AirAsia Stock tumbles Most Since 2011 After Flight disappears

After the Malaysian budget carrier’s flight QZ8501 vanished en route from Indonesia to Singapore, AirAsia Bhd. (AIRA) shares slided the most in three years. The stock tumbled about 13% to 2.56 ringgit prior to the closing of 8.5 percent lower in Kuala Lumpur. The trading volume of it's shares are amounting to about 14 times the three-month daily average. While shares were cut to a trading sell from buy at Hong Leong Investment Bank Bhd., it lowered its price target to 2.64 ringgit from 3.15 ringgit. AirAsia X Bhd. (AAX), the long-haul arm of AirAsia then fell 8 percent.

Indonesia and three other nations are searching for the Airbus Group NV (AIR) A320 single-aisle plane that disappeared yesterday off the coast of Borneo. There were 155 passengers and seven crew on board. In March there was unresolved disappearance of Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS)’s Flight 370 and now AirAsia Bhd is facing the same fate.

The flight was out of reach from airport controllers at 7:24a.m. (Singapore time) on Sunday.

An investment manager,Samsung Asset Management Co. in Hong Kong, Alan Richardson said, “The AirAsia incident is worrying. Investor sentiment toward Malaysian aviation has been hurt by the unfortunate incidents.”


On March 8, Malaysian Airline’s Flight 370 disappeared from radar screens en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.  Authorities called it a deliberate act. There were no leftovers of the missing passenger jet.The stock tumbled down by 18 percent to a record low in its first day of trading after the flight went missing.

AirAsia shares had raised 34 percent in the 12 months through Dec. 26. The relative strength index of the stock rose to 74. The relative strength index above the 70 level signals that declines may be imminent to some investors.

There was a decline in company's net income. It was 5.4 million ringgit ($1.5 million) in the third quarter, lowered down by foreign-exchange losses. There was increase in annual earnings by 38 percent for 2014.

According to  AviationSafetyNetwork, AirAsia is the region’s biggest budget airline. It had no fatal crashes in its history of more than a decade of operations.

Instagram with the potential to change the world.

Intagram has become more powerful now with more than 300 million users. CEO Kevin Systromm, CEO of the company said that it is exciting and also claimed that the compnay would not stop to grow. Twitter has 284 million users using it's network each month. Instagram was bought by Facebook in 2012 and Facebook has 1.35 billion monthly active users.
 Newsbeat ahead of the announcement, Kevin Systrom said: "Instagram is about seeing a live pulse of the world right now, it's not just about taking a photo of a cute baby or a cute dog."
"We want to be all about authentic users and you making sure that you know you're following real people not bots, not spam accounts, not fake accounts." Mr Systrom added.

Instagram will also introduce verified accounts that has blue tick symbols used by Facebook and Twitter. Instagram is also deleting fake accounts that does not follow the rules. This may cause decrease in the number of followers of some users.Co-founder of the company provided some clues that the company would soon be adding new event based features too.

The company announced it had reached 100million active monthly users in February 2013. It even introduced advertising.  Sponsored posts allowed brands to reach the app's growing number of users.

"Early on I would review and approve every single ad before it went on," Kevin Systrom said.
"The reason why we're doing this is as a growth engine for Instagram.
"When you get to 300m users it's not cheap to run that service and you need to make sure to be able to hire more people."

It introduced direct messaging to compete with rivals WhatsApp and Snapchat.

"We're absolutely paying attention to the pitfalls companies have faced before and trying our best to avoid them."

AT&T's expansion, future seems promising.

AT&T acquired Iusacell SA and Direct TV this year in order to expand itself into mexico. AT&T has settled for more than $50 billion to buying Mexican wireless carrier Grupo Iusacell SA and DirecTV.
AT&T  is providing it's services in bundle wireless, TV and broadband services south of the U.S. border. The best part is that the Iusacell business AT&T is getting benefits as long as America Movil faces penalties.

Gregorio Tomassi, an analyst at Banco Itau BBA said,“AT&T is in no rush to buy America Movil’s assets in the short term.” He added, “America Movil is seeing the situation is becoming more difficult than they had initially thought.”

AT&T, SoftbankCorp and China Mobile Ltd were originally contacted by American Movil. It was trying yoi sell more than $17.5 billion.AT&T spokes person is not trying to say anything about Korean visit.

AT&T agreed to pay $48.5 billion for DirecTV, including its Latin American business, expanding outside the U.S. for the first time in a decade. It then agreed to buy Iusacell, Mexico’s third-largest wireless carrier, for an equity value of $1.8 billion.

There was AT&T's announcement on Nov 7 to extend their presence in Mexico to improve AT&T.

AT&T was searching for new area to operate and new business. The $176 billion U.S. phone giant has been seeking further expansion to meet increased competition and slowing wireless growth at home. Randall Stephenson, Chief Executive Officer, initially targetted Europe but shifted back to the Americas after Comcast Corp. announced plans to buy Time Warner Cable Inc.

When Mexico signed a telecommunications over haul into law, competion on telecommunication was emphasized. It forces America Movil to cut its fees and share infrastructure with its competitors because it controls seven out of 10 mobile-phone users in the country. Even without legislation, AT&T mus expand to cope with the changes in the environment.

For Stephenson, the timing and structure of America Movil’s breakup isn’t clear yet and that his phone company would be just fine without Slim’s assets.

America Movil is raised by 4.9 percent this year as of yesterday.

Citigroup Sees Growth in Spain

Spain is one among the five biggest sources of income for Citigroup within Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It gets more of its revenue outside its home market in comparison to other U.S. lender. Citigroup Inc. (C) is expecting an increase in it's revenue in Spain by 5% to 10% in 2015. It is aware of fees from managing bond sales and share offerings to drive revenue in Spain.


According to the company's spokes person,“Large market capitalization companies always had access to capital markets, but medium-sized ones and companies with lower than investment grade rating needed access, and this has started to change in recent years.”

He added, “Equities will also have a good year in 2015, mainly through capital increases and accelerated equity offers.”

Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat is working on plans to streamline the bank. The bank is leaving consumer banking in slow growth markets. It's the world's largest lender before the 2008 financial crisis. The bank is pulling out consumer banking from Spain including Japan, Egypt and Hungary. The bank sold all 45 branches, along with its credit card business in June.All together 950 people worked there. Those branches werr sold to Banco Popular Espanol SA (POP) for $296 million.Currently Citigroup now employs 260 people in Spain.

The bank expecting to build its business in Spain as the country recovers from a two-year recession and a sovereign debt crisis that led the government to seek aid from the European Union to recapitalize local lenders.

Country Officer William Van Dyke said,“The dynamics in the Spanish economy are better and we see an opportunity to strengthen and grow our balance sheet in the country.”

Spain is providing a 10-fold profit to Citigroup in comparison to 1990. It has $25 million in assets and increased revenue of 10% to 19% every year for the past seven years. It earned $75 million in fees from investment banking in the year through September in Spain. It has 5.6% market share and has to compete with Morgan Stanley.

The bank has client base of 60 companies. Citigroup arranged Spain's 10-year government bond issue in January and a five-year inflation linker in October.

Apple after Steve Jobs worth $700 billion

Apple (AAPL, Tech30) seems to have flying colors when it comes to the world's most valuable companies. Apple is the king among them. Now, it's worth is $700 billion after its stock hit a record high on November 25,2014. It is $300billion more than the second most valuable company, Exxon Mobile (XOM).

Tim Cook seem to be a terrific CEO and strongly living the dream of Apple' founder, Steve Jobs.
At present Apple is double of Google's (GOOG) worth. His leadership and ability which were doubted, now it seems the CEO's limits are far more than expected.


Apple's shares are up by 50% to be around $150 per share, all time high. This was supported by the introduction of  Apple's iPhone 6 and iWatch and mobile payments platform Apple Pay. Further more investors are easily accepting such high price for the company because of the buybacks and steady dividend payments. But as always, many believe the stock will continue it's historic run.
According to FactSet, three quarters of analysts give Apple a  "buy."

Apple did a 7-for-1 stock split in June, so investors who recall when Apple hit $700 a share in September 2012 can think of the current price as $838.

Within the S&P 500 index, Apple  inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) does not break records for market cap size in terms of valuation. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), at its peak, accounted for almost 5% of the total index value, while International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) accounted for 6% in the 1980s. Currently, Apple has a weighting of less than 4% in the index because the S&P 500 has risen to record levels. In addition to that,Apple currently trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18, compared to 72 for Microsoft at its peak. It even underwent stock split. Apple did a 7-for-1 stock split in June, so investors who recall when Apple hit $700 a share in September 2012 can think of the current price as $838.

According to legendary investor Carl Icahn, the stock could be worth $203 a share. That would value it at over $1 trillion. That means it should rise 70% more than from their current price.

Apples's share must rise by 43% from current market price in order to reach that record-breaking milestone.

Areva had a net loss of 694 million euros ($870 million) in the first half.

After the French nuclear firm suspended its financial targets for 2015 and 2016, Areva SA dropped the most since 1999. Due to delays to a Finnish project and slow demand in japan, the French nuclear reactor maker abandoned financial targets for the next two years. The shares slumped as much as 23 percent.

Areva announced that  it was reviewing both its future goals and mid-term funding plan. However, Areva said both its revenue and profit forecasts for this year would not be affected.

9.96

-0.22 (-2.12%)

Real-time:   5:35PM GMT+1

Areva is owned by French government which has 87%  and it is expected that it would present a new financial outlook for 3 years of it's full result.

With series of warnings in recent months, the firms makes an announcement.A series of warning were there in recent month. It reported a €694m (£555m) loss for the first half of the year in August and said 2014 revenue would fall 10%, more than the 2-5% drop it originally forecast in February.

In October, it also announced new assest sales and capital spending cuts

Following the 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima, which was triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami, and the rise in the use of shale gas in the US.

Areva’s 750 million euros of 3.125 % bonds due March 2023 dropped 4.1 cents on the euro to a record 93.1 cents, the biggest drop since the notes were issued on March 12.

The company’s 1 billion euros of 15-year notes sold in September 2009 plunged 5.8 cents to a two-year low of 102.6 cents, the data show.

Areva had a net loss of 694 million euros ($870 million) in the first half.

Areva Data:

Airbus profits rise 16% to €1.399bn but more A400M is still making it's operation difficult

Airbus reported net income rose 16% to €1.399bn.This is the first time that Airbus reported a rise in profit for the nine months of the year. The report also came with a warning of more problems for its A400M military plane. Revenues rose 4% to €40.5bn and underlying earnings rose 12% to €2.59bn ($3.2bn; £2.1bn) for the nine-month period.

Currently: AIR:FP  48.4550 EUR + 0.7550  +1.58%

A400M military plane has problem related to negative cost and risk evolution. In 2010, problem started to delay it's production and received a bailout of €3.5bn. There were cost of €20bn with orders from several European countries and A400M has a fixed-price contract that hit production problems and cost-overruns. Except A400M, Airbus's products are doing great.

Airbus is taking responsibility of any future impact in its full-year results to be published early next year.

Harald Wilhelm, chief finance director of Airbus,told journalists: "Given our past history on it (the A400M), the objective remains to avoid any incremental charge, but we are on the way to assessing it. If you ask me whether I can exclude it, I cannot say that this is the case, so it's work in progress."

The order book up to the date 30 September, it was worth €765.4bn while it was worth €680.6bn at the end of 2013.

Tom Enders, Airbus Group chief executive, said: "An improved operational performance drove revenues and profitability higher over the first nine months of 2014."

The environment is not yet favorable, adverse exchange rate is affecting it's profit of last three month.
See Nissan's profit rise due to favorable exchange rate.

Airbus Data:

Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank (NCB) set to be the world’s second-largest share sale this year with $6 billion initial public offering

With $6.7 million in fees for Banks and advisers Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank (NCB) set to be the world’s second-largest share sale this year with $6 billion initial public offering. Its about 0.1% of the 22.5 billion riyal offering. HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Gulf International Bank Bsc are financial advisers to the lender and it will share fee with eight other banks, three accountancy firms, and a media agency.

The Chinese e-commerce company was provided with $300 million as fee for being adviser of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) for it's IPO and it last month raised $25 billion in this year’s biggest offering. Credit Suisse Group AG and Morgan Stanley took about 1.2 percent of proceeds.

Asim Bukhtiar, vice president and head of research at Riyad Capital, said that the fee percentage was low and further added that  HSBC and Gulf International will each earn between $1 million and $1.5 million for their work on the NCB deal.

He added, “It seems like prestige overtook fee consideration as this single transaction will catapult both banks to the top of the league tables.”

There is no response from Gulf International Bank and HSBC's spokesman has declined to comment.
Lower Fees

NCB has been paid lower fee than HSBC and Morgan Stanley on the $1.58 billion Emaar Malls Group PJSC (EMAARMLS) IPO in September. NCB received 130 million dirhams ($35 million) as underwriting fees and other expenses related to that offering.

The NCB offering will run until Nov 2. During that time the bank will sell 500 million shares at 45 riyals each, according to a statement on the Saudi Stock Exchange’s website earlier this month. Only Saudi investors can subscribe those offerings and 300 million shares is allocated to individuals and remaining share is allocated to kingdom’s Public Pension Agency.

Surpassing the $5 billion raised by Dubai’s DP World Ltd. in 2007,the deal will be the Middle East’s largest.
NCB is not listed yet but still it's most profitable bank in Saudi Arab.

Adidas on Rise after Reebok purchase

Adidas announced plans to return as much as 1.5bn euros (£1.2bn) to shareholders over the next three year

Everything was fine after Adidas purchased US-based Reebok in 2006. But things has changed in few years. It's struggling to boost sales. Reebok even lost a contract to supply the US National Football League. This has lowered it's market shared. And now things seem promising for Adidas and Reebok.Speculations are being made on Adidas and it's  series of profit warnings.

"Reebok is one of the few brands enjoying some success for Adidas lately," Jon Copestake, retail analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit told the Reuters news agency.

Adidas's share rose 6% in early trading after a report explained a group of investors was considering a bid for the company's Reebok brand. Hong Kong's Jynwel Capital and investment funds in Abu Dhabi were considering an offer worth $2.2bn (£1.36bn) according to The Wall Street Journal. The news provided investors a support for rationalizing Adidas' share purchase and initiated boost for the German company's flagging share price which was down about 40% this year.

"From the Adidas perspective, that would be a great price. Whether management would accept it is another matter as it would be an admission of defeat,"  Joerg Philipp Frey ,Warburg Research analyst said.

Adidas carried on Reebok acquisition to challenge Nike on it's home The Reebok acquisition was designed to help Adidas challenge Nike and eventually influence it's status as German company's own brand.

Many investors are targeting Reebok now. German media reported last month that hedge funds including Knight Vinke, Third Point and TCI were doing internal works to  buy stakes in Adidas to force management to make sweeping change and it even included the sale of Reebok,

At beginning of October, Adidas announced plans to return as much as 1.5bn euros (£1.2bn) to shareholders over the next three year.

In May it said that it was considering offers for its Rockport shoe brand, which it acquired when it bought Reebok. But Adidas has not yet announced any notice about accepting offers regarding Reebok.

Morgan Stanley's total revenue for the quarter rose 12% to $8.91bn.

Morgan Stanley's total revenue for the quarter rose 12% to $8.91bn.

Morgan Stanley has reported an 87% jump in profits to $1.65bn (£1bn) in the three months to the end of September. Morgan Stanley is a US investment bank.Since it is a investment bank, it is different from other commercial banks. It handles trading of currencies, commodities and bonds was a big driver of profits, wealth management and even,advising high earners on their finances.

It's bond trading activities have reportedly benefited inspite of  obstacles at bond giant Pimco.

This September, Bill Gross,trading superstar  made a surprise exit from the world's biggest bond firm.
The departure of the superstar,Mr Gross from Pimco induces investors to withdraw billions of dolklars from the company and remaing could be used to learn other trading business.

Morgan Stanley's total revenue for the quarter rose 12% to $8.91bn.

19.4% to $997m were from bond trading and in addition to that wealth management revenue rose 9% to $3.79bn.

Similar to it, Goldman Sachs reported a 50% rise in profits.

As of September 30, 2014, the Firm’s Common Equity Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio was approximately 14.3% and its Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio was approximately 16.1%. The Firm is subject to a “capital floor” such that these regulatory capital ratios currently reflect the U.S. Basel III Advanced Approaches (“Advanced Approach”) transitional rules, which represent the lower of the Firm’s capital ratios calculated under the Advanced Approach and U.S. Basel I and Basel 2.5 capital rules, taking into consideration applicable transitional provisions under U.S. Basel III.1

Compensation expense of $4.2 billion increased from $4.0 billion a year ago primarily driven by higher revenues. Non-compensation expenses of $2.4 billion decreased from $2.6 billion a year ago primarily reflecting lower litigation costs.

Chairman  James Gorman said,"We are well positioned to create superior returns for our shareholders, particularly as the US economy continues to strengthen."

CSX-Union Pacific stock trading, which one will outperform other?

CSX has risen 16 percent since March 23,2011

New investors are attracted to CSX as CSX’s coal shipments show signs of stabilizing.The number of coal carloads CSX transports was up 3 percent for the week ended Oct. 4 from same period a year ago after years of contraction.

Since March 23, 2011,CSX has risen 16 percent, compared to Union Pacific’s 119 percent gain. Even though the  stock-price ratio is close to the lowest since 1981, it’s up 0.8 percentage points this month, the biggest increase in a month. The point is whether investors will start putting more capital into this trade now that it’s at a multidecade low.

“Fewer coal-related headwinds have been the overarching driver”said Ben Hartford, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee.

Based on Jacksonville, Florida,CSX is generating 24 percent of total 2013 revenue transporting coal and is more dependent on this commodity while Nebraska-based Union Pacific generates 19 percent.
CSX stock lagged behind Union Pacific because of declining the price of natural gas which made it cheaper alternative for utilities.

Union Pacific hauls primarily Powder River Basin type coal, which is cheaper than CSX’s Appalachian variety, so it's volumes declined less.

 CSX stock could “narrow the gap” with Union Pacific as coal becomes a “less significant headwind” for CSX, Hartford said.

Jim Stellakis, founder and director of research at Technical Alpha Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut, said that the pair-trade ratio could “move sideways” for a few months before there’s a clear sign that a possible downtrend in place since 2011 has broken. If ratio goes up overcoming a recent high in January 2014 -- “that’s a good sign there’s a switch under way, as investors are starting to see more value in CSX relative to Union Pacific.”

Investors like Timothy Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management LLC in New York, does not follow the bet because his company currently hols Union Pacific. CSX has been plagued by congestion on its East Coast rail network, Ghriskey said. The company increased hiring and capital spending to alleviate this. Also that it relies more on the export market for coal, specifically China, where demand has been weak.
Still, the performance gap between these two stocks could reverse, as it has in the past, said Hartford, who maintains a neutral recommendation on Union Pacific and an outperform on CSX.

Driven largely by it's higher margin, CSX outpaced Union Pacific, between 2002 and 2008.
CSX is scheduled to report third-quarter results Oct. 14, followed by Union Pacific on Oct. 23. The implied one-day stock-price move after the announcement is about 3.5 percent for CSX.
Ghriskey said “pair trade is certainly something to watch,” even for investors with a position in only one of these stocks,

Tesco's share price has fallen nearly 50%, a huge mistake by the Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett

Tesco's share price has fallen nearly by 50% reducing the value of investment by 50%.

The Sage of Omaha has said that his decision to invest in Tesco is a "huge mistake."
Berkshire Hathaway firm owns a 3.7% stake in Tesco, worth hundreds of millions of dollars and now  the supermarket's sales are declining and in addition to that share price has fallen to an 11-year low this year.
Tesco shocked investors last week by issuing a string of profit warnings. It revealed it had overstated its expected half-year profits by £250m.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Business Committee, Adrian Bailey, has described Tesco's error as "stratospheric".

He told on CNBC,"I made a mistake on Tesco. That was a huge mistake by me."

Mr Buffett is famous for comprehensive ability to understand the performance of a business for long period of time but now it does not seem so. The risk this time in Tesco are high.

Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio consist names like Coca-Cola, IBM and American Express and it started to include Tesco in 2006 and by 2012 owned more than 5% of the business.

What happened next?
The stake had fallen to 3.7% by the end of 2013 , with investment capital of  $1.7bn and continuing the fall since then Tesco's share price has fallen nearly 50%. It has now made the value to investment half of it's original value.

In addition to that Tesco has seen declining sales amid increased competition. The discount retailers like Aldi and Lidl are in the in the market and Marks & Spencer and Waitrose are providing high end offerings to attract customers.

Tesco says  Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been notified it that it is under investigation following its admission last week that it overstated its half-year profit guidance by £250m.
The supermarket giant will co-operate fully with the FCA and other relevant authorities.

The news induced a new fall in Tesco's share price, its lowest for more than 10 years. leaving it down 3% at 180p.

Tesco has itself has  launched its own investigation into the issue.  Deloitte, together with Freshfields, the group's external legal advisers will do the investigation.

Four executives were suspended in connection with accounting problem and there was change in high level management. Chief executive Dave Lewis has only been in the job a month, while chief financial officer Alan Stewart, who was originally due to join the company on 1 December, had his start date brought forward and took up the post last week.

JPMorgan shares rose 1.5 percent to $59.72, but got a massive cyber attack.

JP Morgan is the US's biggest bank and it got a massive cyber attack on 76 million private and seven million business customers in the US. An employee password was used to crack a JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) server and ultimately pull off one of the largest cyber-attacks ever, accessing data on 76 million households and 7 million small businesses. Even though the hacker collected  information and addresses of the account holders, the collected information were not critical.
For Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it had not seen any "unusual customer fraud related to this incident". Home Depot and Target have been the subject of similar wide scale attacks. JP Morgan says customers are not required to take any action, such as changing their passwords or account information.

Its company spokeswoman, Patricia Wexler, said that the bank is not offering credit monitoring to customers either because it does not believe any financial information, account data or personally identifiable information was taken. He added, some of those affected by the incursion were outside the U.S.,  In addition to contact information, hackers tapped into internal data identifying customers by category, such as whether they are clients of the private-bank, mortgage, auto or credit-card divisions.

She further added that all details has not been exposed, so there's no need to take actions by customers.Information on both current and former customers was exposed, as well as on some non-customers, including people who may have logged on to JPMorgan websites to conduct transactions with bank clients. Data were compromised through Chase.com and JPMorganOnline.com, and the mobile apps that support those websites.

JPMorgan shares rose 1.5 percent to $59.72 at 9:56 a.m.(October 3,2014) in New York and have gained about 2.2 percent this year, trailing the 6.1 percent advance for the 85-company Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index.

The U.S. total household is 115 million and  76 million households were affected. Earlier this year, 145 million personal records were taken in a breach of EBay Inc. An attack on retailer Target Corp. during last year’s holiday season affected as many as 110 million shoppers. An attack at Home Depot Inc. disclosed last month compromised 56 million payment cards.

According to the people familiar with the bank’s review the attack at JPMorgan started in June. The hackers entered a web-development server with an employee’s user name and password, then got their access into lender’s network, the people said.

Government officials and security specialists have long warned of the possibility of cyber disruptions in the financial system and other services and utilities. Those concerns are heightened in times of conflict.

Having said that people should themselves be aware about the possible threat and must take actions to stay away from trouble. Changing password often and signing off from devices when you leave the desk will help to increase security.

Bank of America $16.7bn settlement increased it's share price even though the bank's profit will decrease.

Bank of America and US authorities has reached to the settlement that it will pay $16.7bn (£10bn) to US authorities for misleading investors about the quality of loans it sold. The settlement will cut the bank's third-quarter profits by $5.3bn. The associate attorney general said "no institution is either too big or too powerful to escape" punishment.

On Wall Street, shares in Bank of America opened 1.5% higher following the settlement.

It is considered a historic step forward. The cash component consists of a $5 billion civil penalty and $4.63 billion in compensation payments.

Before Bank of America bought the loans in 2008, these loans were sold by Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch.

Much of which will go towards homeowners struggling with their mortgages and Bank of America will provide consumer relief worth about $7 billion and  pay a total of $9.65 billion in cash.

There is intense focus on Merrill Lynch selling mortgage loans to investors without explaining the full extent of the risk involved and Countrywide Financial lending biggest amount at the time of the crisis.

"We believe this settlement, which resolves significant remaining mortgage-related exposures, is in the best interests of our shareholders, and allows us to continue to focus on the future" Brian Moynihan, chief executive of the bank, said.

It's a step to hold Wall Street accountable for the bad conduct that led to the financial crisis. And the sums involved in Bank of America's settlement dwarf the $13bn paid by another banks, JP Morgan to resolve a similar matter. The penalty exceeds Bank of America's entire profits last year yet this deal brings a measure of closure. This settlement of bank was the biggest remaining hurdle of all cases. The bank has already paid tens of billions of dollars to settle cases related to the financial crisis.

Bank of America paid $9.5bn to settle charges that it misled US mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over mortgage securities, in March this year .

BP's share highly under performing due to Western sanctions on Russia

Sanctions against Russia is viewed as an obstacle for BP to keep it's business at normal pace. BP just posted a rise in second quarter profits. BP has around a 20% stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft and the sanctions against Russia due the Ukraine crisis can affect BP in future. BP said, "Sanctions could adversely impact our business."

BP is worried about the impact of sanctions and relationship with Rosneft. The crisis may affect the level of income, production and reserves as well as BP's investment and reputation. The company's second quarter profits is $3.2bn (£1.9bn), up from $2.4bn in the same period last year. For the second quarter, BP said higher oil production in higher-margin areas such as the Gulf of Mexico had boosted its profits. But for third quarter, the production is not expected to be high as second quarter due to the seasonal maintenance in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico as well as the planned major turnaround.

BP has around a 20% stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft and the sanctions against Russia due the Ukraine crisis can affect BP in future.

If the sanctions become more intense, there could be prohibition of exports of technologies used in the Russian Oil sector.

BP's share price is affected along with political conflicts as BP is more exposed to political situations in Russia than any of its competitors. Analysts are seeing BP's share hugely under-performing. BP's share price had risen by 2% since early June, while Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron had each increased by more than 9%.

On Tuesday, BP shares were up during early trading, but later fell 1.6% to 489p because of the impact on western sanctions on Russia and it's still going down.

Russia's move to prevent itself from high inflation and low investment.

From 7.5% to 8% now. Russian interest rate has increased.

Russia is acting to prevent their economy from the risk of high inflation. The situation in Russia after sanctions from west and recent tension in Ukraine are viewed as the major factors for the probability of increment in inflation.

Since the European economy is in stress and whole Eurozone has low inflation of 0.5%, Russia is also experiencing the stress and other restrictions too. With raising pressure from the west and it's conflict with Ukraine, Russia is anticipating high rate of inflation and in order to check the  risk of high inflation Russian Central bank decided to raise the interest rate by 50 basis points, or half a percent, to 8% per year. In June, core inflation grew to 7.5%, well above the bank's forecast of up to 6.5% for the year.

Analysts were not expecting such changes in the interest rate. They are aware of the vulnerability of the Russia's economy.After sanctions were implemented domestic stocks and the rouble tumbled earlier this year. Analyst are observing the concern of central bank for the potential impact.
The bank is working to reduced the inflation risk  which are caused due to a combination of factors, including, inter alia, the aggravation of geopolitical tension and its potential impact on the rouble exchange rate dynamics, as well as potential changes in tax and tariff policy. The bank point outs the main reason for inflation acceleration is the effect of the observed rouble depreciation on prices of a wide range of goods and services.

While anxious investors are pulling their money out, the exchange rate might still go down.

The consumer price growth rate increased to 7.8% in June and the bank trying to put down the consumer price growth to 4% with increased interest rate.

Russia is concerned about the money leaving from the country. Analysts view this act as  move to prevent large amount of money to leave the country.With such tension in the reason, investors are still searching for the better reason to invest.

Microsoft after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Satya Nadella

Microsoft is making a history again, it's cutting up 18,000 jobs. This is the highest cut in the company's thirty nine years of history. Most of the cuts will be in a recently bought unit, Nokia. It is estimated that around 12,500 jobs will be cut for the unit. This is being announced with 18 months of closing acquisition. Microsoft pledged to cut $600 million per year in costs.

The firm was expected previously to reduce 6,000 initially and while the actual cut are being announced, it became more sever,18,000 jobs. The firm has 127,000 employees world wide.

While it's reducing the number of employees it's not yet specifying locations yet.

The company  is also changing it's core business focus. The company is a software giant and it's still is. But, new CEO is offering something that might be questioning the trust of the investors. In February Microsoft appointed new CEO Satya Nadella who wants the firm to shift it's focus to online services, apps and devices away from software.
The firm is focusing on efficiency by reducing the chain of command and having fewer layers of management. IBM was weak at to reduce it while competing with the firm during the era of technological warfare.

He wore in an announcement,"Making these decisions to change are difficult, but necessary."

The firm is going to complete the re-size by the end of June next year.  It said the affected staff would be notified over  the next six months.

In total it said the cuts, including severance pay, would cost it between $1.1bn to $1.6bn (£643m to £935m) over the next year. Though it might seem to be costly for the company to cut job this will put the company in more favorable situation in coming years. The company will find itself in position where salary to employee and other expenses are much less than at present.

Analyst are still hopeful about the company's ability to be successful in online world. Satya Nadella is expected to put forward massive changes in the company.

Using it's $7.2 billion acquisition and all other resources, Microsoft is working to be a leading company in mobile devices and cloud based services. Satya Nadella is willing to put productivity and innovation as the focus of the company. It's seems the firm will be working in many innovative ideas to get what's useful for people. It's now focusing on Skype and Cortana.

Mr Nadella recreated image of the firm as "the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world." The company may become leading one, it's time which will show us the result but for now there are people who will have to bear the impact. The cuts are expected to helping Microsoft in the competition with tech giants like Google and Apple.

This has impact on the stock price of the firm. Recently after the news, the stocks were up by 2%. While the world market is being hit by geopolitical unrest, the firms stocks are in increasing trend.

The firm is working to combine three operating systems into one single operating system. Nadella said "this means one operating system that covers all screen sizes." While windows is popular for making versions of the operating system, it's now a bold step for the firm.

Nadella is up with one team and a common architecture to combine Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox.
This could be one of the best step taken by the company to provide universal apps.


Here the analysis of the stock in Nasdaq.

Microsoft is making a history again, it's cutting up 18,000 jobs.This has impact on the stock price of the firm. Recently after the news, the stocks were up by 2%

Google has reported 22% increase in revenue during the second quarter compare to a year earlier. Stocks was up by 1.18% at 580.5

Google has reported 22% increase in revenue during the second quarter period from March through June compare to a year earlier. This increase in revenue is more than the expectation of the investors but the profit is not as expected.

Google reported it's profit was $3.4 billion, which was up by 6% while revenue rose up to $16 billion.
With the reports out the Google shares rose by more than 1% in share market.

Goods advertisement are very popular in internet and many clients are using these advertisement to increase their sales. While Google announced increase in revenue, Google's chief business officer is leaving for SoftBank. Google announced Nikesh Arora was leaving for SoftBank.

Omid Kordestani,  who was Google’s business founder and formerly led Google’s sales team, will be replacing Mr Arora temporarily.

Nepal Telecom: 1.29 marginal profit increase

Nepal Telecom's marginal profit is up by 1.29 percent in the third quarter of the current fiscal year 2070-71.


Net profit = Rs 8.60 arba, last time it was Rs 8.49 arba(same quarter last year)



Provision for income tax = Rs 2.76 arba

Current liabilities stand at 1.60 arba.

EPS = Rs 74.57
Net worth per share = Rs 395.86.

Nepal Doorsanchar Company Limited: Click to enlarge

NIC Asia has 62.89% net profit rise in third quarter.

NIC Asia has 62.89%  net profit rise.

Accoring to the unaudited financial report (for the third quarter today),

Net profit = Rs 62.73 crore

Net interest income = Rs 1.30 arba

Provisioning = Rs25.61

Deposit= Rs 40.56 arba
Loan = Rs 33.29 arba

Non-performing loan increment = 2.77 percent

EPS = Rs 36.18
Net worth per share = Rs 216.97
P/E ratio= 20

Click to enlarge. NIC Asia.