Hypo Venture Capital Headlines: Is the global economy back on an even keel?

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Day rates for the movement of goods around the world hit their peak in early 2008, a few months before the global financial crisis. Which direction are these same prices heading in now, and can the shipping industry help predict the direction of the global economy?

Munshi Ahmed / Bloomberg

A port in Singapore. Around 90 per cent of all the world’s goods are transported by sea, meaning that when economic activity is strong, the shipping industry is buoyant.

Bloomberg

Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi, which is being constructed between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world.

Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Headlines: World markets tumble on renewed US recession fears

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Amid the uncertainty, traders pulled out of any risky investments — such as stocks, particularly financial ones, the euro and emerging market currencies — to pile into safe havens: U.S. Treasurys, the dollar, the Japanese yen and gold.

European shares slumped in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 dropped 2.9 percent to 5,136.36. Germany’s DAX fell 4.7 percent to 5,280.13, and France’s CAC-40 tumbled 4.6 percent to 3,003.64.

Markets in the U.S. were closed for the Labor Day holiday.

Banking stocks were among the hardest hit after the U.S. government sued 17 financial firms Friday for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic when the housing market collapsed.

Among those targeted by the lawsuits were Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Large European banks including The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank and Credit Suisse were also sued.

Renewed jitters over the eurozone debt crisis also contributed to the slump in financial stocks amid concerns they would need to raise new capital. Deutsche Bank was down 9.4 percent in Frankfurt while Societe Generale in Paris shed 9 percent.

An international debt inspectors’ review of Greece’s finances was interrupted Friday amid disagreements over the country’s deficit figures. The review will be resumed in about 10 days and must be completed in order for the country

to receive its bailout loans at the end of the month.

Signs that the Italian government’s commitment to its austerity program is wavering have also shaken investors. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government has backtracked on some deficit-cutting measures, prompting EU economic officials to urge it to stick to its promised plan.

The economic indicators, meanwhile, were mostly downbeat. Although retail sales in the eurozone rose unexpectedly in July, a survey of the services sector showed a slowdown across the continent for the fifth consecutive month.

The Purchasing Managers’ Index for the eurozone showed the services sector was still growing — unlike the manufacturing sector — but only barely. That will add pressure on the European Central Bank to keep interest rates on hold when it meets this week.

Hypo Venture Capital Headlines: Forget in-depth financial analysis- Now even Wall Street is turning to Twitter for clues on the stock market

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Twitter may have finally found a real way to make money.

For years, analysts have predicted that the real value of the social networking service doesn’t lie in serving advertising to users, but rather in serving up millions of points of real-time data to anyone who can wring useful intelligence out of it.

A new paper published by an Indiana University professor, combined with recent practices on Wall Street, suggest that Twitter may be a goldmine of valuable financial information.

Power to the people: A professor’s analysis of Tweets proved 87 per cent accurate in predicting stock prices

Data: Social services like Twitter may prove invaluable when it comes to real-time financial information

Johan Bollen, a professor of informatics at Indiana, co-authored a study that linked a computerized assessment of the ‘mood’ of millions of Twitter posts with stock marketperformance.

Mr Bollen’s analysis of Tweets was said to have an 87 per cent chance of successfully predicting stock prices within three or four days of online discussion of the company in question.

More…

• Clueless teenagers flood search engines to ask: ‘Who is Osama Bin Laden?’
• ‘I deleted my Twitter, y’all’: Miley Cyrus makes home rap video to explain why she left the social networking site

To reach his conclusion, Mr Bollen analyzed a total of 9.6 million tweets over nine months in 2008, using two mood-tracking tools.

One program assessed whether a tweet about a particular company was positive or negative, while the other tried to drill down further and categorize tweets through six modifiers: calm, alert, sure, vital, kind and happy.

Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Management: News Corp. Swaps Diverge as S&P Considers Cut: Corporate Finance

http://hypoventurecapital-financialideas.com/2011/07/hypo-venture-capital-zurich-management-news-corp-swaps-diverge-as-sp-considers-cut-corporate-finance/

The cost of protecting debt of the owner of the Fox TV networks and the Wall Street Journal from default soared 58 basis points this month to 142 basis points as of yesterday, compared with an increase of 10 basis points for the average contract on Rupert Murdoch’s company and its four biggest competitors. Relative yields on News Corp.’s bonds have risen 31 basis points, while those of similar companies widened one basis point, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show.

S&P said in a statement it may lower New York-based News Corp. (NWSA)’s BBB+ corporate credit rating after “broadening legal inquires” into the phone-hacking scandal centering on the defunct News of the World newspaper “increased business and reputation risks” for the media company. The review came just five days after the ratings company said the outlook was stable.

“The court of public opinion can be fairly merciless, and that’s the bigger headwind now,” Tom Farina, managing director at Deutsche Insurance Asset Management in New York, which oversees $200 billion, said in a telephone interview. While News Corp. may not see “direct financial ramifications,” the reputational damage is the larger risk, Farina said.

Most on Record

Credit-default swaps on its News America Inc. unit are the highest on record, compared with the average contract on the debt of competitors. Swaps on News Corp., Walt Disney Co. (DIS), Time Warner Inc.,Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), and Viacom Inc. (VIA/B) climbed to 79 basis points from as low as 54 basis points in December, according to CMA, which is owned by CME Group Inc. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated market.