2027 jumped 12 basis points, or 0.12 percentage point, to 13.4 percent today on concern the new issue will create a supply glut, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “Generally Venezuelan bonds tend to yield higher than other securities on the curve when they hit the market,� Grisanti said in a phone interview. “The coupon and yield were set high so that the exchange rate stays below the rate at the central bank.� Venezuela will issue about $1 billion of the bonds to banks to supply the central banks currency market, known as Sitme, according to Barclays. The central bank administers the buying and selling of dollar-denominated bonds at Sitme at an average exchange rate of 5.3 per dollar. The bank limits companies to $50,000 a day and $350,000 a month for imports. Easy to Sell Sitme has traded $1.14 billion since opening on June 9. Venezuela may increase the size of the offering to $4.5 billion because of demand from local investors, according to Asdrubal Oliveros, a director at Caracas-based consulting and economic research firm Ecoanalitica. It will be very easy to sell these bonds because of the conditions for locals,� Oliveros said. “The government will attract demand of at least double the original amount.� Finance Minister Jorge Giordani told reporters today in Caracas that any decision to boost the size of the offering would be made by the government at a later date. Fitch Ratings assigned a long-term foreign currency rating of B+ to the bond today, in line with Venezuelas issue default rating with a stable rating outlook. “Venezuelas comparatively low government debt burden, its government’s demonstrated willingness to service debt even during financial stress, and its manageable debt maturity profile support the sovereign ratings at the current level,� Fitch said today in a statement. State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA may sell $3 billion of bonds in the fourth quarter, Grisanti said, citing talks with the company and central bank officials during a recent trip to Caracas. A spokesman at PDVSA, as the company is known, declined to comment on the report. A central bank spokesman wasnt available to comment. Aug-05-10    jpatlantic: Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela, the largest oil producer in South America, is shipping 200,000 barrels a day of crude to China to repay $20 billion of debt borrowed from the Asian nation to finance power, agriculture and technology projects. The OPEC member, planning to ramp up China shipments to 1 million barrels a day by 2012, is selling oil at market prices to repay the 10-year loan, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said yesterday in an interview in Caracas. Shipments to repay the cash represent half Venezuela daily crude exports to China. WE are diversifying our export markets; our international policy is going in this direction,said� Ramirez, also president of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, said at his office beneath paintings of Cubas Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. We dont cut prices in any of our international agreements.� Venezuela is tapping Asian nations that need crude to fuel growth in their fast-growing economies for cash. President Hugo Chavez is seeking funds to restructure the countrys economy to provide more jobs for the poor and address power shortages. China agreed to lend the Latin American nation $20 billion in April to finance development projects in return for future oil supplies. PDVSA, the state oil company, and China National Petroleum Corp., or CNPC, also signed a separate $16.3 billion joint-venture agreement this year for a project that will pump 1 million barrels a day of oil for Asian refineries. Chinese Demand The International Energy Agency projects Chinas oil imports will almost quadruple by 2030 from 2006 levels. The nations oil use may average about 8.9 million barrels a day in the third quarter of 2010, up 9.5 percent from a year earlier, CNPC research unit said this week. Venezuela is finalizing joint-venture projects with Italy Eni SpA and Petrovietnam and is in talks with Japanese companies including Itochu Corp. and Marubeni Corp. to develop the offshore natural-gas project known as Mariscal Sucre, the minister said. Ramirez, whose office is also adorned with a statue of South American liberation hero Simon Bolivar, said Venezuela operates two very large crude carriers with China and will start construction on a joint refinery at the end of this year in the Asian country. Venezuela is diversifying its export markets as Chavez distances himself from the U.S., the countrys largest trading partner. Aug-03-10    jpatlantic: DETROIT General Motors Co. said Tuesday U.S. sales of its cars and trucks rose slightly last month from a slower-than-normal June, a sign that consumers are still willing to spend on big-ticket items. But the gains could be short-lived because shoppers are still anxious about slow economic growth and hiring. GM's sales rose 2.6 percent over June and 5 percent from July of last year, helped by promotions to make room for 2011 models. GM says sales from its four brands — Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac — jumped 25 percent over July of 2009. Buick and Cadillac sales more than doubled. GM's total sales include Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer, which are brands it has sold or is discontinuing. Newly launched models continue to propel GM's sales, with the Chevrolet Camaro muscle car, Chevrolet Equinox crossover, Buick LaCrosse sedan and Cadillac SRX crossover showing strong increases, the company said. Industry analysts expected buyers to respond to the usual model year-end promotions advertised in July. Jul-22-10    jpatlantic: Ford Motor Co. may report adjusted second-quarter profit of $1.62 billion tomorrow as Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally overhaul of the lineup lets the company charge more for new models. The second-largest U.S. automaker redesigned 2010 Taurus is selling for $6,300 more than last year’s model. And buyers paid an average of $30,309 for all Ford vehicles in June as they splurged on extras like heated seats and upgraded electronics, up 14 percent from five years ago, according to automotive researcher Edmunds.com. Analysts have raised projections on Ford adjusted quarterly profit to an average 41 cents a share from 39 cents on July 6, based on 12 estimates. The company had an operating loss of $638 million, or 21 cents a share, a year earlier, excluding a gain from debt reductions Jul-21-10    jpatlantic: DETROIT (Reuters) U.S.-based automakers led by Ford Motor Co have surpassed foreign brands in vehicle appeal for the first time in 13 years, according to a closely watched annual survey released on Thursday. Helped by popular new launches, U.S. domestic brands averaged 787 points on a 1,000-point scale in the J.D.Power & Associates survey of 33 brands, 13 points higher than the average score for imported brands. Vehicle models with high appeal scores tend to generate faster sales, higher profit margins and less need for cash incentives. High vehicle appeal also has a strong influence on customer recommendations. Jul-06-10    jpatlantic: NEW YORK — The Agricultural Bank of China's initial public offering has raised more than $19 billion in what could turn out to be the largest IPO ever. The last of China's big four state-owned banks to go public, AgBank is selling 25.41 billion shares in Hong Kong and 22.24 billion shares in Shanghai. Based on Tuesday's pricing, the rural lender would raise about $19.23 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal. The person requested anonymity because details of the IPO have not yet been released. If underwriters buy up about $2.89 billion more shares to sell to investors, the dual-listing deal could raise $22.12 billion — the most funds ever for an IPO. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China raised $21.9 billion in its October 2006 IPO. Jun-30-10    jpatlantic: Ford Motor Co. will pay about $3.8 billion in cash to a union health-care fund, a sign the automaker is confident that Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally focus on the namesake brand will produce profits. Ford was required to pay $859 million to the United Auto Workers Retiree Medical Benefits Trust by June 30 to fund benefits for former hourly workers. Ford paid cash even though it had the option to pay as much as $610 million in stock under an agreement reached with the union last year. It also prepaid $2.9 billion toward its health-care obligations, it said today. Jun-29-10    anitaonlines: Original Brand New Apple Iphone 3GS 32GB Unlocked..$350 usd COLOR: - Black or White CONDITION: - Brand New in Box INCLUDES: - iPhone 32GB Brand New In Box - Stereo Headset with Mic - USB Power Adaptor - Dock Connector for USB - Cleaning Cloth - Apple Documentation - Apple 1 yr Warranty price including shipping delivery to your address . Brand new complete accessories with 2 year international warranty We can ship it to you via 24/48hours delivery to your address . Contact us with below details... Tel: +447024096690 +447024081762 E-Mail : info@anitaonlinestoreltd.org sales@anitaonlinestoreltd.org anitaonlinestoreltd@gmail.com Website: www.anitaonlinestoreltd.org Jun-28-10    jpatlantic: John Taylor, who heads the world largest hedge fund dedicated to currencies, predicted in March that the dollar would appreciate to $1.20 per euro from about $1.35 at the time. He was proven right two months later. The chairman of FX Concepts LLC in New York now says the greenback may be due for a respite after the trade-weighted Dollar Index gained 9.57 percent from the end of 2009, its best start to a year since 2005. Taylor is one of a growing number of traders waiting for evidence that the European Union almost $1 trillion bailout plan isnt working before pushing Americas currency higher. We are scary, scary owners of euros,� said Taylor, whose firm manages $7.5 billion. We are keeping our fingers crossed that maybe the euro appreciation lasts through July and into August. But then the euro is just going to get crushed as it impossible situation in Europe.� Jun-20-10    jpatlantic: June 20 (Bloomberg) -- China pledge to make the yuan more flexible may boost shares denominated in the currency when markets open tomorrow, China International Capital Corp. and Societe Generale SA said. If it leads to appreciation for the yuan, it is good news for the market,� Hao Hong, global equity strategist for CICC in Beijing, said in a report today. Investors will want to get into Chinese assets because they will be worth more. It will also deflect political criticism and help stem inflation. The Peoples Bank of China said yesterday that it will increase the renminbi exchange-rate flexibility� after the economy improved. Officials have kept the yuan, also known as the renminbi, at about 6.83 per dollar since July 2008, aiding the nation exporters and fueling tensions with trade partners. Apr-27-10    jpatlantic: Financial markets on Wall Street and in Europe were rocked on Tuesday after Greece’s credit rating was cut to junk status by a leading ratings agency, deepening fears that a debt crisis in Europe could spiral out of control. The ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, downgraded Greece’s long-term and short-term debt to noninvestment-grade status and cautioned that investors who bought Greek bonds faced dwindling chances of getting their money back if Greece defaulted or went through a debt restructuring. Earlier, S.& P. reduced Portugal’s credit rating and warned that more downgrades were possible. The downgrades, announced near the end of trading in Europe, overshadowed some positive corporate earnings reports and sent investors running for cover on both sides of the Atlantic. Apr-21-10    jpatlantic: April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Investors should buy emerging- market debt rather than bonds of developed countries because advanced economies are poised for a period of slower growth, according to Pacific Investment Management Co. Increased taxation, regulation and government intervention in business combined with financial companies’ efforts to reduce risk after the credit crisis will drive investors from developed economies, Brian Baker, Pimco Asia Ltd.’s chief executive officer, said in Hong Kong yesterday. “This all leads to a shift away from growth being driven by the G3 countries to a more balanced economic world,” Baker said at the FundForum Asia conference. “Investors need to recognize that the investment opportunities are not going to necessarily be in the U.S., the U.K and Europe any longer.” Apr-15-10    jpatlantic: April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., the only major U.S. automaker to avoid a government-assisted bankruptcy last year, said it opposes Germany providing aid to help General Motors Co.’s Opel unit restructure. “Restructuring your business is your own job and you should pay for it yourself and you should not use taxpayer money,” Wolfgang Schneider, Ford of Europe’s vice president of government affairs, told reporters on a conference call today. “We are definitely against any support for Opel.” German assistance for Opel would give GM an unfair advantage and might prevent the Detroit-based automaker from eliminating excess capacity in Europe, Schneider said. Opel asked for as much as 1.3 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in loan guarantees from Germany as part of a total request of almost 2 billion euros from several European governments, said Stefan Weinmann, a spokesman for the GM unit. The U.K. has granted loan guarantees valued at 300 million euros, he said. “The European Union has specifically set up a framework whereby individual countries are able to support companies that have gotten into economic distress,” Weinmann said. “We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for the guarantees made available for this very purpose.” Apr-08-10    jpatlantic: DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co posted a net loss for 2009, but said it was possible to make a profit this year and that it was laying the foundation to return to public ownership. GM reported a $4.3 billion 2009 net loss covering the period from its emergence from bankruptcy in July through the end of the year in the automaker's first full account of its new balance sheet as a restructured company. The automaker said it had repaid $2.8 billion of its loans from the U.S. Treasury and Export Development Canada by the end of March and planned to repay the remaining $5.6 billion by June "at the latest." GM, which received $50 billion of U.S. taxpayer support for the restructuring, has aimed to move faster to jump-start sales and launch an initial public offering that would allow the U.S. government to reduce its majority stake in the automaker. Mar-24-10    jpatlantic: March 24 (Bloomberg) -- The euro fell to a 10-month low against the dollar after government officials said the European Union may need International Monetary Fund help to bail out Greece and Portugal’s debt was downgraded by Fitch Ratings. Crude oil and industrial metals declined. The euro weakened against all but one of its 16 most-traded peers at 11:01 a.m. in London. Oil slid 1.5 percent, copper dropped 1.1 percent and lead tumbled 2.7 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index declined 0.4 percent and futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.5 percent. France and Germany are nearing agreement on IMF involvement in any aid package for Greece, burdened by the EU’s biggest deficit, according to a finance ministry official in Berlin. The Portugal downgrade overshadowed government and industry reports that showed European services and manufacturing grew at the fastest pace since August 2007 and German business confidence increased. Mar-16-10    jpatlantic: WASHINGTON – Debate is heating up within the Federal Reserve over how and when to signal that the days of record-low interest rates are numbered. A rate hike isn't imminent. But at their meeting, which started Tuesday morning, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues will likely focus on how to telegraph that higher rates are coming once the economic recovery is more deeply rooted. Eventually, Fed policymakers will need to start bumping up rates to head off inflation. It will be a challenging maneuver. Fed officials will want to signal a move to higher rates in advance so borrowers and investors aren't jarred. And they will need to send a signal that isn't confusing. The Fed has held rates at a record low near zero since December 2008. Bernanke and other Fed officials have said low rates are still needed to underpin economic growth. But they need to decide whether to keep or modify their yearlong pledge to hold rates at record lows for an "extended period." Economists generally think "extended period" means at least six more months. The Fed could drop that commitment altogether. Or it could pledge to keep rates low only for "some time" or vow to keep "policy accommodative." Or it could change its language in some other way to stress that credit will be tightened when the time is right. Any such step would signal that the days of easy money are fading. Mar-12-10    jpatlantic: General Motors Co will pay back roughly $8 billion in debt to the United States and Canada before June and could go public in a way that would allow taxpayers to make a profit on the bailout, Chief Executive Ed Whitacre said on Wednesday. Those financial targets are more aggressive than the top U.S. automaker has previously announced and come as Whitacre pushes GM to move faster to jump-start sales and win back U.S. market share after three decades of steady decline. Whitacre, who was named CEO in December when former CEO Fritz Henderson resigned under board pressure, said the top job at the automaker was proving harder than he had expected because of the challenges of reforming a bureaucratic corporate culture. "It's been tougher than I thought," Whitacre said about the CEO post. "As you might guess, after going through a big bankruptcy and a big disruption, people have to be motivated and see something ahead," he said. "GM had a lot of baggage and that has to be changed and it is being changed." Whitacre said in December that GM would pay back government loans extended to finance its restructuring in bankruptcy by June. Mar-01-10    jpatlantic: March 1 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina’s central bank transferred $6.6 billion in reserves to accounts belonging to the Treasury that the government will use to make payments to multilateral lenders and bondholders, an official at the bank said. The bank transferred $2.2 billion to pay debt owed to multilateral lenders and $4.4 billion to pay bondholders, according to the official, who can’t be identified because of bank policies. The board of directors approved the transaction, following a decree ordering the transfer that President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced today in a speech in Congress. Fernandez scrapped a previous plan to use $6.6 billion in bank reserves for debt payments after the motion was blocked by a federal court and opposition leaders, who said congress would reject it after its summer recess. Fernandez said her order today was signed using a 2006 law that allowed the country to draw on reserves to cancel $9.5 billion it owed to the International Monetary Fund. “The government’s decision will prove extremely controversial, further increasing tensions between the government, the opposition and the judiciary,” Daniel Kerner, an analyst at the Eurasia Group in New York, wrote in an e-mail statement. Feb-18-10    jpatlantic: The gap in yield between Treasury 2- and 10-year notes, known as the yield curve, steepened to a record as reports showed that Philadelphia region manufacturing and U.S. leading indicators rose. The Treasury Department said it will sell $126 billion in notes and bonds next week: billion in 30-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS, $44 billion in two-year debt, $42 billion in five-year notes and $32 billion in seven-year securities on successive days beginning Feb. 22. The producer price index rose more than forecast last month. “The steep yield curve is starting to reflect signs of stagflation,” said Michael Franzese, managing director and head of Treasury trading at Wunderlich Securities in New York. “The short end will remain tied to the Fed funds. Yet we are seeing inflation signs and as a result, long dated maturities are getting hurt.” The yield curve increased to 2.92 percentage points, beating the record of 2.90 percentage points set on Jan. 11. The 10-year note yield advanced five basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 3.78 percent, the highest level since Jan. 14, at 11:13 a.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. The two-year note yield rose two basis points to 0.86 percent. < Earlier Discussion  | PAGE 612 OF 612 |  Later Discussion > NOTE: You need to pick a username and password to post a comment. Getting your account takes less than a minute, totally anonymous, and 100% free--plus, it entitles you to features otherwise unavailable. Pick your username now and join the Shibui community!   If you already have an account, you should login now.   Please observe our posting guidelines: No obscene, racist, or profane language. No spamming, advertising, or duplicating posts. 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