Markets

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Thursday’s chart: Spanish stock market operator data better than expectations

Financial analysts in Madrid warned that a ban on short selling would depress trading volumes even further while solving very little in terms of investor confidence recovery. At The Corner, we faithfully reported their disappointment with the authorities, whose small sticking plasters of policies would leave structural problems untouched, in most experts’ opinion. In the short term, though, there was something to look forward to. “Bankinter Broker and Afi experts gave…


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DIA’s turnover rises by 6.9pc with Spain price-driven sales push

MADRID | Supermarket chains serve a few of our basic needs and so the sector is faring better than other industries against the fierce crisis that is lacerating the European economy day in, day out. The same goes for Spain. Distribuidora Internacional de Alimentación DIA, the distribution chain, said Thursday that its sales in Spain had grown by 6 percent during the first half of the year. DIA reported today…


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Samsung joins Telefonica in hunt for multinational customers

MADRID | Telefonica Global Solutions and Samsung begin Wednesday a partnership agreement to support enhanced end to end service delivery to multinational customers globally. The agreement, the Spanish company said, leverages the core competences and leading market positions of both Telefonica, in global digital and communication services and Samsung, in electronics and cutting edge technology, to bring to the multinational market a differential partnership designed to deliver innovative new services. The agreement sets how Telefonica and Samsung will from today…


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The markets shelve Spain’s rescue

By Íñigo Villegui | Capitalmadrid.com | Something is happening in the euro zone. The possibility of a purchase of bonds by the European Central Bank or by a bailout fund, which would favour the tightening of risk premiums and facilitate access to markets for public and private sectors, is getting closer. Or, at least, that’s what investors assume. They have gone from considering that Spanish finances were doomed to dismiss…


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Spain’s power utilities: 11pc more profits, 56pc drop in stock prices

By Luis A. Torralba, in Valencia | Electricity producers in Spain have managed to weather the crisis under the umbrella of extraordinary income from non-recurring profits. But the markets, in spite of historically high dividends, are letting the uncertainty over the pending energy sector reform drag stocks down with a vengeance. Some declarations bring little help. The minister for Energy and Tourism José Manuel Soria recently gave away a warning:…


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Moody’s grades 17 German banks with negative outlook

Moody’s investors service said Thursday it had changed to negative the outlooks of 17 German banking groups and several subsidiaries. The decision affected their long-term debt and deposit ratings or their long-term guaranteed debt obligations, whose ratings incorporate support from the German government or several German federal states or municipalities. Moody’s explained the update of outlooks was the consequence of German sovereign and sub-sovereign ratings having been graded to negative from…


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Spanish real estate exposure halves Santander profits

MADRID | Banco Santander announced Thursday a net attributable profit of €1.704 billion in the first half of the year. The figure brings a cut down of about 51% compared with the same period in 2011. The Spanish bank pointed out that the decline is a result of setting aside €1.304 billion for provisions for real estate exposure in Spain of the second quarter ordinary profit of €1.404 billion. As a…


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Stock markets only dodged adversity

By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | Although the first half of the year has ended with a negative balance for most international stock markets, the latest months has been characterised by a relative improvement in indices. The reduction in fears that Greece will leave the euro and the euro area’s assistance in recapitalising Spain’s banking system marked a turning point in the trend for investors’ appetite for risk. Although…


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Spanish three-month ban on short sales disappoints analysts

Some investors sell shares that they don’t actually hold but borrow under the expectation that prices will fall. If they are right, when they buy back, the stock comes at a cheaper cost than the amount they were paid for those same shares and so sellers can pocket the difference as a profit. A day after the Spanish financial regulator CNMV ruled a full suppression of these short selling practices over…


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Euro area government debt rose to 88.2% of GDP in first three months of 2012

At the end of the first quarter of 2012, the government debt to GDP ratio in the euro area stood at 88.2%, compared with 87.3% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2011. Eurostat said that in the EU the ratio increased from 82.5% to 83.4%. Compared with the first quarter of 2011, the government debt to GDP ratio rose in both the euro area (from 86.2%) and the EU (from 80.4%). At…