The euro recently fell for the first time below the minimum limit of SFr1.20 ($1.31 ) set by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in September 2011.
However, currency experts agree that the temporary slip that occurred during Easter week does not require a change in exchange rate policy.
Thomas Jordan, vice-president and interim president of the SNB, defended his institution at the start of this week and said that doubts about the exchange rate policy were “unfounded”.
Jordan repeated the central bank’s willingness “to buy foreign currency in unlimited amounts” in order to keep the franc within the specified limits. He also confirmed that the Swiss currency “remained overvalued”.
His explanation came after a few financial transactions on April 5 jolted the Easter-time lack of currency movement, causing the euro to trade at SFr1.19. It was the first time the franc had fallen below the minimum limit established by the SNB seven months ago.
The euro recently fell for the first time below the minimum limit of SFr1.20 ($1.31 ) set by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in September 2011.
However, currency experts agree that the temporary slip that occurred during Easter week does not require a change in exchange rate policy.
Thomas Jordan, vice-president and interim president of the SNB, defended his institution at the start of this week and said that doubts about the exchange rate policy were “unfounded”.
Jordan repeated the central bank’s willingness “to buy foreign currency in unlimited amounts” in order to keep the franc within the specified limits. He also confirmed that the Swiss currency “remained overvalued”.
His explanation came after a few financial transactions on April 5 jolted the Easter-time lack of currency movement, causing the euro to trade at SFr1.19. It was the first time the franc had fallen below the minimum limit established by the SNB seven months ago.
According to industry analysts, the volatility was caused partly by economic problems in Spain. Last weekend, Swiss publications such as the “Finanz und Wirtschaft” newspaper criticised the SNB for “going on holiday” when the going got tough.
While some consider the policy of the central bank insufficient, others consider it to be exaggerated.
Asia’s fast-rising economies set their sights on securing key IMF appointments under newly named chief Chistine Lagarde Wednesday, hopeful she would be the one to make good on oft-heard pledges to swing more power to emerging markets.
Lagarde said all the right things on her recent campaign-trail tour of Asia. She acknowledged that countries such as China and India deserve increased IMF voting power commensurate with their growing economic clout, and a fair shot at the emergency lending institution’s top decision-making posts.
“Lagarde is a friend of India,” a senior Indian government source said. “We can’t get the IMF managing director’s chair for now but at least India can get some high-level appointments in the IMF during her tenure and we will work toward that.”
Swiss stocks advanced, led by gains in chemicals companies and banks.
Syngenta AG, the Basel, Switzerland-based pesticides maker, climbed 1.7 percent. UBS AG added 0.8 percent.
The Swiss Market Index of the biggest and most actively traded companies rose 0.5 percent to 6,527.16 at 10:28 a.m. in Zurich. The benchmark has rallied 8.4 percent since March 16 as company earnings exceeded estimates. The broader Swiss Performance Index increased 0.5 percent.
Microsoft on Wednesday offered the first sneak peak of the next version of Windows—a touch-friendly OS that the company is counting on to finally make it a player in the red-hot tablet market.
Windows 8, as the operating system is called, at least for now, borrows heavily from Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile OS. Its Start menu, for instance, uses Windows Phone’s Live Tiles interface.
At Cloud Connect 2011 in Silicon Valley, TechWeb’s David Berlind gets a demonstration of CA’s recently acquired 3Tera AppLogic graphical private cloud deployment tool.
The tiles, which can be customized by the user, feed real-time data from social networks, e-mail accounts, messaging systems and other services directly to the home screen. The tiles can also be expanded to fill the whole screen to create a true tablet look.
Touch-enabled browsing will be assisted by hardware acceleration built into Explorer 10, Microsoft said.
The idea behind the layout is to make Windows 8 an OS that is equally at home on touch-screen tablets as it is on fully-powered desktops and laptops. “Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, from chip to the interface,” Microsoft said in a statement.
“A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse,” the company said. Windows 8 will support traditional desktop apps, and HTML5 and JavaScript tablet apps that fill the entire screen when launched.
Microsoft Windows division chief Steven Sinofsky demonstrated Windows 8 for the first time at the All Things D conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Most notably, the tile interface included direct links to Explorer, picture folders, and e-mail apps. One tile was simply titled “Store”, an indication that Microsoft plans to launch an Apple-style app store for Windows 8 applications and services.
Microsoft has made little secret of the fact that it plans to fully attack the tablet market with Windows 8. In January, the company said it would essentially fork the OS into two streams—one for desktops that run Intel and AMD x86 chips, and one that runs on ARM’s system-on-a-chip architecture for tablets.
Microsoft did not announce a launch date for Windows 8, but industry speculation has it pegged at some time between the 2011 holiday shopping season and early 2012. It’s also possible that Microsoft could release the ARM-based version of Windows 8 for tablets ahead of the desktop version, in an effort to catch up with rivals Apple and Google.
Apple’s iPad and Google Android-based devices are already well established in the tablet market, so Windows 8 will be playing catch up regardless of when it launches.
A Facebook lawsuit is being deemed “a brazen and outrageous fraud” by Facebook’s founders. Paul Ceglia claims that an eight-year-old contract signed by founder Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to 50 percent ownership of of the company.
Zuckerberg did admit that he dealt with Ceglia back in 2003, but all he did was sign a contract to work with Ceglia on StreetFax.com. Ceglia was starting the company at the time and Zuckerberg had answered an online job posting.
Facebook and Zuckerberg deny the allegations of the lawsuit. They claim Ceglia doctored a contract and fabricated e-mails.
Zuckerberg started working on Facebook seven months after signing a contract with Ceglia. Facebook first launched under the name “thefacebook.com” in February 2004.
“At no time did Zuckerberg enter into any agreement, written or otherwise, with Plaintiff or anyone affiliated with Plaintiff concerning Facebook or any similar social networking service or web site,” the company said in a statement reported by CNN.
Facebook is now valued at $55 billion, according to Sharepost.com and Bloomberg News. It is the world’s biggest social-networking website.
The website has called Ceglia “an inveterate scam artist whose misconduct extends across decades and borders.” It is questioning why Ceglia waited seven years to file the action, when it is now one of the world’s best known companies, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Facebook is asking the court to dismiss the complaint and force Ceglia to pay for its attorney fees.
NEW YORK (TheStreet) — The market shrugged off a ton of shaky economic data on Thursday as LinkedIn(LNKD)-inspired euphoria seemed to serve as a cure-all.
The problem is the business-oriented social networking company’s impressive debut is an impossible act to follow, and there could be a hangover for the broad market to deal with after the stock closed up more than 100%. At one point, the shares ran as high as $122.70, a gain of 170% from LinkedIn’s pricing at $45 per share.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now up about 10 points for the week so Friday’s direction is likely to determine whether the blue-chip index falls for a third straight week for the first time in 2011 or breaks the streak.
Retail investors have continued to trend toward bearishness, according to the latest American Association of Individual Investors survey, which found 41.3% of respondents fell in the bear camp for the week ended on Wednesday. That’s up 5.8% from the week before, and well beyond the long-term average of 30%.
Those identifying themselves as bullish in the survey, which draws from the organization’s 150,000 members and asks how they feel about the stock market for the next six months, came in at just 26.7%, down 4.1% from last week and far below the long-term average of 39%. The remainder of those polled identified themselves as neutral.
Thursday’s after-hours session was a busy one with disappointing results from both Gap(GPS) and Aeropostale(ARO) set against positive reports from Salesforce.com(CRM) and Foot Locker(FL).
Quarterly reports of note due on Friday are few and far between. AnnTaylor Stores(ANN) is always good for some insight into how the affluent consumer is doing, and the company has topped Wall Street’s expectations in three of the past four quarters.
The consensus for the April-ended period calls for a profit of 48 cents a share on revenue of $512.1 million, and there’s bullish lean ahead of the numbers with 12 of the 19 analysts covering the shares at either strong buy (12) or buy (12). The stock closed Thursday at $30.20, up 12.5% so far in 2011 and 50% over the past 52 weeks, so the snapback if there’s a shortfall could be harsh.
