Rebound on Wall Street

Wall Street started the week with much fanfare, the New York Stock Exchange showing a marked increase in closing Monday. The stock market has primarily benefited from the publication of an indicator highlighting the resilience of consumption in the United States, while the financial consequences of Hurricane Irene could be scaled down.

At the final bell, the Dow Jones progressed and 2.26% at 11,539 points while the Nasdaq and Standard & Poor's 500 respectively go up showed an increase of 3.32% to 2562 points and 1210 points to 2.83%. Note particularly the crossing by the Standard & Poor's 500 threshold of 1200 points, something that had not been seen since last two weeks. The Nasdaq has still increased by 4.3% last week after a month of fall, and shows up its fifth session in six sessions. Its level has now reached the highest since Aug. 3.

Main factors of such a surge: investors seem reassured by the amount of the first estimates of the damage caused by Hurricane Irene, which has struck the United States. While some initial projections exceeded 10 billion, the company's risk management Eqecat has estimated for its damage to 5 or 7 billion. Also note that consumer spending of households in the United States rebounded in July, growth proving to be greater than expected (0.8%).

Overall decline in Credit Default Swap

According to Markit, the Credit Default Swap (CDS) debt-related peripheral countries in the Euro area showed an overall decline. Markets appear to be satisfied and policies in Spain and Italy, as investors thus less prone to risk aversion.

But caution is still required while Greece is still alone, strong concerns weighing on a possible non-application of the second aid package awarded to Athens. Thus, the CDS (insurance against nonpayment) of the Greek debt to five years have now reached 2,200 basis points, up 92 bps.

The Credit Default Swap with the same maturity on the Italian debt has meanwhile declined by 19 bps to 360 bps, a few hours before the auction by Italy of eight billion Euros of debt. CDS Spanish were down for their 14-bps to 362 bps. The 10-year rate in Spain was changing and in turn to 5.04%, against a record 6.45% last August 2. Regarding Ireland, the decline is 32 basis points to 805 basis points.

Gold, The Misfortune Of One is The Happiness of Others

The misfortune of one is again the happiness of others ... and vice versa. After passing record after record, the "favor" of the crisis in the United States and the European Union, the price of gold has suffered these last hours of renewed investor confidence international markets.

The ounce of gold has dropped sharply Wednesday, falling below the $ 1,800 in a sharp drop of nearly 8%. While it is however necessary to correlate the thing, remembering that the day before the gold price reached a new record high trading at more than 1,900 dollars, a trend following a wave of profit taking after the outbreak observed in recent days.

By 1430 GMT, the price of an ounce of gold has tumbled to 1761.28 dollars on the spot market, dropping more than 150 dollars compared to a record 1,913.50 dollars recorded on Tuesday in exchange Asian.

Investors appear to have diverted a time of gold and its safe haven qualities, reassured by the increase observed on the European stock markets, it following the announcement of a rebound in durable goods orders in July higher than expected.

Also note that the Shanghai Gold Exchange, China market of precious metals, said Tuesday it had increased its "margin calls" - the amounts that investors must file with the operator for each position in a futures contract - making of facto less attractive investments in gold.

While the August 11, the CME, the exchange operator COMEX, New York market of precious metals, already noted by 22% its "margin calls", passing $ 7,425 per contract, some seem to fear a further increase. Sensing a desire to remove the "weak hands" who lack cash.

Sad record of youth unemployment in Italy

Is it only consolation? While France recorded an increase of job seekers, Italy is no exception ... since according to a study released Wednesday by Confartigianato, the Italian federation of craftsmen, the Italian nation has one of the youth unemployment rate the highest in Europe and the highest in the age group under 35. According to the report of Confartigianato, Italy has more than one million unemployed under the age of 35, corresponding to a rate of 15.9%.

The problem is particularly acute in the 15-24 age group with a rate of 27.8% recorded in June by the European Institute Eurostat, the European average for it’s around 20.3%. Remember, however, that Spain, the unemployment rate for under 25 reached 45.7% while it is 33.3% in Slovakia. Like what everything is relative ...

Looking specifically the portion of the age of 35, the number of young people with jobs fell by 926,000 units between 2008 and 2011. The Italian institute of statistics Istat for its part told that Italy had in the first quarter of 2011, 1.152 million of unemployed under 35 years. Unemployment is especially in the Mezzogiorno located south of the peninsula with a rate of 21.1%, representing 538,000 unemployed youth. Sicily has the highest with a rate of 28%, reports Confartigianato ... regardless of undeclared ...

For businesses, non-standard contracts can get rid of the tax burden. The absence of effective measures for reducing employment opportunities for young people to find a decent job is the main reason. Note, however, all age groups combined, the unemployment rate in Italy is one of the lowest in Europe, reaching 8% in June against 9.9% in the euro area over the same period. Young Italians seem to somewhat stalled, only 47% of them hoping to get a full-time contract. Ironically, while the young end of the Arab Spring sees Italy as a veritable paradise, 98,000 young Italians would be willing to emigrate to find work.

For the record, according to information provided by the Italian Interior Ministry in a circular to the Chamber of Deputies dated August 3, 2011, 51,881 immigrants set foot on Italian soil during the first seven months of the 2011. Of these, 24,854 are from Tunisia, 23,890 are from Libya and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. Such an "effective" equals the number of immigrants recorded during 1999, a year marked by war in Kosovo.

Shares and Bonds

When we purchase a share of stock, we are in fact getting ownership in the company in which we are investing. As a result, we share in both the profits and losses of the company the whole time the years. We’d probably want to pay attention to news that affects both the market and the economy in general. A bond does not embody ownership in a corporation where as stock entitles you. The company may sell bonds as an alternative to issuing stock. Rather than owning a piece of the company, the bondholder becomes a creditor the company. The company will be paying back over the life of the bond. The difference is that the return you will earn on your money as a bondholder is generally a fixed percentage annually. If the bond is for 5 years, you will get interest each year for the next 5 years, and then our investment returned to you at termination date. In the short term, we lose money in the stock market than the bond market.