QUARTERLY: APPLE MISSES, LUXOTTICA BOOM. TOKYO MANAGER SUMMIT: STOP THE DEBT
Battleship misses Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), -1,4% to 609 dollars after the announcement of the accounts for the quarter after the closing of the Stock Exchange. Analysts have "rejected" the results: revenues of 35,96 billion dollars and profits of 8,2 (against a forecast of 8,75). In particular, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, it is noted that the demand for the iPhone (26,9 million units sold exceeded the estimate of 25 million) is still strong but that for the iPad has been disappointing. 14 million were sold (+26% compared to the same quarter of 2011) but one million less (17%) than expected.
Above all, the increase in production costs and the decline in margins weighed heavily. For the first time, Apple was forced to cut margins, down 36%. A sign that the competition from Samsung and today's launch of Windows 8 by Microsoft create some problems.
Samsung, the great enemy of Apple, closes the quarter with excellent numbers: profits of 5,9 billion dollars (+91%) on the wave of the success of smartphones, over 58 million units sold worldwide against 26,9 million iPhones.
Excellent results instead for Luxottica already climbed 1,6% yesterday pending third quarter numbers released in the evening. The data shows double-digit growth for revenues (+17%) and profits (+30%) thanks the continued growth of the North American markets and the recovery achieved by the countries of Mediterranean Europe.
ASIA
Sharp slide of the markets in the last session of the week: Tokyo –0,98%, Hong Kong -0,90%. The disappointing data coming from the quarterly data from China Unicom -6% and above all from Apple, by now the point of reference of the technological price lists of the planet, are at the origin of the losses.
A delicate and unprecedented meeting is underway in Tokyo between the Finance Minister and the representatives of the major international investment funds, very concerned by the exponential growth of the public debt of Tokyo (above the threshold of 200% of GDP). The trigger is the next finance law: the government, to buffer the public debt of 2012, will ask Parliament for a license to issue securities for another 500 billion. The prospect has caused rates on long-term bonds to skyrocket (+92 bp for twenty-year bonds compared to ten-year bonds) demonstrating that the markets are beginning to accept the possible default of the Rising Sun, the third largest economy on the planet. It is possible that the managers have invoked an Italian therapy.
AMERICA
La United States Stock Exchange rebounds from the lows of the last month and a half reached on Black Wednesday: Dow Jones +0,6%, S&P500 +0,55%, Nasdaq +0,7%. Wall Street did not slow down after the data on the real estate market: in September new home sales rose by 0,3%, a rebound after -2,6% in August but below expectations (+2,5%). The year-over-year increase is 8%, economists were expecting +17,4%.
At 14.30 they had been released labor market data: New jobless claims fell as expected. Durable goods orders were better than expected. But the accounts of corporate America matter more than macro data these days: yesterday 54 companies from the S&P500 index presented their accounts. Negative Best Buy after the warning on the third quarter numbers, and Sprint Nextel which closed the quarter with a loss of 767 million dollars. Money instead on Aetna +1,09%), ConocoPhillips +2,16% and Procter & Gamble +2,92%. Zynga's video games are rallying +12,26%, in the wake of the strong growth in turnover of Facebook's first customer.
EUROPA
What had been a session of moderate upside until mid-afternoon, crumpled up in the final under the effect of tight selling on banks, oil and telecommunications. There Paris Stock Exchange lost 0,4%, Madrid -0,1%, London and Frankfurt ended in parity. The British stock market benefited from the surprisingly positive figure for British GDP, which rose by 1% in the third quarter against expectations of +0,6%. This is the strongest growth recorded by the British economy in the last five years and, among other things, it technically sanctions Great Britain's exit from the recession.
Vladimir Putin says he has "mixed feelings" about Rosneft's purchase of Tnk-BP, the $55 billion takeover that created the world's largest oil group but also brought the oil industry back under public control power. "I was forced to do it - the president said in front of journalists - to resolve the conflict between BP and the Russian oligarchs who owned half of the joint venture".
ITALY
The most penalized stock exchange yesterday was that of Milan where the FtseMib index closed down by 1,1%. Leading the decline in Piazza Affari was Unicredit: the stock began to fall towards the middle of the session when the rest of the list, including the banks, was still firmly on the rise. The initial modest drop gradually accentuated until it became a 3,5% drop at the end of the session. All in the absence of particular news.
The "yellow" becomes even less understandable in the face of the behavior of government bonds. Contrary to what often happens, the decline in banks was not accompanied by a similar decline in government bonds: in the evening, the yield on 10-year BTPs was stable at 4,84%, the spread was 326, unchanged from the evening previous.
A private seminar on state sales was held yesterday in Rome, with the protagonists being the Minister of the Economy Vittorio Grilli, the presidents of the Chambers and politicians. It emerged that real estate between 3 and 5 billion can be sold in the short term, starting with a first tranche (1,2 billion) to be entrusted to a new asset management company.
The assets directly controlled by the State amount to around 50 billion, or 15% of the total, while the rest is in the hands of local authorities. The hypothesis of selling the shares in the hands of the State of Eni, Enel and Finmeccanica has been rejected: at current stock market values they are worth a total of 12,5 billion against 22 in 2008. Not only that: the three subsidiaries guarantee dividends for over a billion a year while the savings on interest in the event of a sale would be only 514 million.
Eyes focused today on the three billion Ctz issue. Unicredit's trend has infected the other banks which have gradually reversed course heading downwards. The final photograph of the day highlights for Understanding a loss of 2%, Banco Popular -1,9% Ubi -1,4% MontePaschi -1,6%.
No riddle, however, for Fiat -1,8%, the only stock among the Milanese blue chips that didn't change course on the matchday already down in the wake of the profit warning of the German Daimler and ended consistently down. Daimler lowered its full-year revenue estimates for 2012 and announced it will fall short of its 2013 margin targets. In Frankfurt Daimler it lost 2,7%. In reverse Volkswagen it closed with a brilliant rise of 1,7%.
Among the other industrial stocks, negative Finmeccanica down 0,6%, heavy StM -2,4%. Positive however it is Fiat Industrial +1%, which Pirelli +0,1%. Positives Ferragamo+2,2%, which recovered part of its recent losses, e Tod’s +1,5%. Bad day, finally, for Telecom Italy that lost 2,9% in the wake of France Telecom, down 5% after the results.
Marked decline also for Mediaset -1,7%. The exit of I is approachingren by Edipower. But the price is debated. Iren's board of directors has given the go-ahead for the exit from Edipower (in which the company holds 21%), but also asked the managers to update the estimate made last March by Professor Maurizio Dallocchio on the entire former Genco, made last March on the occasion of the Edison restructuring. The reason? The energy scenario, and in particular the prospects for gas-fired combined cycles, has since worsened: in exchange for the quota, in addition to the plants (Turbigo and Tusciano), a cash adjustment would be needed. The counterparty, ie A2A, is unlikely to agree.
