L’indice Case-Shiller se rapproche de son point bas du printemps 2009. Les saisies risquent de peser encore sur les prix

L'organisation est prête à fournir de l'or noir en cas de rupture de l’offre au Moyen-Orient

D’après les données de iShares pour « L’Agefi », les ETP européens ont engrangé 3,6 milliards d'euros le mois dernier

D'après la Banque centrale européenne, les « covered bonds » concurrencent les titres adossés à des prêts résidentiels (RMBS)

Les investisseurs asiatiques ont souscrit 29% des titres émis l’an passé, 9 points de plus qu’en 2009

Nasdaq OMX songe à présenter une offre pour le rachat de Nyse Euronext afin de contrer celle de Deutsche Börse. Le souci semble être de trouver un partenaire avec qui lutter face à l’opérateur allemand. S’il ne parvenait pas à emporter cette bataille, le marché boursier souhaite fondre sur une autre cible ou s’offrir lui-même à un autre concurrent. Cela afin d’«éviter la marginalisation».

Le quotidien indique de sources proches anonymes que l’ICE, marché américain de négoce de contrats à terme, et le Comité mondial du sucre envisagent de mettre en place des «coupe-circuits» afin de limiter la volatilité des prix du sucre. Un tel mécanisme permet de stopper les transactions lorsque les contrats franchissent certains seuils pré-définis.

Catherine Ashton, haute représentante de la diplomatie européenne, a déclaré hier que des discussions étaient en cours pour fournir à l’Egypte un milliard d’euros d’aide supplémentaire grâce aux programmes de financement de la Banque européenne d’investissement.

L’indice du Conference Board mesurant la confiance du consommateur américain est ressorti en février à 70,4 contre 64,8 en janvier, soit un plus haut depuis trois ans. Les économistes interrogés par Reuters l’attendaient à 65.

Le fonds de private equity a engagé des discussions exclusives avec Abénex Capital en vue de lui racheter le groupe Findis, leader de la distribution de produits électroménager, image et son, art de la cuisine. La société avait été reprise en juin 2007 auprès de la famille fondatrice. Findis réalise aujourd’hui un chiffre d’affaires de 180 millions d’euros.

NYSE Euronext a annoncé la finalisation de la transaction avec l’américain APX donnant naissance à NYSE Blue, plate-forme dédiée exclusivement aux marchés de l’environnement et de l’énergie durable. NYSE Euronext détient la majorité de l’entité en échange de l’apport de Blue Next.

La banque américaine a tenté de transmettre à d’autres banques une partie de son exposition au fonds d’investissement de Bernard Madoff quelques mois avant que la fraude massive sur laquelle il reposait ne soit révélée, accuse le liquidateur judiciaire Irving Picard. Des signaux négatifs concernant le fonds seraient apparus dès 2005 chez Citigroup. Irving Picard réclame à la banque 425 millions de dollars.

Louis Dreyfus Commodity Alpha Fund, un fonds d’arbitrage du groupe de négoce, aurait cessé d’accepter des souscriptions de nouveaux clients en raison de son succès. Lancé en novembre 2008 avec 100 millions de dollars, ce fonds sur matière premières agricoles gèrerait 2 milliards, selon Bloomberg.

Nout Wellink, membre du conseil des gouverneurs de la Banque centrale européenne (BCE), a déclaré qu’il envisagerait de succéder à Jean-Claude Trichet à la tête de la BCE s’il était invité à le faire.

L’agence de notation Moody’s a annoncé qu’elle abaissait la perspective de la note de la dette du Japon de «stable» à «négative» en évoquant ses inquiétudes sur la capacité de Tokyo à contenir l’augmentation de sa dette. La note souveraine actuelle du Japon est fixée à Aa2 mais l’abaissement de la perspective laisse entendre que l’agence américaine pourrait baisser la note très prochainement.

Le Portugal veut lever des fonds sur les marchés financiers, déclare mardi le ministre des Finances Fernando Teixeira dos Santos dans le quotidien japonais Nikkei, suggérant ainsi que Lisbonne ne pense pas avoir besoin d’une aide internationale. Le Portugal a déjà garanti les deux tiers des fonds nécessaires pour l’arrivée à échéance en avril et en juin de deux émissions obligataires, les investisseurs étrangers représentant 70% de ce total, a précisé Fernando Teixeira dos Santos.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Investment Week reports that Ignis is considering launching a strategic bond fund, which could take the form of a long-only portfolio with 30 positions, which would be concentrated on the United Kingdom. Exposure to Europe and emerging markets is also under study. The fund, which would be managed by Chris Bowie, head of credit portfolio management, would be released in second or third quarter.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Italian management firms virtually all have offices abroad, but their clients remain virtually entirely domestic, Plus, the money supplement of Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. This odd situation is a result of the fact that Italian taxes for years penalised Italian-registered funds compared with foreign funds (which will soon no longer be the case). In order to get around this obstacle, Italian firms opened affiliates in Luxembourg or Dublin. The objective was not to conquer market share in other countries, but to be able to create products that could compete with foreign-registered rivals, the Italian weekly newsmagazine reports. As a result, assets in foreign-registered funds in italy managed by Italian groups represent 57% of the total, compared with 30% in 2005. A firm such as Mediolanum manages 98% of its assets on behalf of Italian clients, though 89% of assets are managed abroad.

As announced in mid-September, 24 institutional investors, representing assets of USD1.6trn, have written to the 30 largest international stock markets to call for improved communications of information related to sustainable development policies of publicly-traded companies.The 24 signatories of the letter, include the following institutional investors: Allianz Global Investors Investments Europe, AP7, Australian Council of Super Investors, Aviva Investors, BC Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC), Church of Sweden, Dexia Asset Management, Environment Agency Active Pension Fund, EQAO, Ethos Foundation, Fonds de réserve pour les retraites - FRR, Mn Services N.V., NEI Investments, North East Scotland Pension Fund, Pax World Management LLC, RCM une entreprise du groupe Allianz Global Investors, SNS Asset Management, Solaris Investment Management, Sparinvest, «TD Asset Management (TD Asset Management Inc., TDAM USA Inc.)», The Co-operative Asset Management, Trillium Asset Management, Triodos Investment Management B.V. And VIP (Vereinigung Institutionelle Privatanleger) eV. Four service providers are also signatories of the letter: they are Ceres, Ethix SRI Advisors, Fondation Guilé and Illac Ltd.The letter comes as part of a wider initiative launched by Aviva Investors in 2008, which aims to promote the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI). Its objective is to incite stock markets to seek ways to improve the quality of sustainable development reporting for publicly-traded companies. On the basis of information from Bloomberg, the letter also presents rankings of stock markets on the basis of environmental, social and governance (ESG) information from listed companies. At the top of the list are Euronext Paris, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Helsinki, Euronext Amsterdam, Euronext Lisbon and Borsa Italiana. However, at the bottom of the rankings are the Australian Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq GS, the Korea Exchange, the Santiago Stock Exchange, and the Philippine Stock Exchange.Aviva Investors supports a proposed new criterion for admission to trading, based on the requirement that businesses evaluate the level of sustainability and responsibility of their business model, and submit a prospective strategy for sustainable development to a vote at their general shareholders’ meeting.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to Frankfurt financial industry sources, operating profits at DekaBank are rumoured to have leapt by nearly 80% in 2010, to EUR900m, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. This major improvement is said to be largely due to gains for structured products.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Asian Investor reports that the Singapore-based management firm Lion Global Investors, which manages assets for the insurer Great Eastern Holdings, has appointed David Conner as chairman of the firm, and Christopher Wei as vice president. Conner was previously chief executive at OBCC Bank, which controls 91% of Lion Global, 70% of it via Great Eastern. Wei, who joined the firm on 10 February, previously worked at the insurance group AIA. As of 31 December 2010, assets under management at Lion Global totalled approximately SGD29bn, or about USD23bn.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } MoneyMarketing reports that Fidelity will this week launch an open-ended fund aimed at investors seeking exposure to the fast-growing Chinese commodities market. The China Consumer Fund will invest as a top priority in funds which are headquartered in China, or which realise the majority of their activities in China or Hong Kong. The fund will primarily be aimed at firms involved in the development and sales of products and services aimed at Chinese consumers. In the short term, the fund will avoid banking sector and real estate shares. The fund will be denominated in US dollars, and will have 80 to 120 positions, and will be structured as a Luxembourg Sicav. The lead manager for the fund will be Raymond Ma, who will continue to be based in Hong Kong.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Citywire announced on 21 February that its ratings of fund managers are now available via the European fund distribution platform Allfunds Bank. Allfunds is a joint venture of the Santander and Intesa Sanpaolo groups. Its assets under intermediation total about EUR60bn.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Investment Week reports that the British management firm Artemis on 11 April will launch a UCITS III compliant energy fund, which will be managed by the energy sector specialist John Dodd. The fund will include 30 positions, and will invest in publicly-traded firms in the energy, gas, energy generation and transmission sectors, and in renewable energies. The benchmark portfolio has allocations of 17% to North America, 3% to South America, 63% to Europe and Russia, 10% to the Far East, and 7% to Australia.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Investment Week reports that JP Morgan Asset Management has launched JPM Emerging Markets Currency Alpha Fund, a fund dedicated to emerging markets currencies, which aims for euro cash returns of over 8%. The absolute return fund in UCITS III format will be managed by Amit Tanna and Harry Bazzaz, with the assistance of 14 strategists and analysts present in a variety of emerging markets.

Many active managers are capable of finding winning stocks, but only deliver average performance for fear of losing their jobs, according to Skagen, the Norwegian asset manager, citing a scientific study from 2008, “Best Ideas» by Randy Cohen, Christopher Polk and Bernhard Silli.It is possible for active portfolio managers to beat the index and generate better returns than the market. But in practice this is often not reflected in their funds’ performance. Many portfolio managers find themselves forced towards mediocrity, partly for fear of losing their jobs. “Active portfolio managers can generate excess returns over time. We are not just talking about ourselves – this is also true of a number of managers with talented investors. But often the reality is that the portfolio manager has to keep close to the index to ensure that he isn’t left behind when the index goes up. Otherwise their job could be on the line. And this means that their performance is no better than average in the long-term», says Skagen’s deputy managing director, Åge Westbø.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The German private bank Ellwanger & Geiger (Stuttgart) has announced in its newsletter Kapitalmarkt Report that it has created the E&G Green-Utility-Index, which includes shares in ten companies (nine of them European, including the Austrian firm Verbund, and one Brazilian company), which are involved in the production of energy from alternative sources, particularly water and wind. Backtested to 2005, the index far outperforms both the Ökosur index from Sarasin and the MSCI World index.Several shares in the index are small and midcaps, often with a stable majority shareholders, meaning that the liquidity of the index is relatively limited, and the investment horizon should be long-term.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As of the end of December, assets in Chinese funds totalled CNY2.4972trn, compared with CNY2.3867trn as of the end of September, of which CNY927bn, compared with CNY904.1bn, were in equities funds, and CNY741.4bn, compared with CNY730.8bn, were in diversified funds. QDII and guaranteed funds were the only categories to see declines in their asset volumes, to CNY72.9bn from CNY74.2bn, and CNY22.8bn, from CNY24.4bn.Z-Ben Advisors explains that the overall increase in assets is due to gains of CNY124.5bn and the launch of 47 new funds, which attracted CNY126.8bn, while on the other hand, net outflows ran to CNY140.7bn.Money market funds saw an increase in their assets of over half, to CNY153.3bn, from CNY100bn, but in 2010 the movement was less pronounced than usual, as the regulator exercised some pressure to limit the trend.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Alberto Palomero, who has served in several positions at Thomson Reuters in Spain since 2003, including chief operations officer at Lipper, and director of sales to buy-side, investment banks and non-financial sector businesses in Italy, Spain and Portugal, has been recruited as director of sales at VDOS Stochastics, Funds People reports. Palomero will oversee development of new internet content and solutions for distributors, fund management firms, advisers, and pension fund managers. His responsibilities will also include developing existing operational intelligence tools so as to optimse communication with final clients and automate processes.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Neither Oaktree nor Nueva Rumasa would confirm reports in Expansión that the US fund specialised in restructuring is planning to acquire a stake in the Spanish holding company of the Ruiz-Mateos family, including ten affiliates which have been put up for provisional liquidation (including Clesa and Dhul).Oaktree would acquire a stake in the capital, or else acquire the debt of several companies owned by Nueva Rumasa, in order to restore the assets and their management to good financial health, and allow the group, with financial liabilities of over EUR700m, to overcome the difficulties it now finds itself in.