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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 façpn 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 Asian exchanges dominated by the wait

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 …

"VIDEO – Tips for betting on the currency in 2010

This is better, but there is still much work to do. This is essentially the message that the Fed has sent in its periodic report of the Beige Book.Although economic conditions in the United States will be "even slightly improved" since early December, loan demand and credit quality continues to decline in most regions, said Wednesday the U.S. central bank.

"Even if economic activity remains at a low level, the situation has further improved slightly and these improvements are a wider geographical perspective," according to information transmitted by the twelve regional branches of the Fed.

In the previous report, published December 2, the Fed had estimated that the situation had "improved slightly" in late October and November.

The activity of banking and financial sector remains a concern is that the central bank in the report prepared for the next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Fed, 26 and 27 January.

"The Fed must raise interest rates" (President of the Philadelphia Fed)

The other black economy is unemployment, according to central bank: "the situation on the labor market remained generally poor, with modest increases in wages appearing in only a few regions.

Consumption expenditure of households, the traditional engine of U.S. growth, "have been at parties year end slightly higher than in 2008 but still well below 2007 levels," said the central bank.

Parallel, were the speeches of presidents of the Philadelphia Fed's Charles Plosser and Dallas, Richard Fisher, the U.S. outlook.The first said that sluggish job market should not prevent the Fed raise interest rates, while the latter said that the Fed would begin to withdraw its measures of accommodative monetary policy to avoid an increase inflationary pressures.

At the same time, Washington announced that the deficit of the United States increased from 77.5% to 91.854 billion dollars for the month of December compared to December 2008.

Shortly after the publication of the Beige Book on Wednesday, the Dow Jones up 0.36% to 10,665.65 points, after opening up 0.15%.

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France will issue the market for 188 billion euros of debt in 2010, against 175 billion originally estimated, said the Agency France Trésor (AFT) after a decision of the Minister of Economy Christine Lagarde.

AFT said that amount takes into account the 22 billion euros to be used to finance the huge debt which must be subtracted 9 billion euro share buyback due 2010.

"The net emissions will be distributed as follows: around 10% in bonds indexed to inflation, the remainder being divided between BTAN (medium term) and OAT (long term), adds the public body which aims to put debt of France on the market.

In 2009, the agency bought for 13.6 billion purchase of securities prior to maturity, including 11 billion maturing in 2010 and 2.6 billion euros in 2011.

Securities issued debt has steadily increased in recent years. In 2009, they amounted to 165 billion euros, against 128 billion in 2008 and 97.5 billion in 2007.

The Court of Auditors has published today its report on "the transfer to the regions transport train: mixed results and developments to continue." Verdict: TER now costs too much and it is not suitable for many lines in sub-activity. The institution of the Rue Cambon points to the lavish spending of regions purchase of rolling stock and operating costs too high for the station. The regions have spent 600 million euros since 2004 to renew their fleets TER. "They must be reasonable and proportioned more traffic to their efforts," said Philippe Séguin, the first President of the Court of Auditors. Investments can be a symbol of vitality but not necessarily needed. "The report also questions the effectiveness of operations by the SNCF and its inability to cut costs because of the status of railway workers.This induces a "surcharge of about 20 to 30%. "The SNCF is the sole interlocutor of the areas, said Philippe Séguin. This monopoly reduces the bargaining power of regions and do not push the operator to achieve productivity gains. "The average cost of a B in France is 17 euros per kilometer and train while it is only 11 euros in Germany.

According to the report, the TER has cost 2.7 billion euros to the regions in 2009. It represents an increasing share of their budget for an average load of trains by 26%. Lines and less crowded – or 7 800 km in France – do not see spending an average of ten trains per day. These figures conceal wide disparities: trains run empty in rural areas and off-peak while others are crowded into urban areas.

Carbon footprint

The Court of Auditors calls for the abandonment of certain lines in favor of the bus."The cost of the less frequented lines is too high for public finances," said Philippe Séguin. It is equivalent to the mile, the cost to use a private car. "The Court regrets that the" analytical accounts of the station "makes it difficult to choose between profitable routes and unprofitable lines.

Paradoxically, the use of the bus even improve the carbon footprint of TER. Today, 90% of lines are not electrified and diesel is half the energy consumed by the regional trains. "And most of the electrical energy is of thermal origin, explains Philippe Séguin. The carbon footprint of the TER is not favorable. "

The report of the Court of Auditors (pdf)

New Christmas rigorous perspective. For the second consecutive year, the budget for Christmas and New Year would fall. An EU study, Deloitte, 34% of the French intend to spend less in 2008 for their Christmas shopping. And only 15% expect to increase their budget for gifts, meals and entertainment. In total, they spend 3.5% less than last year, and will make less of gifts: 10 on average from the 1795 French surveyed, one fewer than in 2008. Among the victims of this greater selectivity: colleagues, friends and extended families, more and more often denied this.

Paradoxical because the French are still a majority did not declare themselves to be affected by the crisis, not to be worried about their jobs and remain confident about their income."The explanation lies in their morale is very low, analysis Gilles Goldenberg, a partner at Deloitte. The psychological barrier is the major factor holding back consumption, ahead of the desire to build savings. "

Admittedly, unlike the Italians, Romanians and Slovaks, few French dare start until January to buy Christmas presents at bargain prices. But the pessimism surrounding will change their buying behavior by 24 December. 30% of them have and offer gifts … hand. "Especially young consumers and graduates of higher education, provides Gilles Goldenberg. This reflects their high rate of Internet use, where you can easily find sites specializing in used goods. "

Gifts Used

Meanwhile, the widening gap between the presents that the French would receive and those they intend to provide.On the one hand, they prefer to receive money, clothes or gift certificates. On the other, the same plan to donate books. "It's the gift that costs the least," said Gilles Goldenberg. Then there are perfumes and cosmetics, then CDs and DVDs. Consumers seem to have anticipated the phenomenon. They are almost 20%, two times more than in the rest of Europe, to consider selling their Internet presence.

The authors of the study are however positive signs. "Last year, statements of intent to lower purchases were 5.1%, they are less negative this year, relativizes Gilles Goldenberg. Hopefully, this deceleration of pessimism is the first sign of rebound. "

Until Christmas 2010, consumers do not plan to resume their old habits.They will focus more and more useful to the frivolous, the sustainable ephemeral, and expenses reflected in the impulse buying. Even young children will pay the price. Their parents have them offer educational games and books, rather than dolls, games consoles or remote-controlled cars.

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