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The price of raw materials, corn and iron ore, will remain high in 2012 due to demand from China, which seeks to revive its growth, said Wednesday the 'economist Philip Chalmin.

Demand from emerging markets, especially China, will offset the demand in Western economies at half mast this year but the raw materials remain exposed to high volatility, as was the case for oil in 2011.

The activity in China, whose growth has returned in the first quarter to its lowest level in nearly three years, has aroused the concern of some investors, the country being one of main drivers of the global economy and a major consumer of raw materials. 

But after having focused on inflation in the second half of 2011, China should seek to strengthen its growth this year as it prepares to develop new leaders policies for the first time in a decade, said Philippe Chalmin reporters.

"In this transition year, I think the Chinese will play back the economic recovery," he said when presenting the 26th report on cycles and guidance products and exchanges (Cyclops), published Wednesday.

"China is undoubtedly the key to a number of commodity markets," he added.

Rising food demand from China has made this country the world's largest importer of soybeans and a major importer of corn. 

Forecasters expect the Cyclops on maintaining a relatively high average prices of most commodities, although below those of 2011. The U.S. wheat could fall by 1% as well, that of copper by 15% and cotton by 37%.

"We expect today's world prices slightly lower than those we experienced during the spring of 2011," he added.

Among the few price increases expected this year, experts expect Cyclops rose from 54% of the carbon price, a market half-mast until now, up 9% to palladium , used in the automotive sector, and an increase of 8% for gold and crude oil the United States.

The CAC 40 began the day post-presidential sharply down. But elections in Greece, making the country virtually ungovernable, much more concerned about the identity of the new French president. Greece in the storm.

The day promises to be eventful in European markets in the wake of the decline of the euro and Asian stock markets (around 2%) in the night. Investors fear the period of uncertainty that opens in Europe after several elections that reshuffling the cards of power relations in the eurozone and the fight against the means to reduce public deficits.

The French feared a worsening economy

If investors are more concerned with the victory of Holland, this is not necessarily the case with the French, who for nearly half fear the situation of France is deteriorating in the coming years, according to an Ipsos France Televisions, Radio France, Le Monde and Le Point. The poll, conducted before the second round, 46% of respondents expected a worsening situation if Francois Hollande was elected president, against 26% who felt that it will improve. If Nicolas Sarkozy was elected, they were 41% expected a deterioration of the situation, and a 25% improvement.  

The Paris Bourse was changing down sharply Monday morning (-1.81%), accusing the shot like other European markets, although uncertainty over the fate of Greece more concerned that the victory of Francois Hollande in France. At 9:14, the CAC 40 index lost 57.30 points to 3104.67 points. Friday, he had already dropped 1.90%.

Holland's victory anticipated by the markets

"It's not so much the result of the French elections worries us (the outcome was already known), the Greek election results," strategists warn of Credit Mutuel-CIC. The victory of Francois Hollande, the new President of the Republic, is not a surprise to investors as they had anticipated, given the many polls giving the winner. "The victory of Francois Hollande in France should not induce a violent movement in the markets" for economists at Aurel BGC, for which he should rather wait for the upcoming legislative elections and the first supplementary budget in a few weeks.

The evidence, the borrowing rate to 10 years in France, after starting the day down, went back Monday morning only very slightly in the bond market. After starting at 2.798%, 2.809% against closing in on Friday, the yield was posted at 8:30 of 2.842%. "The French market showed its resilience in the past two weeks, without political uncertainty takes precedence over demand for the security of France, "said Luca Jellinek and economist at Credit Agricole CIB.

No immediate impact by S & P

Another element reassuring to investors, the rating agency Standard & Poor's, which had withdrawn in January to France's highest grade "AAA", said Monday that the election of Francois Hollande to the presidency would not "immediate impact" on the rating of the country or its future trend.  

The memo from France, currently "AA +" for its long-term debt, however, is decked out with a "negative outlook", implying that there is "one in three chance" for it to be lowered again this year or in 2013, recalled SP in a statement.

Greece in the heart of concerns

However, the Greek situation has not enough to enthuse investors. Sunday, the parties opposed to an increase of austerity, the radical left to neo-Nazis have got hold of half the seats in parliament, making the country virtually ungovernable.

Enough to feed the fears of further forward the implementation of austerity measures in Greece, provided the international financial support. "The main risk for investors, would be the breakup of the euro area with the coming to power of anti-European political parties" and the consequences on other fragile countries in Europe, according to Aurel BGC.

The consulting firm ADP showed a decrease of 41% of net job creation in the private sector overseas. A sharp slowdown worries scholarships.

Hiring companies in the U.S. slowed significantly in April, according to the monthly survey on employment of the consulting firm HR ADP released Wednesday.

The U.S. private companies have created that month 119,000 more jobs than they destroyed, reflecting a drop in net hiring of 41% compared to March, indicates ADP.Le last month, hiring, however, were rising again.

The slowdown in job creation highlighted by the firm is significantly stronger than analysts thought insofar as their median estimate gave 170,000 net new hires in the private sector in April. ADP has revised down its estimate of 4% of the creations from March to 201,000. The firm said in a statement that the "modest increase" in employment in April "is consistent" growth rate of U.S. GDP in the first quarter, which was 2.2% annualized according to the first official estimate released Friday and who shows a marked deceleration from the fall.

The statement reflected in the figures of April "evidence that the unusually warm weather boosted employment during the winter months and must now pay the consequences". The figures refer to the ADP non-farm employment. They show that the service sector has created 123,000 net new jobs in April. Conversely, the secondary sector has eliminated 4,000 jobs. The firm notes that the construction industry has lost jobs (5,000) for the first time in seven months after "hired solidly" in the winter.  

Consequence: U.S. and European stock markets panicked. Wall Street opened lower today, as New York Stock Exchange has reached highs not seen for four years.

The ADP survey is traditionally published two days before the monthly report on employment from the Labor Department. According to the median forecast of analysts, the ministry figures, covering the private and public employment, excluding agriculture, should show up Friday net hiring in the country by 38% compared to March, to 167,000, this which should have no effect on the unemployment rate, which would remain at 8.2%.

Japanese stocks have ended down Friday in the wake of Wall Street, investors wondering about the growth prospects in the U.S. and the status of sovereign debt in the euro area.

The Nikkei has given 0.28% or 27.02 points to 9561.36 points, while the Topix broader, fell by 0.27% or 2.19 points to 811.94 points.

Values, Toshiba ended down 2.37% to 330 yen. The U.S. said the SanDisk memory prices continue to suffer from market saturation.

Olympus has instead awarded 6.37% to 1,286 yen. The shareholders of specialist optical voted to appoint a new board to replace the 11 directors discredited by the accounting scandal that has weakened the group.

Faurecia announced Thursday the signing of a new joint venture agreement with 50/50 with the group unlisted Japanese Howa Textile Industry Co., Ltd..

This new joint venture-Howa Faurecia Interiors (FHI) – will be based in Atsugi (Japan) and will be dedicated to the development of automotive interior systems such as door panels, insulation of the interior, textile pieces and pavilions.

The objective of the partnership is to become a preferred supplier of Nissan in Japan and the rest of the world.

Based on current assumptions, FHI aims a turnover of 100 million euros by 2016 with Nissan, the French automotive supplier said in a statement. 

Faurecia has recently announced the expansion of its existing joint venture agreement with Japanese automotive supplier NHK Spring for providing solutions to car seats to Nissan.

As part of its strategic plan, Faurecia intends to more than double its business in Asia, compared to 2011, where its turnover is expected to increase from 1.5 to 4 billion euros of by 2015.

He is counting on continued growth in China, South Korea and the Asian manufacturers-first-with Nissan in the world to achieve this goal.

The union's general secretary was speaking on Tuesday. He eventually wants to see the executives of the CGT before making its preference among the 16 persons nominated. Contrary to expectation, Bernard Thibault has not indicated its choice from the Tuesday before the executive committee of the CGT, but it presented a "progress report".

The general secretary Bernard Thibault of the CGT announced Tuesday that the AFP will continue consultation with executives of the union until May 25 before expressing his choice to succeed him as head of the plant.  

Contrary to expectation, Bernard Thibault has not indicated its choice from the Tuesday before the executive committee of the CGT, but it presented a "progress report" on the consultation, which began more than two months and should lead before Confederal Committee (NAC, the parliament of the CGT) of 30 and 31 that will decide the name of the successor. From this initial consultation, it appears that "a majority" of executives want a woman to take the reins of the central and "one half" of those who have expressed the wish that the future leader "is derived from the private".

At this point "16 names" have been advanced by executives consulted among which are those of Eric Aubin, from the private, Nadine Prigent Naton and Agnes, two governing board members of the union, he said. Part of the executives consulted defined a profile but without giving names. Bernard Thibault and denies reports that Eric Aubin had collected a clear majority on its name. The Secretary General will continue its consultation on the way between 9 and 24 May in departmental federations and unions. At a meeting of the Executive Board on May 25, "I give my opinion," he said.

For now, said Bernard Thibault, secretary general of the 51 departmental unions (of 95), 23 patterns Federations (32) and 48 members of the Executive Board and Financial (of 61) were expressed, either verbally or writing to the Secretary General.

In January, Bernard Thibault announced his decision not to seek re-election at the 50th Congress of the plant in March 2013 in Toulouse, opening the proceedings of his estate. He had a novel approach-launched a "consultation" with the bosses of departmental federations and unions to achieve "a proposal that can accommodate the broadest consensus possible."

The turnover of traders was down 15% year on year, due to the economic crisis. A small village in Greece

The turnover of Greek merchants was down 15% for parties of Orthodox Easter, the most important of the year, which will be held Sunday and announce themselves as "the most frugal of the decade," their union said Friday.

"It appears certain, from our data, that the Greeks are forced to spend the Easter the most frugal of the last decade due to the economic crisis and the weakening of household disposable income," says the National Confederation of Commerce Greek (EEM) in a statement. "The sales market Easter rotates annually around $ 5 billion (3.78 billion euros)", but he will fall in 2012 that $ 4.5 billion (3 billion euros) said the statement of the EEM.  

This is reflected in a 15% decline in turnover of retail trade and 10% of sales of food and drink for the first two weeks of April. Sales at clothing stores and shoes, this is traditional for children on the occasion of these festivals, show a decline from 18 to 21%. These shops specially dedicated to decorating Easter whose windows are full of candles and colored eggs, are down 12% to 15%.

This decline has been halted, however, the source said, by lower prices by 10 to 12% of the flagship products of these festivals, such as lamb cooked on a spit usually eaten on Sunday with family or friends, in a country Orthodox Christian over 90%.

Finance ministers of the euro area have agreed to bring the total response capability for emergency funds to some 800 billion euros, said Friday the Austrian Minister of Finance Maria Fekter.

After intense discussions, in the opinion of several sources, the 17 euro zone countries have chosen a minimal agreement that suits countries like Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, which the public does not want to pay for bailouts, sources said the European Union. 

This includes $ 500 billion of the European Stability Mechanism (MES), the permanent emergency fund that will be operational in July, and 200 billion already committed by the Europe Fund in financial stability (EFSF), the temporary emergency fund to be disabled in July 2013, told reporters Maria Fekter.

She said that this was added the remaining 49 billion of European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM), which had been the first response to the debt crisis of the euro area, and 53 billion bilateral loan to Greece.

A senior official of the euro area has confirmed these amounts. 

The EFSF has a total capacity of loan of 440 billion euros and 240 billion would not mobilized a mattress in an emergency within 15 months, during which the EFSF and MES will be operational in parallel, said Maria Fekter.

The European Commission, France and several other major economic powers wanted to help build the capacity of the euro area as possible in the hope that, faced with such a display of force , markets regain confidence in the long run, thus avoiding having to commit any such capacity. 

But Berlin did not want such a mobilization in advance, not accepting that if it is really necessary, while noting that the markets were already over and placated implementation of agreed reforms was more important.

With such a decision, the euro area will have something to present to the G20 finance ministers in Washington in April, during a meeting that will discuss higher global contributions to the International Monetary Fund.

Capacity building of the eurozone bailout is, for most countries of the Group of Twenty (G20), a prerequisite for increased allocations to the IMF. 

From this perspective, the euro area is now well placed to discuss the matter, said Friday French Finance Minister Baroin.

"This is a good signal," he has said.

Standard Chartered reported Wednesday a 10.7% jump in pretax profit in 2011, in line with expectations, signing a record result for the ninth consecutive year favor of the Asian economic growth remains strong.

The bank displays a taxable profit of 6.78 billion dollars against 6.12 billion in 2010. Economists anticipated $ 6.8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I / B / E / S.

"The pace of growth should accelerate in 2012," said Dominic Chan, an analyst at BNP Paribas in Hong Kong. "The major markets such as India, are showing signs of improvement and the bank is well positioned to gain market share in areas such as finance international trade or wholesale banking. "

The results were supported by the strong performance of StanChart in China and Singapore. The city-state, where the group posted a profit of one billion dollars, has become its third largest market.

"We started well in 2012, after a very strong year-end 2011," said Chief Executive Peter Sands said in a statement. "For 2012, we are on track for a double-digit income, EPS (earnings per share) in double figures (…) but it is still early to tell. "

General Motors is in discussions at an advanced stage to take a small stake in Peugeot as part of their proposed strategic alliance in Europe, said on Monday close to the matter.

It is likely that GM would take a stake of less than 5% in the first place and a deal could be announced in the coming days, sources added, however, warn that there is not yet and agreed that the talks could unravel.

GM has declined to comment. A Peugeot spokesman did not respond immediately to messages and calls for comment.