Asian Stocks Extend Weekly Decline on Concerns Over U.S. Subprime Loans

(Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell for a second week,
led by Macquarie Bank Ltd. and Taiwan Life Insurance Co., on
concern the U.S. subprime loans crisis is spreading to the
region's financial companies.

Macquarie Bank, Australia's largest securities firm, erased
its gains for the year after saying investors in some of its
funds may lose as much as 25 percent of their money. Taiwan Life
had its worst week in more than three years after reporting a
hedge fund loss.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News

Markets give short-sellers long-awaited gains

(Reuters) - And Friday's 7 percent slide in MBIA Inc and Ambac
Financial Group Inc , two of the world's biggest bond
issuers, stretches the gains for William Ackman, head of
Pershing Square Capital Management, who has been short both.




"Short-biased funds are going to prosper over the next few
months as the subprime problem takes its toll. We think the
problem is certainly going to continue," said Christopher Wolf,
managing partner at Cogo Wolf Asset Management LLC, which runs
a $100 million fund-of-hedge-funds.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Novastar suspends funding some loans

(Reuters) - The affected mortgages are wholesale loans that have not been locked in, according to the company's customer service center. The suspension of funding will last until Aug. 7. The company will then re-evaluate the temporary halt.






Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Orange Juice Rebounds on Forecast for `Active' Storm Season Near Florida

(Bloomberg) -- Orange juice rebounded to a seven-
week high after Colorado State University forecasters said the
tropical-storm period will be ``active,'' signaling a threat for
Florida citrus groves.

Conditions still favor an ``active season,'' scientists
Philip Klotzbach and William Gray said. Still, they cut the
number of major hurricanes expected in the Atlantic Ocean
through Nov. 30 to four from five projected in May. Florida is
the biggest orange producer behind Brazil.


Read more at Bloomberg Commodities News

Bear Stearns, Financials ETF, Emerging Markets: U.S. Equity Option Movers

(Bloomberg) -- The following is a list of companies
with unusual option trading in U.S. exchanges today. Stock
symbols are in parentheses after company names. Option trading
and stock prices are as of 4 p.m. in New York.

Each call option gives investors the right to buy 100 shares
of a company at a certain price, called the strike price, by a
given date. A put conveys the right to sell 100 shares.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News

BG Medicine files for $80 mln IPO

(Reuters) - The company said it is seeking to list its shares on
Euronext Amsterdam by NYSE Euronext under the symbol "BGMDX."





Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News

US STOCKS-Mortgage sector worry, data lead market lower

(Reuters) - NEW YORK, Aug 3 - U S. stocks declined on Friday
on weaker-than-expected economic data and evidence the
mortgage market's problems are taking a wider toll on financial
company shares, including Bear Stearns Cos. Inc.




Standard & Poor's said it changed its ratings outlook on
Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns to negative from
stable, indicating there is a better chance of a downgrade over
the next two years. Two Bear Stearns-managed hedge funds
collapsed last month on bad bets on subprime mortgage
investments.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Nomura subprime bond "failed" 6 months after sale

(Reuters) - Bond collateral "performance generally should not be
expected to begin changing the baseline cashflow distributions
this soon," said Christopher Sullivan, chief investment officer
for pension funds at the United Nations in New York. Worse
performance in older ABX indexes makes this move less
surprising, however, he said.




The issue is one of 20 in the benchmark ABX-HE 07-2 index
that was launched last month. The ABX indexes have become
widely watched since they are the most transparent way of
gauging prices on the securities and can be used by investors
to hedge their holdings of debt backed by risky mortgages.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Agrium files shelf prospectus for $1 bln

(Reuters) - Calgary, Alberta-based Agrium said the filings would give
it the means to reduce debt and expand through acquisitions and
investments.







Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

REFILE-TREASURIES-Bond gains grow as stocks tank on Bear remarks

(Reuters) - Major U.S. stock indexes slid as much as 1.6 percent,
sending jittery investors scrambling for the safety of
Treasury securities, traders and fund managers said.




"Everyone's jumping on the bandwagon that the Federal
Reserve would have to ease with this subprime situation," said
Richard Schlanger, portfolio manager at Pioneer Investments
USA in Boston.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Bond turmoil worse than Internet bubble: Bear CFO

(Reuters) - "So, yes, we would make that comparison" to market events
that also include the debt crisis of the late 1990s, he said.




Read more at Reuters.com Business News

Italy's Fiat latest foreign co to delist from NYSE

(Reuters) - MILAN, Aug 3 - Italian automaker Fiat said on Friday it planned to delist its stock from the New York Stock Exchange, the latest in a string of foreign companies to abandon the U.S. exchange this year.



Fiat has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to end its obligation to submit reports to the U.S. market regulator and would file for a delisting on Aug. 13, it said.


Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News

Copper Futures Drops Most Eight Weeks on Signals U.S. Demand May Decline

(Bloomberg) -- Copper in New York dropped the most
in eight weeks on speculation that an economic slowdown in the
U.S., the world's second-largest consumer of the metal, will
reduce demand.

Growth in U.S. service industries slowed more than forecast
in July, and U.S. employers added fewer jobs last month than
projected, reports showed today. Copper, which sometimes moves
in tandem with economic expansion, dropped for the second
straight week on concern that losses in equity markets may
spread to commodities.


Read more at Bloomberg Commodities News

Brazil's Suzano says in sale talks with Petrobras

(Reuters) - Petrobras officials would not comment on
the possible acquisition. Local news agency Folha Online said
the value of the deal could be around 3 billion reais .







Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Gazprom Postpones Sale of Bonds, Fitch Withdraws Credit Ratings on Debt

(Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom, Russia's natural-gas
monopoly, postponed a planned sale of bonds prompting Fitch
Ratings to withdraw assigned grades for the debt.

More than 50 companies from U.S. carmaker Chrysler to
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s Alliance Boots Plc postponed or
reworked debt sales since mid-June as investors shun riskier
assets amid concern that U.S. subprime mortgage-related losses
will spill into other parts of the debt markets.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

Carl Zeiss Meditec mulls counter bid for WaveLight

(Reuters) - Carl Zeiss Meditec said in a statement on Friday it had acquired a 5 percent stake in WaveLight, which makes refractive laser and diagnostic systems for refractive eye surgery, used to correct vision and increasingly used in lieu of glasses.



"At this point in time the acquisition of stock demonstrates that we have an interest in WaveLight in principle," Carl Zeiss Meditec investor relations director Jens Brajer said.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Dillard's rebuffs shareholder group; stock tumbles

(Reuters) - CHICAGO, Aug 3 - A firm representing investors who hold 3.7 percent of Dillard's Inc's outstanding stock said on Friday it was rebuffed in its attempt to meet with the company's CEO, sending shares of the department store owner down 5 percent.



Barington Capital Group L.P. said its request to meet with Chairman and Chief Executive William Dillard II was met with an offer of a meeting with the company's investor relations director instead.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Italy's UniCredit clinches Polish sale to GE Money

(Reuters) - MILAN, Aug 3 - Italian bank UniCredit said on Friday it had agreed to sell to GE Money about 66 percent of its so-called New BPH bank, which comprises 200 bank branches from UniCredit's Polish unit, for 625.5 million euros



in cash.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Virtusa says IPO priced at $14/shr

(Reuters) - The Westborough, Massachusetts-based company said its
common stock has been approved for listing on Nasdaq under the
symbol "VRTU."





Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News

UPDATE 1-AFL-CIO seeks more disclosure for KKR, Och-Ziff

(Reuters) - In a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
the AFL-CIO said KKR, a private equity firm, and Och-Ziff, a
hedge fund, clearly fall under the investment company act.




The firms have filed for IPOs after private equity firm
Blackstone Group LP successfully went public in late
June.


Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News

Samsung Electronics chip output hit by power cut

(Reuters) - The company said it did not expect the overall losses from the outage to exceed 50 billion won .




Analysts, however, put the potential losses much higher.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

P&G profit up but forecast pressures shares

(Reuters) - After spending the better part of the last two years integrating its acquisition of Gillette, the maker of Tide detergent and Pampers diapers is now girding itself to compete with smaller rivals such as Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. .




That strategy includes accelerating its share buybacks, boosting sales in emerging markets, focusing on newer products such as Crest Pro-Health and shedding some of its businesses.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

IFC invests $32.5 mln in African cable project

(Reuters) - The World Bank's International Finance Corp. on Thursday said it was investing $32.5 million in a fiber-optic cable project that will provide Internet and international communication services for 21 African countries.

IFC, the private-sector arm of the World Bank that focuses on investing in emerging-market economies, said the cable project should improve telecommunications access for 250 million Africans and cut costs for individuals and businesses.


Read more at Reuters Africa

Miner Anglo to sell Tarmac; raises profit, buyback

(Reuters) - Anglo American put its Tarmac road-covering business up for sale on Friday as it met forecasts with a 22 percent rise in first-half earnings and pledged to return a further $4 billion to shareholders.

Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll said the sale of UK-based Tarmac, which analysts believe could fetch over $6 billion, was the mining group's last major piece of restructuring as it moves to focus on its metals and minerals businesses.


Read more at Reuters Africa

Angola sees sustained economic boom, inflation cut

(Reuters) - Angola's prime minister said on Friday that his government would cut inflation despite an economic boom, whose benefits he insisted ordinary people would feel in a country still recovering from a devastating civil war.

"We are working very hard now and very soon we will bring it to a sustainable rate of a single digit, we are talking of about eight percent before the end of this year," Fernando da Piedade Dias Dos Santos told Reuters in an interview.


Read more at Reuters Africa

UPDATE 1-Canada June building permits 2nd highest on record

(Reuters) - Analysts had expected permits to retreat by 9.8 percent in
June after double-digit growth the previous month had taken
them by surprise. Statscan revised upward the May increase to
23.2 percent from the 21.4 percent reported last month.




"The back-to-back performances point to very busy
construction sites in the coming months," Statscan said in its
report.


Read more at Reuters.com Economic News

UPDATE 1-Brazil economy to grow 5 pct in 2007 - finance min

(Reuters) - Speaking at an event in Sao Paulo, Mantega said large
investments in basic sanitation as well as roads and highways
were key to paving the way for sustained economic growth.




Government agencies had been predicting economic growth of
about 4.5 percent this year. Brazil, Latin America's largest
economy, expanded 3.7 percent in 2006.


Read more at Reuters.com Economic News

British Airways says July traffic down 2.9 pct

(Reuters) - Its load factor -- a measure of how well it filled its planes -- fell by 1.5 percentage points to 81.2 percent.



There was a 2.9 percent fall in non-premium traffic and premium traffic fell by 2.6 percent, Europe's third-largest airline said in a statement.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

Ahold Q2 sales up, U.S. stores beat forecasts

(Reuters) - AMSTERDAM, Aug 3 - Dutch supermarket group Ahold NV said on Friday second-quarter sales rose 2 percent, thanks to favourable conditions in its main markets, but a revamp of U.S. stores would continue to hurt margins.



Net sales increased to 6.6 billion euros from 6.47 billion a year ago, matching an average forecast of 6.6 billion euros from 13 analysts polled by Reuters. Adjusted for currency effects, sales rose 5.6 percent.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

UPDATE 1-Hercules Offshore Q2 earnings rise

(Reuters) - The recent decline in the outlook for U.S. natural-gas
prices could delay the expected recovery in jackup rig demand
in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the company said in a statement.




Houston-based Hercules reported a second-quarter net income
of $23.5 million, or 72 cents a share, compared with $22.9
million, or 71 cents a share, a year ago.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

P&G not looking at big acquisitions: execs

(Reuters) - Chief Financial Officer Clayt Daley said P&G is more likely to sell businesses rather than buy businesses right now. He also said this year's earnings would be more volatile quarter to quarter as the company works on restructuring and other projects, such as bringing out concentrated versions of its laundry detergents.




Daley also said that raw material and energy costs should be up again this year.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

Glaxo Avandia FDA Adversity Prompts Doubts of Revenue, Share Resurgence

(Bloomberg) -- GlaxoSmithKline Plc convinced a U.S.
regulatory panel this week to keep its best-selling diabetes
drug, Avandia, on the market. Now comes the hard part: persuading
doctors to use a medicine linked to heart attacks.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration committee of advisers
said this week that the diabetes pill should carry new warnings
about cardiovascular risks. Glaxo shares had their biggest gain
in two years yesterday after the advisory panel decided not to
recommend the withdrawal of Avandia, which brought in $3.3
billion in 2006 for the London-based company, Europe's largest
drugmaker.


Read more at Bloomberg Exclusive News

FCC's Martin May Fall Short of Spurring Wireless Internet Competition

(Bloomberg) -- Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Kevin Martin may fall short of his goal of spurring a
historic shakeup of the mobile-phone market when the U.S. sells
airwaves worth as much as $15 billion next year.

The FCC adopted rules this week that will let consumers use
any kind of phone or wireless-enabled laptop on some airwaves,
not just the devices approved by their phone company. People may
be able to take an iPhone for example, which now runs only on
AT&T Inc.'s network, and use it on this new spectrum regardless
of who wins the bidding.


Read more at Bloomberg Exclusive News

Mexican Bonds, Peso Drop After U.S. Jobs Growth Slows, Missing Forecast

(Bloomberg) -- Mexican peso-denominated bonds fell
on renewed concerns that weakness in the U.S. housing sector
will spread to the broader economy and crimp demand for Mexico's
exports.

Yields on the government's 30-year bond, its longest peso-
denominated maturity, touched a one-week high after a U.S.
government report said employers added fewer jobs than
economists expected last month. The U.S. buys 80 percent of
Mexican exports.


Read more at Bloomberg Currencies News

Fidelity Says Its U.S., Asia High-Yield Funds Have No Subprime Mortgages

(Bloomberg) -- Fidelity International Ltd. said its
U.S. and Asian high-yield funds have no U.S. subprime mortgage
investments or collateralized debt obligations.

Fidelity International, a unit of Boston-based Fidelity
Investments, the world's largest mutual-fund company, sees buying
opportunities in U.S. and Asian high-yield markets, portfolio
managers Harley Lank and Andrew Wells said in a market update
late yesterday titled ``Sub-prime or a prime opportunity?''


Read more at Bloomberg Emerging Markets News

Little subprime fallout for Asia banks, investors jittery

(Reuters) - Ratings agency Moody's Investors Service said on Friday
that the impact of the subprime meltdown on Asia's lenders
would be limited, with the largest exposure among the biggest
banks through holdings of mortgage-backed securities and
collateralised debt obligations. [ID:nWNA7262]




Standard & Poor's said Japanese banks have about $8 billion
of subprime-related securities, according to the Japanese
Bankers Association, while a small number of financial services
firms in Taiwan have a much smaller combined level of exposure.
[ID:nSPWAcEJwa]


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Float of U.S. shares shrank at record pace in July -TrimTabs

(Reuters) - "The lemmings who are panicking and selling are doing
exactly the opposite of what corporate America is doing," wrote
Charles Biderman, chief executive of TrimTabs. "Over the longer
term, the stock market's direction will be set by the
fundamentals of liquidity, not the panic that gripped the
market during the past two weeks."




Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

GE says to buy UniCredit's Polish banking unit

(Reuters) - U.S. conglomerate GE said in a statement its GE Money unit would acquire about 66 percent of the shares of the Polish bank for $854.9 million.



The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

IKB subprime shockwaves continue to rock Germany

(Reuters) - German commercial property financier Hypo Real Estate struggled to calm jittery investors by insisting it would be unaffected by the U.S. subprime fallout. Its shares still skidded more than 5 percent while Commerzbank -- which owns a property financier -- saw its stock fall 4 percent.




Investor confidence was further dented as it emerged that French insurer Axa had also temporarily closed two subprime funds after sudden losses.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

European Stocks Drop, Paced by Hypo Real Estate, Depfa, Total, BP

(Bloomberg) -- European stocks fell, led by energy
companies and banks, after Citigroup Inc. lowered its
recommendation for the oil industry and Union Investment, a
German mutual fund manager, halted redemptions from a fund.

The Dow Jones Europe Stoxx Oil & Gas Index dropped to the
lowest in two months, led by Total SA and BP Plc. Hypo Real
Estate Holding AG, the mortgage bank spun off from HVB Group, and
Depfa Bank Plc also declined.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News