M1 Group B First subject

For this first week I'd like you to write between 100 and 200 words on a FINANCE related news topic that interested you this week. Over to you.

If anyone is interested in listening to business news online here's the link to the BBC world service world business news. This one is talking about the anti-Austerity movement but there is a catalog of older clips that may be of interest for many financial areas.

World business report

Okay here's my idea for next week's discussion watch A value on nature (there is a transcript to help you with understanding) and we will discuss this next week. On top of that choose any talk that interests you (of any length) and be prepared to introduce it to the group next week to try and interest them in it.

I would like to talk about tax fraud of HSBC bank , also called SwissLeaks .
It deals about 180 billion euros from different nationalities including France where people with lot of money put an amount on the Geneve Bank and after it transit to offshore account like in Panama so as to avoid taxes thanks to tax heaven
With all this money out of the country , the States lost a lot of money but they fixed it and claimed to tax these people on their hiding funds
Among people we can see surgeans , politicians and even comedian like Gad el Maleh
To prevent a similar situation in the future , the US government decided to erase bank secret about their customer account

My subject is about the new Russian plan to increase taxes on oil.
As Russian economy depends for the major part of Oil, we obviously understand that mother Russia is lately going through hard times. The incredibly low price of oil added to the weak Ruble which is a good factor for exportation but not for importations, the Russia is near recession for the first time since 2009. In order to offset the state budget losses, the government and particularly the Deputy Energy Minister is planning the suppression of the tax cut which is not a good news for oil producers.
Indeed, last year, the government decided to reduce the tax on oil export between 2015 and 2017 and compensate by increase the extraction taxes. If the minister apply this plan, the companies would lose 0.60$ per barrel at the current price.
Putin declared : “The interests of the company are important, but there are also the interests of the economy in general” and by “economy in general”, I assume that he meant “me and my friends' wallets".

Source : bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-10/russia-faces-battle-over-billions-in-oil-taxes-after-crude-slump

European growth

I am going to speak about the european growth expected by the financial G20 (9-10 february 2015). This subject include different topic that we spoke last week like the oil price or the deflation.
I read a section about that on « Le Monde », this document explain after few years of economics crisis we can expect a growth between 1.7% and 2.1% in the european union. The specialist show this anticipation is due to different factor like the decrease of the price’s oil and the decline in the euro compared to the dollars.
Lot of country in UE decided to reduce their austerity politics, this adjustement allow the economy to breathe…
But compared to the American growth (3.5%), the european growth seem small… However this announcement is a good new for the european union.

PS : sorry for the mistakes

Hi


I'd like to talk about the "Bitcoin" scandal that happened  in Hong -Kong the last week.
For those who don't know  Bitcoin is a virtual currency which is used more and more in the web, for either payments or speculation.
The danger with this cryptocurrency is that you're clearly visible to the scammers and that's what happened last week where Investors in Hong-Kong lost over 380 million dollars due to 30 cases of scams

source : Yahoo! Finance

This week I want to talk about the debt crisis in Greece. As is well-known, Greece has already struggling to solve his debt for 5 years, while the situation in Greek doesn't ameliorate a lot.
Last month, Left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras and his anti-austerity government has won the election but at the same time some euro-zone members, especially  German remained unyielding over terms of the country's bailout condition. The contradiction between them raised fears that Greece could leave the euro. That's why the Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said in an interview that  Greece wants a deal to restructure Greece's debt.  
On this Wednesday, Greece will  plead its case for a new deal at the meeting of euro-zone finance  minister. Mr Kammenos said that if the new proposal is rejected by other members, then they have the obligation to ask help from the U.S, Russia or China.

The subject I have chosen is Microsoft's debt issuance. The giant raised nearly $ 11 billion, which is $ 4 billion more than initially planned. Strong demand requires the firm to contradict his plans and issue further. Its nearest competitor (apple) has only raised 6.5 billion dollars of debt. The most impressive is that it offers maturities ranging from 5 to 40 years, such long maturities enchant long-term investors. Why is it interesting for them? These bonds will offer an attractive return because more the indebtedness is strong more the financial profitability is high. In addition, the rates are very low which means that Microsoft will be less affected by interest and thus affect less the share reserved for shareholders.

source : lesechos.fr/finance-marches/marches-financiers/0204149659561-dette-microsoft-emet-pour-la-premiere-fois-a-40-ans-1091975.php

I want to talk about the huge fine for anti-trust violation in China for Qualcomm. For those who don't know about Qualcomm, it's a U.S chipmaker company who have advanced 3G&4G mobile technologies. So, the thing is that China's nathional development and reform commission has found the company guity of violating Chinese anti-trust laws, and has fined the company almost one billion. and recently China's antitrust legislation probes have caused some worries of western investors and media.

My resume is about Apple who just becomes the first ever company to hit a 700$ billion value. As we all know Apple has been one the biggest company of the past decade alongside Google or Exxon. Moreover Apple has been growing rapidly, thanks to huge investment in the R&D. The Iphone 6 has been a trigger for Apple who has finally taken the China market by storm. Thanks to its latest Iphone, Apple have gain more than 8.3m$ per hour (!) in the last three months of 2014. The growth of Apple’s value is not likely going to slow down since the company will launch the Apple watch later this year. My bet is that it’s gonna be a huge success again…

As most of the main financial subjects of the week were already discussed I decided to focus on a more "frenchy" one. Therefore it seems important to me to talk about the fact that the Rafale has been a true burden for France especially Dassault Aviation in the past decade. Indeed, at first introduced as an efficient multirole aircraft, symbol of the french know-how, the aircraft now has desperatly become famous for being clearly impossible to sell to foreign countries. Part of the explanation : its high price compared to similar but cheaper american or russian aircrafts (mentionning british ones is pointless as the Rafale is far better).
However, Egypt seems to be about to buy 24 of them (plus some other big military stuff) for a total of 5 billion euros, what a victory ain't it ? But before celebrating they still have to be patient since the contract isn't officially signed (remember Brasil, India, UAE...). It may be for this reason that Dassault Aviation hasn't made any comment on the news yet. Anyway it would have a real positive impact on the financial forecasts of the Group, France being the only user of the Rafale for the moment. On the markets, its stock price has raised from around 10% within the last 5 days.

I think that the problem with tax heaven must be one of objective for europ bank in the way we need good growth in europ. As a matter of fact, situation of HSBC is very unacceptable simply because it the first bank in europ and they must show and be a good exemple for others banks.
But, it also important for gouvernement in europ and the usa to think again about income tax , i mean we must stop with ideas that if people have a lot of money , he's must be taxed.

I'm behind STARSKY and let's be patriotic ! I'm according with his part of explanation. But i suspect that the problem is rooted by various causes including the selling strategy of this aircraft. Firstly the selling is mainly negociated by the politicians consequently they have to respect high society codes and the marketing practice, that's why this can damage the sincerity during the negotiation . Secondly, there are a problem with the positioning of the product but the real question is " WHY ", i think that the company believed dominate this market of the war aircraft by innovating. Now it undergoes the pressure of they rivals because the RAFALE is " so premium " for the using that it is made in the reality, the purchase is expensive but the maintenance is an long-term investment. The company overevalued its product and does not respect the matching product-market. Thirdly i suppose the executives of the company found themselves blocked between a product symbolizing the national pride and the unsuitable offer, however they chose the pride. In my opinion, if they dont lower the range of the RAFALE to align itself with the rival, they will be nibbled at piece by piece or undergoes a merger.

It’s only two days to the traditional New Year of Vietnam so-called “Tet Nguyen Dan” (according to the lunar calendar.) Tet Nguyen Dan is the most important holiday in the year of the Vietnamese people. This is the time when relatives in the family gather, telling the funny stories and sharing their sad stories in the year. They want to have a good and happy new year.
The quarter are highlighted by flowers of apricot, the Kumquat trees ... Everybody wants to choose the best flowers to decorate their house. Also, the women go to the market to buy sticky rice, meat, pork, mung beans, leaves "Dong" ... to make "Banh Chung". This is an indispensable dish in the meal of TET.
This year, because of studying in France, I can’t return to my family. However, this week is a busy but happy week to me. Other Vietnamese students in Poitiers and I, we are preparing the meals and an entertainment program to celebrate the new year on this Saturday

Attacks in Copenhagen, the killer is a young Danish of Palestinian origin.

A conference was held in honor of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, over a month after the attack in Paris who had 12 victims including many editorial cartoonists. The meeting which was held Saturday on the theme "art, blasphemy and freedom of expression." A meeting of the defenders of freedom as the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, threatened with death for his caricatures of Mohammed or the leader of Femen, Inna Shevchenko.

A man 40 years old was killed and three others injured, including two policemen.