(BN) Berkshire Surges After Being Picked to Join S&P 500

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Berkshire Surges After Being Picked to Join S&P 500 (Update1)
2010-01-27 13:34:29.327 GMT


    (Updates shares in the second paragraph, increase in value
of Buffett's stake in the fifth.)

By Andrew Frye
    Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway
Inc., which split its stock 50-for-1 last week, rose in early
trading after being picked to join the Standard & Poor's 500
Index yesterday.
    The Class B stock jumped $5.90, or 8.7 percent, to $73.90
at 8 a.m. in New York. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company will
replace Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in the index after
completing the takeover of the railroad, S&P said in a statement
after the close of regular trading yesterday.
    Buffett split the Class B shares as part of the $26 billion
railroad acquisition. That brought Berkshire's stock below $75,
making shares available to a larger group of investors and
increasing the trading volume. Buffett told investors at a
Jan. 20 meeting that joining the S&P 500 may prompt index-
tracking fund managers to buy up to 7 percent of Berkshire.
    "There's going to be tremendous buying demand because of
this inclusion," said Glenn Tongue, a partner at T2 Partners
LLC, which owns Berkshire shares. "That's a catalyst for the
stock."
    Funds that track the S&P 500 have about $1 trillion in
assets, according to David Guarino, a spokesman for S&P in New
York. The early trading boosted the value of Buffett's personal
Berkshire stake, which includes Class A and Class B shares, by
$3.68 billion since yesterday's close. The company has gained 11
percent since the share split was approved on Jan. 20.

                     'Smarter Than Anyone'

    "There's Buffett, who's proven he's smarter than anyone
else," said Peter Sorrentino, a senior portfolio manager at
Cincinnati-based Huntington Asset Advisors, which oversees $12.8
billion. Berkshire "is a stock that belongs in the S&P 500."
    Buffett, the 79-year-old Berkshire chairman and chief
executive officer, is welcoming a broader base of investors to
the firm he built in the past four decades. Traders and equity
analysts have long paid Berkshire less attention than other
companies of similar size because of its elevated share price
and relatively stable investor base, led by Buffett who owns
roughly a quarter of the stock. Berkshire's Class B traded as
high as $3,340 the day before the split took effect.
    "I can't imagine another stock that's more deserving of
being in the S&P," said Michael Yoshikami, chief investment
strategist at YCMNet Advisors, which holds Berkshire shares.
"It will naturally have higher demand from the index funds."

                     Investing 'Forever'

    Berkshire's Class A shares advanced $9,249, or 9.1 percent,
to $111,000 late yesterday and hadn't traded by 8 a.m. today.
The firm, which was valued at about $158 billion as of
yesterday's close, has advanced more than 10-fold over the last
two decades.
    Buffett says his ideal investment horizon is "forever."
Berkshire is the biggest shareholder of Coca-Cola Co. and
American Express Co., and Buffett has held those stocks for more
than two decades even as both trade below their top prices in
the 1990s. He's recorded multibillion dollar gains for Berkshire
on investments in Capital Cities/ABC Inc. and PetroChina Inc.
    Index funds may give Berkshire shares stability, Buffett
told shareholders last week.
    "You've got a permanent stockholder for 6 or 7 percent of
your shares," Buffett said. "We like permanent shareholders.
That's exactly what we're looking for."

For Related News and Information:
Largest Class B shareholders: BRK/B US <Equity> PHDC1 <GO>
Berkshire price ratio analysis: BRK/A US <Equity> FA PRA <GO>
Table of largest Berkshire acquisitions: NSN KSJNB207SXKX <GO>
More on Buffett: BIO WARREN BUFFETT <GO>
Top deal news: DTOP <GO>

--With assistance from Lynn Thomasson, Rita Nazareth and Nikolaj
Gammeltoft in New York. Editors: Steve Geimann, Erik Holm.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Frye in New York at +1-212-617-4652 or
afrye@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Kraut at +1-212-617-2432 or dkraut2@bloomberg.net.

--
-----

Bertrand Clausell Wanclik (GMAIL)
http://trendsniffer.blogspot.com
http://kuizine.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/b55/631  
+55 11 9955-6390
__________________________________
Sent from São Paulo, Brasil
Stephen Leacock  - "I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so."

China’s GDP Growth Accelerates to Fastest Since 2007

sobe no boato e realiza no fato....

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China's GDP Growth Accelerates to Fastest Since 2007 (Update4)
2010-01-21 07:12:00.247 GMT


    (Updates stocks in fifth paragraph.)

By Bloomberg News
    Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- China's growth accelerated to the
fastest pace since 2007 in the fourth quarter, capping Premier
Wen Jiabao's success in shielding the nation from the global
recession and adding pressure to rein in a surge in credit.
    Gross domestic product rose 10.7 percent from a year before,
more than the median forecast of 10.5 percent in a Bloomberg
News survey, a statistics bureau report showed in Beijing today.
Asset-price gains, particularly in property, are creating
problems for the government to guide the economy, Ma Jiantang,
who heads the bureau, told reporters after the release.
    The report stokes speculation the central bank will start
raising its benchmark interest rate and tighten restrictions on
the nation's lenders. The one-year swap rate, an indicator of
future changes in borrowing costs, climbed and the People's Bank
of China guided three-month bill yields higher for the second
time in two weeks.
    "Today's data suggest that tighter policy is just around
the corner," said Brian Jackson, a Hong Kong-based strategist
on emerging markets at Royal Bank of Canada. "Policy makers
will need to move soon to stop the economy from overheating,"
he said, forecasting officials will end an exchange-rate peg and
boost interest rates starting this quarter.
    Stocks across Asia were mixed today, with Japan's Nikkei
225 Average rising 1.2 percent at the close and Australia's
Standard & Poor's/ASX 200 Index falling 0.8%. The Shanghai
Composite Index was up 0.5 percent at 2:55 p.m. local time. The
one-year swap rate, the fixed cost for receiving a floating rate
for 12 months, rose three basis points to 2.32 percent.

                         Global Engine

    The world may again this year count on China as the biggest
engine of growth. The World Bank late yesterday raised its
forecast for the global expansion in 2010 to 2.7 percent from 2
percent in June, and predicted 9 percent growth in China, which
is poised to overtake Japan as No. 2 in GDP rankings this year.
    Mining company Rio Tinto Group reported a 49 percent jump
in fourth-quarter iron ore output on China's demand, while
companies ranging from Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG to Hong
Kong billionaire Cheng Yu-tung's New World Department Store
China Ltd. are expanding in the nation.
    Consumer prices rose a more-than-forecast 1.9 percent in
December from a year earlier, the second straight gain after
nine declines. Producer prices climbed 1.7 percent, after
declining for the previous 12 months, today's report showed.

                       'Too Worrisome'

    "The inflation trend is too worrisome for the government
and we will continue to see policy tightened," said Isaac Meng,
senior economist at BNP Paribas SA in Beijing. Meng predicted
that the consumer-price inflation rate will exceed 3 percent in
coming months, and that the PBOC will increase banks' ratio of
assets held as reserves by 1.5 percentage points by July 1.
    The statement from the statistics bureau today mirrored a
Wen speech on Jan. 19 by omitting a pledge to keep monetary
policy "moderately loose." Ma, the head of the National Bureau
of Statistics, did cite that pledge in his press briefing.
    After last year overtaking the U.S. as the biggest auto
market and Germany as the biggest exporter, China is poised to
slot behind America this year as the second-largest economy.
China's GDP last year was 33.535 trillion yuan ($4.9 trillion),
the statistics bureau said today, almost the same as the World
Bank's 2008 estimate for Japan.

                   China Versus Japan

    Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said today that its estimates
showed China didn't surpass Japan last year. While Japan's
economy shrank, calculations are also affected by currency
fluctuations.
    According to Wen, policy makers' key tasks this year
include managing credit growth, controlling inflation and
countering property speculation.
    For the full year, GDP gained 8.7 percent, beating Wen's 8
percent target. Retail sales rose 16.9 percent after adjusting
for consumer price changes, the bureau said. The government
previously said that gain was the biggest since 1986.
    Wen this week indicated that he's putting more emphasis on
monthly data than year-on-year figures exaggerated by the
slowdown from late 2008. December retail sales of 1.26 trillion
yuan compared with a previously announced 1.13 trillion yuan in
November, indicating an increase of more than 11 percent.
    China will begin releasing month-on-month comparisons for
key economic indicators from March, Ma said today.

                    Sales, Production

    Sales quickened in December on a year-earlier basis,
climbing 17.5 percent, while industrial production increased at
a slower pace of 18.5 percent, today's report showed. Urban
fixed-asset investment jumped 30.5 percent in 2009, the
statistics bureau said.
   The economy's third straight quarterly acceleration
highlights risks that inflation may surge and asset bubbles form
after monetary policy committee member Fan Gang said in November
that growth of more than 10 percent is excessive. Banking
regulator Liu Mingkang confirmed yesterday that lending limits
exist for some banks and said credit growth will slow this year.
    Fourth-quarter economic growth was driven by an
unprecedented $586 billion stimulus package, subsidies for
consumer purchases and a credit-fueled investment boom. The
property market has rebounded and a 13-month slump in exports
ended last month.
    Managing the economy may become more difficult because of
so-called hot money pouring in from investors betting on the
nation's recovery and gains in the yuan, which has been held at
about 6.83 per dollar since July 2008 to help exporters. As much
as $30 billion a month of speculative capital may flow in during
the first half of this year, according to Bank of America-
Merrill Lynch.

                         Bubble Concern

    China is already a bubble, 62 percent of investors and
analysts said in a quarterly Bloomberg survey of subscribers.
    Liu, the banking regulator, said yesterday in Hong Kong
that banks will extend 7.5 trillion yuan of loans this year,
about 22 percent less than last year's unprecedented 9.59
trillion yuan. The central bank this month ordered lenders to
set aside a larger proportion of deposits as reserves and has
guided bill yields higher after 2010 began with a surge in
lending.
    China's 2009 GDP growth rate was down from 9.6 percent in
the previous year. The statistics bureau today revised its
estimate of growth in the third quarter of 2009 to 9.1 percent
from 8.9 percent. It changed the first-quarter figure to 6.2
percent from 6.1 percent.

For Related News and Information:
Most-read stories on China: MNI CHINA 1W <GO>
Most-read China economy stories: TNI CHECO MOSTREAD BN <GO>
For top economic news: TOP ECO <GO>
For top China news: TOP CHINA <GO>
Credit crunch page: WCC <GO>
Government relief programs: GGRP <GO>

--Li Yanping, Kevin Hamlin, Jay Wang. Editors: Paul Panckhurst,
Russell Ward.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story:
Li Yanping in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7568 or
yli16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Chris Anstey at +81-3-3201-7553 or
canstey@bloomberg.net

U.S. Economy: Leading Indicators Index Rise More Than Expected 7 of 10

UP

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U.S. Economy: Leading Indicators Index Rise More Than Forecast
2010-01-21 16:59:01.304 GMT


By Timothy R. Homan
    Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The index of U.S. leading
indicators rose more than anticipated in December, a sign the
economy will keep growing through the first half of the year.
    The New York-based Conference Board's gauge of the outlook
for the next three to six months climbed 1.1 percent, the most
in three months, after increasing 1 percent in November. The
gain exceeded the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey
for a 0.7 percent rise. Another report showed Philadelphia-area
manufacturing expanded in January for a fifth straight month.
    Fewer firings, rising stock prices and Federal Reserve
efforts to keep interest rates low propelled the leading index,
while growth in exports and inventories have spurred
production. Sustained demand and faster economic growth will
hinge on employment gains that have yet to materialize.
    "The economic recovery still has momentum," said Tim
Quinlan, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in
Charlotte, North Carolina, who correctly forecast the December
gain. "Right now, the linchpin is confidence. Both businesses
and consumers need to feel like it's a worthwhile thing to
start spending money again."
    U.S. stocks slumped for a second day as President Barack
Obama proposed limiting the size and trading activities of
financial institutions and on concern China will take more
steps to cool off its economy. Standard & Poor's 500 Index
dropped 1.8 percent to 1,118.14at 11:57 a.m. in New York.
Treasury securities rose.
    China's economy expanded from October through December at
the fastest pace since 2007, the statistics bureau in Beijing
reported. Such growth is helping drive exports and boost sales
for U.S. factories.

                   Manufacturing Expansion

    Manufacturing in the Philadelphia area grew in January,
corroborating figures last week showing expansion at factories
in the New York region. The Fed Bank of Philadelphia's general
economic index of manufacturing in the area fell to 15.2 this
month from 22.5 in December.
    The index was less than the 18 reading economists had
expected, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg
survey. Figures greater than zero signal growth. The report
showed a measure of employment rose to the highest level in
almost two years.
    Labor Department figures today showed jobless claims
unexpectedly increased to 482,000 last week from 446,000 a week
earlier, reflecting a backlog of applications from the year-end
holidays.
    Economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected the leading
indicators index would increase 0.7 percent from a previously
reported 0.9 percent gain in November, according to the median
of 58 estimates. Forecasts for the index, which has increased
nine straight months, ranged from gains of 0.3 percent to 1.1
percent.

                   Eight Indicators Rise

    Eight of the 10 indicators in the leading index
contributed to the increase, led by the difference between
long-term and short-term interest rates, building permits and a
drop in jobless claims in December. None of the indicators fell
during the month.
    The Conference Board's index of coincident indicators, a
gauge of current economic activity, rose 0.1 percent in
December for a third month. The index tracks payrolls, incomes,
sales and production, the measures used by the National Bureau
of Economic Research to determine the beginning and end of U.S.
recessions.
    The world's largest economy will probably expand at a 2.7
percent annual pace from January through March and at a 2.9
percent rate in the following quarter, according to the median
estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg earlier this
month.

                     Darda Optimistic

    Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners LP in
Greenwich, Connecticut, is more optimistic. He said in an
interview with Bloomberg Radio today that the economy will
expand 4 percent this year, mirroring rebounds from recessions
in the 1970s and 1980s.
    Darda said growth will be ignited by the "initial spark"
from a recovery in capital markets and corporate earnings, as
well as the rebuilding of inventories. The job market will
recover more slowly, with unemployment falling to about 9
percent by the end of this year from 10 percent in December, he
said.
    Seven of 10 indicators for the leading index are known
ahead of time: stock prices, jobless claims, building permits,
consumer expectations, the yield curve, factory hours and
supplier delivery times.
    Jobless claims averaged 460,250 in December, down from
480,750 a month earlier. U.S. stocks continued to rise last
month as reports suggested the economy was improving. The S&P
500 averaged 1,110.38 in December, compared with 1,088.07 the
previous month. The index reached the highest closing level in
14 months on Dec. 28.

                     Building Permits

    Applications for building permits rose 11 percent to a
653,000 annual rate last month, the most since October 2008,
the Commerce Department said yesterday.
    "We are seeing stabilization in the economy," Brian
Moynihan, chief executive of Bank of America Corp., said
yesterday in an interview. The head of the largest U.S. lender,
said the economy is still "fragile."
    Reiterating their pledge to keep interest rates
"exceptionally low" for "an extended period," Fed policy
makers last month said the recovery faced hurdles.
    The central bankers, who next meet Jan. 26-27 in
Washington, will keep their target for overnight lending among
banks unchanged through September before raising it by half a
point in the fourth quarter, according to the median forecast
of economists surveyed this month. The Fed has kept the
benchmark rate near zero since December 2008.

For Related News and Information:
Search for stories on the U.S. economy: NI USECO <GO>
Stories on manufacturing: TNI US MAC <GO>
Stories on the Federal Reserve: NI FED BN <GO>
Bloomberg News about companies' earnings: TNI COS ERN BN <GO>
U.S. economy forecasts: OUTL US <GO>
U.S. GDP figures: GDP US <GO>

--With assistance from Scott Lanman and Vincent Del Giudice in
Washington, Rachel Layne in Boston, Thomas Keene in New York
and
Will Daley in Chicago. Editors: Vince Golle, Carlos Torres

To contact the reporter on this story:
Timothy R. Homan in Washington at +1-202-624-1961 or
thoman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Christopher Wellisz at +1-202-624-1862 or
cwellisz@bloomberg.net

Petrobras stop 35 compra + a 37

PETR4 35 stop 37 +

Le Monde.fr : Bonne année 2010 !

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Euro vs dollar

NY Times Article: Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China

January 8, 2010
Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China
By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI — James S. Chanos built one of the largest fortunes on Wall Street by foreseeing the collapse of Enron and other highflying companies whose stories were too good to be true.

Now Mr. Chanos, a wealthy hedge fund investor, is working to bust the myth of the biggest conglomerate of all: China Inc.

As most of the world bets on China to help lift the global economy out of recession, Mr. Chanos is warning that China's hyperstimulated economy is headed for a crash, rather than the sustained boom that most economists predict. Its surging real estate sector, buoyed by a flood of speculative capital, looks like "Dubai times 1,000 — or worse," he frets. He even suspects that Beijing is cooking its books, faking, among other things, its eye-popping growth rates of more than 8 percent.

"Bubbles are best identified by credit excesses, not valuation excesses," he said in a recent appearance on CNBC. "And there's no bigger credit excess than in China." He is planning a speech later this month at the University of Oxford to drive home his point.

As America's pre-eminent short-seller — he bets big money that companies' strategies will fail — Mr. Chanos's narrative runs counter to the prevailing wisdom on China. Most economists and governments expect Chinese growth momentum to continue this year, buoyed by what remains of a $586 billion government stimulus program that began last year, meant to lift exports and consumption among Chinese consumers.

Still, betting against China will not be easy. Because foreigners are restricted from investing in stocks listed inside China, Mr. Chanos has said he is searching for other ways to make his bets, including focusing on construction- and infrastructure-related companies that sell cement, coal, steel and iron ore.

Mr. Chanos, 51, whose hedge fund, Kynikos Associates, based in New York, has $6 billion under management, is hardly the only skeptic on China. But he is certainly the most prominent and vocal.

For all his record of prescience — in addition to predicting Enron's demise, he also spotted the looming problems of Tyco International, the Boston Market restaurant chain and, more recently, home builders and some of the world's biggest banks — his detractors say that he knows little or nothing about China or its economy and that his bearish calls should be ignored.

"I find it interesting that people who couldn't spell China 10 years ago are now experts on China," said Jim Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros and now lives in Singapore. "China is not in a bubble."

Colleagues acknowledge that Mr. Chanos began studying China's economy in earnest only last summer and sent out e-mail messages seeking expert opinion.

But he is tagging along with the bears, who see mounting evidence that China's stimulus package and aggressive bank lending are creating artificial demand, raising the risk of a wave of nonperforming loans.

"In China, he seems to see the excesses, to the third and fourth power, that he's been tilting against all these decades," said Jim Grant, a longtime friend and the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, who is also bearish on China. "He homes in on the excesses of the markets and profits from them. That's been his stock and trade."

Mr. Chanos declined to be interviewed, citing his continuing research on China. But he has already been spreading the view that the China miracle is blinding investors to the risk that the country is producing far too much.

"The Chinese," he warned in an interview in November with Politico.com, "are in danger of producing huge quantities of goods and products that they will be unable to sell."

In December, he appeared on CNBC to discuss how he had already begun taking short positions, hoping to profit from a China collapse.

In recent months, a growing number of analysts, and some Chinese officials, have also warned that asset bubbles might emerge in China.

The nation's huge stimulus program and record bank lending, estimated to have doubled last year from 2008, pumped billions of dollars into the economy, reigniting growth.

But many analysts now say that money, along with huge foreign inflows of "speculative capital," has been funneled into the stock and real estate markets.

A result, they say, has been soaring prices and a resumption of the building boom that was under way in early 2008 — one that Mr. Chanos and others have called wasteful and overdone.

"It's going to be a bust," said Gordon G. Chang, whose book, "The Coming Collapse of China" (Random House), warned in 2001 of such a crash.

Friends and colleagues say Mr. Chanos is comfortable betting against the crowd — even if that crowd includes the likes of Warren E. Buffett and Wilbur L. Ross Jr., two other towering figures of the investment world.

A contrarian by nature, Mr. Chanos researches companies, pores over public filings to sift out clues to fraud and deceptive accounting, and then decides whether a stock is overvalued and ready for a fall. He has a staff of 26 in the firm's offices in New York and London, searching for other China-related information.

"His record is impressive," said Byron R. Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Services. "He's no fly-by-night charlatan. And I'm bullish on China."

Mr. Chanos grew up in Milwaukee, one of three sons born to the owners of a chain of dry cleaners. At Yale, he was a pre-med student before switching to economics because of what he described as a passionate interest in the way markets operate.

His guiding philosophy was discovered in a book called "The Contrarian Investor," according to an account of his life in "The Smartest Guys in the Room," a book that chronicled Enron's rise and downfall.

After college, he went to Wall Street, where he worked at a series of brokerage houses before starting his own firm in 1985, out of what he later said was frustration with the way Wall Street brokers promoted stocks.

At Kynikos Associates, he created a firm focused on betting on falling stock prices. His theories are summed up in testimony he gave to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2002, after the Enron debacle. His firm, he said, looks for companies that appear to have overstated earnings, like Enron; were victims of a flawed business plan, like many Internet firms; or have been engaged in "outright fraud."

That short-sellers are held in low regard by some on Wall Street, as well as Main Street, has long troubled him.

Short-sellers were blamed for intensifying market sell-offs in the fall 2008, before the practice was temporarily banned. Regulators are now trying to decide whether to restrict the practice.

Mr. Chanos often responds to critics of short-selling by pointing to the critical role they played in identifying problems at Enron, Boston Market and other "financial disasters" over the years.

"They are often the ones wearing the white hats when it comes to looking for and identifying the bad guys," he has said.

Feliz 2010

Que 2010 seja o inicio do ciclo 2010 - 2016.

Talvez estejamos prestes a viver no maior e melhor periodo de aceleraçao da historia para o Brasil desde o final dos anos 70.

Vamos conferir e desfrutar....feliz 2010!!!com muita saude, felicidade e paz!!!!