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MSN MoneyCentral – Stock futures fell on Thursday, pointing to a weaker open on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones industrial average, the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 share indexes down 1.4-2.8 percent.
Highlights:
* Walt Disney reports results and could comment on whether theme park bookings for the popular holiday period are down and whether it is scaling back costs in the face of skittish media advertisers. Revenue is expected to rise about 5 percent and net profit about 11 percent.
* Initial jobless claims for last week, due at 1330 GMT, are expected to come in just a thousand above the previous week at 480,000, setting the stage for a grim October non-farm payroll report on Friday.
ABC News – European stock markets opened higher Tuesday after Japan’s Nikkei index recovered from 26-year lows, with Germany’s DAX further boosted by another steep rise in the value of Volkswagen AG shares.
The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 92.62 points, or 2.4 percent, higher at 3,945.21, helped along by a near 6 percent rise in BP PLC’s share price after the oil giant revealed an 83 percent increase in net profit in the three months from July to September to $8.05 billion.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net) – Baader Wertpapierhandelsbank AG has been granted membership to the Compensation Fund of German Banks (EdB) by the German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
Once the entry into the commercial register has been completed, the institution will be known under its corporate name, Baader Bank AG.
"Receiving the full banking licence is a significant sign of the faith that is placed in the capability of our bank’, commented Uto Baader, Chairman of the Baader Board of Directors.
The bank operates as an all-round service provider for asset managers and other institutional customers as well as an arranger of financial innovations. The main products and services provided by the bank include certificates, publicly offered funds, single hedge funds and funds of hedge funds as well as managed accounts.
Baader Service Bank currently has 26 employees and reported net profit of EUR 0.56 million ($1 million) with total assets of EUR 53.3 million ($83.2 million) in 2007.
Reuters – Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis said on Wednesday it had sold former ABN AMRO unit International Asset Management IAM.L as part of a strategy to bolster its balance sheet.
Fortis said in a statement it had sold London-based fund-of-hedge-funds manager IAM to its management, supported by certain third party investors.
The deal would not have a material impact on Fortis’ net profit per share but would give some solvency relief, it said.
Fortis two weeks ago announced a programme to shore up its finances by 8.3 billion euros (6.6 billion pounds), partly by selling assets, after buying parts of former rival ABN AMRO.
