clotildermhsher-blog

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Getting there from here

Depending on how you look at it, August may not have been as bad a month for stocks as advertised. For the month as a whole, the MSCI all-country world stock index  lost more than 7.5 percent.  This was the worst performance since May last year, and the worst August since 1998. But if you had bought in at the low on August 9, you would have gained  healthy 8.5 percent or so. In a similar vein, much is made of the fact that the S&P 500 index  ended 2009 below the level it started 2000, in other words, took a loss in the decade. That completely ignores, however, a more than doubling of the index between 2002 and 2007. There is a danger sometimes in allowing the calendar to dictate your interpretation of financial market behaviour.

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Singapore Stocks-Slip at midday; support seen at 2,700

* Yanlord rises on improving China property outlookBy Charmian KokSINGAPORE, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Singapore shares slipped by mid-day on Friday, in line with other Asian bourses as weak trade data from China pointed to further signs of an economic growth slowdown in the region.Lingering concerns about Europe's sovereign problems after the latest credit rating downgrade of Spain by Standard & Poor's also led to some profit-taking, traders said."We had quite a strong rally since October 5. There's no outcome to the crisis in Europe yet and uncertainty still persists, so we'll see some profit taking," said Kevin Scully, managing director at NRA Capital.At 0500 GMT, the Straits Times Index (STI) was down 0.16 percent, or 4.26 points, at 2,729.71 points. Around 664.3 million shares worth S$583.5 million were traded, compared with 869.8 million shares worth S$795 million that changed hands by the same time on Thursday.Scully expects the STI to fall further and test 2,500 before the end of the year, citing greater downside risks from Europe and the U.S.Local traders said they see the STI finding support at 2,700 this afternoon.China's trade surplus narrowed for a second straight month in September as both imports and exports were lower than expected, pointing to cooling domestic and global economic demand."China has to slow down, there's insufficient domestic demand to offset the fall in trade," Scully said, adding that he doesn't think China and India can offset a slowdown in the U.S. and Europe. "It (China) is also grappling with hyper inflation and using interest rates to try and control this, which has an impact on consumption."Disappointing quarterly results from American companies, such as JPMorgan Chase & Co's , the second-largest U.S. bank, and Alcoa sent their shares down and dampened investor confidence further.Firm outlook for palm oil, on the other hand, helped companies such as Mewah International Inc and shares surged as much as 11.5 percent on bargain hunting after a steep drop over the last two months.At mid-day, shares of Mewah were 10.3 percent higher at S$0.43 with over 19.8 million shares changing hands. This was 4.3 times its average daily volume over the last five sessions."Mewah has been a laggard relative to the rest of the market and on the technical front, it has fallen to levels attractive for bargain hunters to come in again," said Lee Wen Ching, an analyst at CIMB Research.Chinese property developer Yanlord Land Group Ltd jumped 10 percent, buoyed by a brighter outlook from peers such as Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd .Beijing's tight credit policy to slow the country's rampant property market was overshadowed by strong increases in contracted sales by companies in the first three quarters.Yanlord shares were traded at S$1.075 at 0448 GMT with over 12.5 million shares changing hands.

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UPDATE 1-Valmont Q3 tops; flags Europe slowdown concerns

* Sees FY EPS $5.70-$5.90 vs est $5.87* Sees FY EPS at mid-to-lower end of outlook rangeOct 13 (Reuters) - Valmont Industries Inc posted quarterly results that topped market estimates on higher sales at its irrigation segment but warned that the economic slowdown, particularly in Europe, could hurt its business in the current quarter.The company, which makes infrastructure products such as metal and concrete poles, kept its full-year earnings outlook of $5.70-$5.90 a share but said it now expected "results to be in the mid-to-lower end of that range."Analysts, on average, expected full-year earnings of $5.87 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.For the third quarter, net income rose to $42.1 million, or $1.59 a share, from $25.9 million, or 98 cents a share, a year ago.This result topped the $1.53-a-share profit analysts had expected.Revenue rose 27.34 percent to $672.2 million, spurred by a 71 percent jump in sales at its irrigation segment. Analysts had forecast revenue of $642 million.Shares of the Omaha, Nebraska-based company closed at $90.27 on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

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UPDATE 1-Valmont Q3 tops; flags Europe slowdown concerns

* Sees FY EPS $5.70-$5.90 vs est $5.87* Sees FY EPS at mid-to-lower end of outlook rangeOct 13 (Reuters) - Valmont Industries Inc posted quarterly results that topped market estimates on higher sales at its irrigation segment but warned that the economic slowdown, particularly in Europe, could hurt its business in the current quarter.The company, which makes infrastructure products such as metal and concrete poles, kept its full-year earnings outlook of $5.70-$5.90 a share but said it now expected "results to be in the mid-to-lower end of that range."Analysts, on average, expected full-year earnings of $5.87 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.For the third quarter, net income rose to $42.1 million, or $1.59 a share, from $25.9 million, or 98 cents a share, a year ago.This result topped the $1.53-a-share profit analysts had expected.Revenue rose 27.34 percent to $672.2 million, spurred by a 71 percent jump in sales at its irrigation segment. Analysts had forecast revenue of $642 million.Shares of the Omaha, Nebraska-based company closed at $90.27 on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

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RIM says working to prevent more BlackBerry outages

Founder Mike Lazaridis said during a conference call that the company could not immediately explain why the switch that caused the outage had failed.Lazaridis again apologized for the disruption and said the company would work hard to restore the trust of its customers.

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Prisoner swap shows Israeli angst over captives

In return for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, Hamas has said it will hand over a single man, Shalit, five years after he was captured just outside the Gaza Strip and dragged into confinement in the coastal enclave.It was the highest ratio of any such deal in the last three decades and shows the astonishing lengths Israel will go to bring its soldiers home.Jewish tradition counsels paying almost any ransom to free hostages and there was widespread joy in Israel at news of Shalit's imminent return.Most Israeli families send their sons and daughters to serve in the conscript army and the government is well aware of the importance for the national psyche to do everything possible to bring them all home safely."Thy children shall come again to their own border," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quoting from the Book of Jeremiah, said in announcing the deal with Hamas, an Islamist group that rules Gaza and does not recognize Israel's right to exist.But not everyone was happy, some Israelis fearing that the deal will encourage more hostage-taking in future and flood the Palestinian territories with hardened militants, who might in the future take up arms once more against Israel."I want to warn everybody who was involved in the deal, eventually the people released (will) kill Jews in the future," Isaac Maoz, the father of an Israeli girl who was killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing in 2001, told Reuters.Shalit was 19 at the time of his capture and is now 25. The last sign of life received from the soldier was a videotape released by his captors in September 2009 showing him pleading for his life.MORAL DILEMMAHostage-taking has always posed a dilemma for Israelis, torn between wanting to bring home their kin and not wanting to appear weak by making concessions to their captors.But time and again, when the military decides it cannot launch viable rescue missions, Israeli governments have ended up bowing to their enemies' demands and emptying their jails.In the past three decades, Israel has released almost 7,000 various Arab prisoners in return for some 16 of its own nationals as well as the bodies of more than 10 others.Neighboring Arab states and the Palestinians view most of their detainees in Israeli jails as prisoners of war. Israel defines many of them as terrorists.There are no official statistics on what has happened to all the freed Arabs, but a 2008 report by the Israeli research group, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said that about half of all militants, released for whatever reason since 1985, returned to militancy.Former Mossad spy chief Meir Dagan was quoted in the Jerusalem Post this year as saying that prisoners released in 2004 in return for Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum were subsequently responsible for killing more than 200 Israelis. An accusation that could not be independently verified.The list of those set to be released this time around have yet to be announced, but Hamas has said it contains more than 300 Palestinians serving life terms for violent attacks.Although the vast majority of the political establishment in Israel has endorsed the deal, some prominent voices have spoken out, including the army's former chief rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Ronsky. He warned of renewed attacks on Israel as a result of releasing so many prisoners."You can't bring an entire country to its knees, that's just crazy. It's complete surrender," he told the Ynet news service.Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, welcomed the Shalit deal, but suggested that in future, the country should review its policy to make sure hostage-taking did not become "a tool to systematically exert pressure on the state of Israel."Such dilemmas look certain to arise in the future, with Palestinian militants promising to capture more Israeli soldiers in future."The abduction of soldiers is our strategy," said Abu Mujahed, the spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, which took part in the operation to seize Shalit."This deal has sent a message to the Zionist enemy that (our) prisoners will only be freed through abduction of soldiers," he said.