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The pharmaceutical group Sanofi-Aventis, seeking a major acquisition, would have approached the U.S. biotech Genzyme understands the Wall Street Journal on its website. In early July, the French had been the subject of market rumors about a proposed acquisition of U.S. $ 20 billion.

"Discussions are still in their infancy and there is no agreement expected in the immediate future. Issues such as price and management have not yet been addressed. " Both groups refuse to aAny comment.

According to the U.S. daily, officials from Genzyme, which specializes in products for the treatment of orphan diseases, are studying the amount that Sanofi would pay.In Stock, Genzyme capitalization stood at 14 billion dollars (10.8 billion euros) but the group can require a significant premium given its portfolio of drugs. "If we take as a starting point the figure of 20 billion dollars that has been discussed before, this puts Genzyme to $ 75 (per share)," said Michael Yee, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

Blow to Lovenox that will have to battle against a generic

In exchange, the action Genzyme has skyrocketed 15% to 62.52 dollars a barrel on Wall Street. And during transactions unofficial title continued to grow.

Faced with competition from generic drugs, many pharmaceutical companies are looking for external growth.And the more that Sanofi-Aventis has paid this Friday a blow, with the approval by U.S. health officials the first of its generic anti-coagulant Lovenox star, his second top-selling drug in the world. "The FDA today approved the Administrationa first generic version of Lovenox, the FDA announced in a statement posted on its website.

This product is developed by the Swiss Sandoz, the generic arm of Novartis, Momenta and American society.Sales of Lovenox, a drug derived from heparin and more complex to copy a traditional chemical molecule had reached 3 billion euros worldwide in 2009, including $ 1.8 billion in the United States.

In the first quarter 2010, sales of the drug was 769 million euros, which was still the second largest group of drug sold in the world.

The sales of Sanofi made in the USA by its anticancer Eloxin fell sharply after the launch of generic versions, while its other cancer drugs, Taxotere, will drop its patent to the public in November in Europe and United States.

In late June, Sanofi announced the acquisition of American TargeGen for 560 million dollars (458.5 million euros) in order to strengthen the fight against cancer.

After a pause of three days (Monday holiday), the U.S. stock market, resumed the height Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq 100 advancing in effect by 1.3% to 1035 points and 1.7% to 2126 points. On Friday, the NYSE has fallen heavily, cooled by the monthly figures of employment in the United States, although less well than expected. Last week, the Dow Jones dropped 4.51% to 9686.48 points, ending Friday at its lowest level since October 5. The Nasdaq fell 5.92% to 2091.79 points and the Standard & Poor's 500 index 5.03% to 1022.58 points.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro continues to rise on Tuesday. At 15.30, the euro gained 0.38% to 1.2592 dollar.

The session on Wall Street, will begin with the announcement of the PMI services.Apart from this indicator, no other major news is expected.

After the disappointment of Friday on the employment figures, investors should be particularly careful this week to weekly figures for unemployment benefits that are to be published Thursday.

The employment report in June showed Friday that the U.S. economy had reduced jobs for the first time since the beginning of the year. Even the decline in the unemployment rate to 9.5% was not enough to reassure investors, this situation reflects the despair of a portion of the workforce, which seeks more jobs.On Wall Street as on most other major world places, operators should play the card of caution this week before the opening of the interim results season.

On the face values

Within the Dow, the ball begins, as always, with results from Alcoa July 12 (next Monday).

Meanwhile, the discount retailer Family Dollar Stores (3% to 39.8 dollars) to publish its half-yearly results on Wednesday credit score. This will be the only company in the S & P 500 to publish its results this week.

The BP Plc, also listed on Wall Street leads the session with an increase of 4.9% to 30.8 million.After the group has denied being the search for new shareholders, Shokri Ghanem, Chairman of National Oil Co, a Libyan oil, said that Libya should return to the capital of the British oil company.

The share of investment bank Goldman Sachs benefits of raising recommendation JPMorgan, which rose to overweight on the title: +1.7% to 133.3 million.

Ford Motors has seen its price target return of 16-14 dollars by Goldman Sachs, the bank has lowered its estimate of overall vehicle sales in 2010. However, retain a recommendation "attractive" on the automotive sector. Finally, shares rise 1.5% to 10.43 dollars.

News Corp., the media group founded by Rupert Murdoch, The Wall Street Journal, in discussion with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! for the sale of advertising space on MySpace, so that the current contract with Google ends.The securities earn 1% to 11.9 million.

The group of agrochemicals and seeds Monsanto (0.3% to 46.7 U.S. dollars) Monday withdrew its complaint against European importers of industrial soybean meal from Argentina. Monsanto previously estimated that they infringed its European patent on its Roundup Ready soybeans. But the group has settled its dispute with the Dutch importer and dealer Cefetra raw Alfred C. Toepfer International just before decide the European Court of Justice on the case Tuesday.

The morale of French households do not seem to favor a clear recovery in consumption. In the first quarter, sales of Casino in France and have fallen 0.9% after falling 2.7% in 2009. Although the strong growth recorded by the distributor Stéphanois abroad (10.2% in the first quarter, after 5% last year) largely offset this decline, the group must respond. Jean-Charles Naouri, its CEO, shares his strategy in an interview with Le Figaro.

LE FIGARO – The morale of your customer shops is it affected by the crisis?

Jean-Charles Naouri – Many signs show that pessimism has worsened. He returned in September 2008, at the peak of the crisis. Because of the crisis of Greek and that of the euro, the fear of job loss has increased and concern about the standard of living reached a record high since 2007.The French prefer the job security of their purchasing power and their careers. This general pessimism is, however disconnected from the real economy, which seems to gradually resume. France is no longer in a situation of danger of deflation, the interest rates are permanently lower a guarantee for the future, and the weak euro is an element of recovery. The figures, including our own business performance, there are better a couple years.

Consumer behavior change it?

We found two relatively recent trends Firstly, in an environment seen as more complex, consumers no longer want it decides for them. They want to regain control over product quality, origin and value for money in particular.Similarly, while far to the client, other consumers were at best indifferent and at worst seen as troublemakers, he now draws more and more choices to their preferences and ratings. This horizontal communication facilitated by the Internet, this new proximity, we must reflect and inspire us to develop relationships with our customers in and outside the store.

How are you adapting?

We have a head start in this area because we have long been close to the heart of our strategy. We could for example indicate, in each point of sale, the preferred products or selling. We already strong commitments on the quality of our products.We reassure our customers, for example about what they buy indicating on the Casino-brand products, in addition to the nutritional use their carbon footprint, or that they are without oil palm and gluten free. We just put in place within the group, a Health Committee attended by several senior experts whose mission is to anticipate health issues and help Casino make good choices on offer. We also test systems dematerialized Innovative allowing customers to share their recommendations.

Hypermarkets Géant Casino continue to lose market share.Are they so essential for the massification of procurement and management of shopping malls you plan to transfer them not to invest in your most promising formats nearby?

I believe in small and medium format hypermarkets (6 000-8 000 square meters), which constitute the backbone of malls. I believe in the relevance of non-food offer in textiles, leisure and household equipment. Casino no reason to separate from Géant. Our superstores are as profitable as those of our competitors, and we set the target that market share has stabilized Géant Casino this year.Remember, also, that 40% of group turnover from international have a double-digit growth in France and the formats most carriers (Franprix, Monoprix supermarket Casino …) know sustained growth, which boosts the overall growth of revenues of Casino.

How is the recovery of your brand discount Leader Price, whose sales fell sharply last year?

This is another priority group in France in 2010. We are very pleased with the sales growth in stores converted to the new concept and we are accelerating the pace of refurbishment of outlets from week to week.

Could you introduce CDiscount stock exchange to accelerate the deleveraging of the group?

This is not the agenda.A listing imposes many constraints on management whose priority now is to continue double-digit growth in turnover. We are the leader, but in a very competitive environment.

Can you imagine Rueducommerce complementarities with the site, which Rally has just 8% of capital?

It is a very minority participation, without presence on the board of directors.

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The surprises have always been the marketing muscle of Apple. But the presentation of the iPhone could turn to four non-event. This Monday, June 7, at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Steve Jobs is expected to formally present the new version of its iPhone. A difficult task since the surprise had been nipped in the bud by Gizmodo, a blog specializing in the area. The latter was obtained for a fee, a version of the last device that was lost in a bar, then had completely husked, literally as figuratively. Result: Apple expected to miss elements of surprise in his presentation.

At this conference, Steve Jobs should focus on news and updates available for this new iPhone.But then again, few surprises in the program: the company had already submitted the software that will be applied to the iPhone 4 as she presented the platform iad, allowing Apple to develop the market for advertising applications.

According to analysts, a real surprise could come from the announcement of an extension of the exclusive sales of the iPhone to Verizon. So far, only AT & T can sell the unit on the U.S. market. But again, the mere announcement of talks with Verizon would not be a revelation: more rumors, sometimes belied by the operator to move the subject on the canvas for several weeks.

The product's most profitable brand

Although there is hardly any surprise about the iPhone 4, Apple knows that this presentation could take effect with the customer.The iPhone remains an undeniable success for the brand and the popularity continues unabated since its launch in 2007. In the first quarter, Apple said it had passed 8.7 million iPhones, representing a sales growth of 131% over a year.

The turnover of the phone is 5.4 billion dollars against 3.76 billion to $ 1.3 billion for Mac and iPod. The widening gap so quickly that observers now expects a gross margin of between 50% and 60% for iPhone cons 20-30% for Mac. In other words, the iPhone product line will be more profitable for Apple.

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Nothing goes between two of the major shareholders of Eramet. Romain Zaleski, who holds 12.87% stake in the French mining group, calls for the dismissal of four directors, who are none other than representatives of the Duval family, which owns 37% of the company.

There is virtually no chance that when the General Assembly on 20 May, these resolutions are passed. The Duval will vote against. Their ally in a shareholders' agreement-in-Areva will probably follow suit. The intervention of Romain Zaleski, via his holding company Carlo Tassara in which are housed the Eramet shares, should be a sword in the water.

It is nevertheless part of the logical continuation of the lawsuit began in late 2009 by the businessman. Romain Zaleski wants to cancel the merger of Aubert & Duval and Eramet.Fusion, which dates from 1999 and is the origin of family involvement in the mining capital of the group. At the time, Romain Zaleski was not a shareholder. The reason for this action never stops raising questions about the real motivations of the financier. Crowding out of Duval himself would become a key player in negotiations on new developments in the capital of Eramet. But with what ulterior motives? "We will demonstrate in the coming weeks that the lawsuit Romain Zaleski has backfired," said one familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, the plan to sell Areva stake in Eramet patina. The value of this participation is made more complicated by the attacks of Romain Zaleski.Even if they have little chance of success, it must be considered.

Securing access to rare metals

Communication Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea, in the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, does not simplify the situation. As noted in Le Monde, the Minister is considering the creation of a center that would combine the mining of uranium mines of Areva and those of manganese and nickel Eramet and should provide access to rare earths and some metals, essential for the industry. This event brings back another sea serpent: the dismantling of Eramet. Another issue, even result, in the end, the Duval family and Alloys division could leave the perimeter of Eramet."Such a subject is not even mentioned by Duval," says one close to the matter.

This hypothesis would at least end the procrastination of the management of Areva for its stake in Eramet, which "is either too much or not enough." At a time when access to mineral resources becomes a major issue, creating a "national champion" is not absurd.

But faced with competition from industry majors, weighing 200 billion dollars in each stock, the new French group, headed by the same Office of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM has also very little money), would in the featherweight class. However, the creation of a committee for strategic metals (Comes) is expected before the end of the first half and allow to "coordinate the various actions, including those of Ifremer and the BRGM and make them more effective" , says at the ministry.Such coordination "assuming no change". The private groups already agree with each other. Eramet and Bollore have joined in lithium (used for batteries) and overall prospect in South America.

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Soaring interest rates Greeks did not leave the choice to Athens. Greece today called the release a device with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. A solution to which it had previously refused, but reimbursement by the May 18 deadline for a $ 8.5 billion was forced to act.

It is now "a national need," said George Papandreou on live television."Our partners will take steps to offer a safe haven for help to put our ship afloat (…) and send the message to the markets if the Union does not play and it protects the euro."

The joint assistance of Europeans and the IMF consists of a loan of around 45 billion euros at a rate of about 5%, including 30 billion for member countries of the European Union and about 15 billion of IMF.

The area countries are taking their laws to release the funds. France has indicated Wednesday it was ready to grant 3.9 billion euros. In Germany, the situation is much more complicated. The government of Angela Merkel faces a strong challenge to the public.

Three events have accelerated the decision of the Greek government in recent days.Since the beginning of the week, interest rates on debt Greek continue to break records, preventing use of the Athens market in the near future. On Thursday, the European Institute of Statistics, Eurostat, has revised upward the Greek budget deficit for 2009 and reiterated his doubts about the national statistics. Finally, in the process, the rating agency Moody's downgraded the rating of Greece.

The markets reacted positively, the Athens Stock Exchange (Athex) was up by midday Friday, gaining 3.77%. By late morning, London gained 0.93%, Paris and Frankfurt 0.82% 1.25%.

More to come …

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U.S. markets resumed momentum. After opening the session on a slight increase (0.16%), the Dow Jones continues to grow more strongly in the morning, settling on a less hesitant in green. Around 17 hours (Paris time), the leading U.S. index is 0.71% at 10,257 points, the Nasdaq gained 0.23% to 2176 points and the S & P 500 rose 0.71% to 1097 points.

This stronger growth is explained by the strong housing figures, published an hour after opening. Thus, the promise of home sales in December rebounded in December from 1%, as expected by analysts, after falling 16.4% in November, according to figures from the National Association of Realtors American (NAR) .

Nevertheless, caution is required."The market is just in a holding pattern, waiting to see if the advance of yesterday continues, and watching the economic indicators and hearings on Capitol Hill," observed Patrick O'Hare, Site Analysis Briefing . com.

The shadow of the monthly report on employment which will be released on Friday, weighed on the market. Investors will also be attentive to the hearing of an economic adviser to the White House Paul Volcker before the Senate Banking Committee and the beginning of the hearing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on the draft budget 2011.

As for currencies, the euro rose further against the dollar (0.16%) to 1.3946 dollar. For raw materials, oil regain momentum he gained 2.17% to 75.21 dollars.

The bank under the microscope

The banking and financials should be monitored.Indeed, Paul Volcker, a leading economic advisers of Barack Obama should call on Tuesday, Congress to limit the scope for risk-taking by large banks. Fannie Mae (-1.46%), Freddie Mac (-2.44%) but Morgan Stanley (-0.02%), JP Morgan Chase (1.54%), Citigroup (-0.30%) and Godlman Sachs (1.19%) react fa?pn mixed. The latter also strongly denied rumors conveyed by the Times that the bank boss, Lloyd Blankfein, could reach $ 100 million bonus.

The title Whirlpool skyrocketing: 6.74% to 81.19 dollars. The appliance group reported a quarterly profit that more than doubled to 95 million dollars, including through measures to reduce costs fast cash without a hassle . Its turnover rose 13% to 4.9 billion in the fourth quarter.

Dow Chemical took the opposite path: -3.95% to 27.50 dollars. The chemical company has posted net earnings of $ 172 million in the fourth quarter (+11.9%). Dow believes that growth will lag behind the United States and Europe, but demand from emerging countries should maintain growth.

Manpower (3.33% to 54.93 dollars) has announced a net profit declined by 62% to $ 29.1 million, 37 cents per share, against $ 76 million, 97 cents per share, a year ago . It also provides an increase in its turnover in the first quarter.

UPS (+0.27% 58.53 dollars): the U.S. mail group saw its net income dropped 28% to 2.152 billion dollars in 2009 although it has rebounded strongly in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, it rose to 757 million, nearly three times more than a year earlier to the same period.

Kraft Foods (+1.39% to 28.45 dollars): Cadbury's shareholders have until today to decide on the bid of 11.7 billion pounds (13.4 billion euros ) American group.

Bank of New York Mellon (-1.44% to 29.15 dollars) said it would buy a division of investment services to PNC Financial Services Group (-1.09% to 55.25 dollars) for 2 31 billion, including $ 1.57 billion in Action. This deal could help PNC to repay 7.6 billion dollars of public funds received by the bank. The news was not well received by investors.

DR Horton displays the finest up market: 9.40% to 13.03 dollars. The U.S. developer reported net income of $ 192 million in the fourth quarter against a net loss of $ 62.6 million a year ago.The tax credit amounts to $ 149.2 million.

Finally, the automobile industry expects sales figures of new cars in January. Ford should have recorded double digit growth over the period from January 2009. In exchange, the title is already 2.25% to 11.37 dollars.

This is without state support that Ford has managed to overcome its difficulties. The U.S. manufacturer announced Thursday it had made a net profit of 2.699 billion dollars over the full year 2009. A performance to be compared with the heavy loss of 14.766 billion harvested in 2008. Over the year, turnover was down to 138.1 against 118.3 billion in 2008.

The group included supporting a very successful fourth quarter. Over this period, the second largest U.S. behind General Motors reports net earnings of $ 868 million against a loss of about 5.978 billion dollars a year earlier. The per share earnings is 25 cents, hardly less than the 26 cents analysts who had forecast. Over this period, revenues totaled $ 35.4 billion against 29 billion a year earlier, an increase of 22%.

Before the opening of Wall Street, the title jumped 2.68% to 11.86 dollars.

$ 500 million quarterly savings

To obtain this result, Ford has relied on reducing structural costs of automotive business payday loan . A total of 500 million dollars were saved in the fourth quarter. The group did not hesitate to pursue a higher price for its vehicles. His arm Ford Motor Credit has contributed to higher profits in this period with a profit before tax of $ 696 million against a loss of 372 million in 2008.

Ford is the only manufacturer of the "Big Three" of Detroit (with General Motors and Chrysler) have not gone bankrupt. It is reassuring for the future and plans to write "a profit before tax and excluding exceptional items for 2010, without specifying numbers.In addition to profitability, the group is including a U.S. car market between 11.5 and 12.5 of vehicles this year. In the year 2009 in the United States, sales at Ford fell 15.4% to 1.68 million units. Note that, after hesitating a large part of the morning, the Paris Bourse is moving more strongly in the green then qu'affluent results of U.S. companies show no surprises.

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Morale is not high on the Paris Stock Exchange in recent days and it should be so again Tuesday. After closing sharply lower Monday, markets are expected in the red today.: An hour of opening, the future Cac 40 lost 1.02% to 3782 points. The slump in Asian markets this morning gave a glimpse of what lies ahead for financial markets in Paris. In Asia, investors were not convinced by the rebound on Wall Street yesterday.

Among these, caution prevails until several important macroeconomic statistics across the Atlantic. Information should be filtered on the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Fed's on this Tuesday. There will be 15 hours the index of house prices (the day the markets had suffered a blow after the publication of resales in the United States that emerged in sharp decline from 16.7% in December).At 16 hours, will be revealed indices of consumer confidence and U.S. investors.

As for American publications, markets await the annual results from Yahoo! after market. It will also Texas Instruments, Johnson & Johnson and Dupont.

The Paris markets will also keep an eye on European statistics. We know the cost of household consumption in December (8.45), the construction of housing (8.45), the German IFO index (10 hours), the current accounts of the ECB (10 hours) and GDP in the fourth quarter in the United Kingdom (10.30).

The detailed values to follow shortly …

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The meeting on Thursday could be better than yesterday, concluded on a clear downward. The Cac 40 could waltz between red and green, like the Tokyo Stock Exchange Thursday. Or choose to enthuse the good growth figures, choinoise, as the Nikkei this morning.

Asian markets have, however, ended in a fragmented, mixed with fences in the area. The Nikkei finished sharply higher, but other stock markets ended in red. China's decision to limit loans to prevent bubble and an overheating economy has affected the trend in early trading before the growth figures do not change the situation.

The day before this decision had a net effect: all the financial markets have ended in the red.Wall Street in particular closed down 1.14%, Paris fell by 2%, 1.67% London personal business card .

Relaxation towards the euro-dollar

As for currencies, the euro weakened further against the dollar. It lost 0.09% on Thursday to 1.4097 dollars. The news should be appreciated by the export values.

The markets will also be very vigilant to macro-economic statistics to be published. In France, is known to 9am PMI flash January. INSEE unveil at 9:30 figures of entrepreneurship in 2009 and 12, the average annual inflation in 2008 and 2009. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. will publish the number of weeks claimed unemployment at 14:30, the composite indicator of economic activity from December to 16h and the index of the Philadelphia Fed at the same time.

The detailed values to follow in a moment …

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