Credicorp Securities

SriLankan Airlines will restart services to the Swiss city of Zurich on 23rd December 2011. The airline has in the last 10 months launched services to Shanghai, Guangzhou and Kochi, with a new Moscow service scheduled in September 2011, according to a statement. Zurich was served by Sri Lanka’s national carrier for a quarter of a century from 1980, but the service was suspended in 2005 during a global slump in air travel. Nishantha Wickremasinghe, Chairman, SriLankan Airlines, said, “This will significantly strengthen our services to travellers in central Europe, which is viewed as a market with great potential for tourism to Sri Lanka.”Bookmark

In a one-two punch to its reputation, JPMorgan Chase & Co. was accused by regulators in separate cases of misleading big investors about the riskiness of mortgage-related securities it was selling just as the home-loan market was melting down.
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued the giant bank’s securities unit over its sale in 2007 of a complex investment product whose value was indirectly tied to a collection of residential mortgages. JPMorgan did not tell the product’s institutional buyers that it had been partly designed by a hedge fund that would profit if the security lost value, the SEC said in a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.

As it filed the complaint, the agency announced that JPMorgan, the second-largest U.S. bank by most measures, had agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle the case.
A day earlier, the National Credit Union Administration, a federal regulator of credit unions, sued JPMorgan and Royal Bank of Scotland, accusing them of selling mortgage-backed bonds that were “destined to perform poorly,” leading to losses that brought down five large credit unions. The suit, filed in federal court in Kansas, seeks $800 million from the banks. JPMorgan and RBS declined to comment on that case.
This week’s allegations are notable because unlike some Wall Street rivals, JPMorgan until now hadn’t been explicitly accused of misconduct that helped lead to the global financial crisis.
But Tuesday�...

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to issue subpoenas to Google as part of a wide-ranging civil antitrust investigation into practices in Google’s search engine business, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
For several months, lawyers at the commission have gathered information about Google’s search and advertising business and whether the way it orders search results and related advertising constitutes illegal anticompetitive behavior.
This month, commissioners privately debated whether to authorize its Bureau of Competition to issue subpoenas to Google and are close to moving forward. As of Thursday afternoon, commission formalities remained before the investigation is officially started, but two people with knowledge of the matter said a final decision to issue the subpoenas was imminent in a matter of days. They agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because the action was not yet final and because it could be postponed if the commission required additional information.
The commission’s action was first reported online by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Spokesmen for Google and the Federal Trade Commission declined to comment.
Google has been the subject of repeated antitrust inquiries in recent years, most of them involving proposed acquisitions. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have conducted reviews of Google’s acquisitions of the Intern...

ZURICH, July 19 (Reuters) – Speculation is mounting about who might succeed Oswald Gruebel as chief executive of Swiss bank UBS AG after the appointment of former Bundesbank head Axel Weber as future chairman.
Here are details of some of the leading contenders:

SERGIO ERMOTTI, UBS HEAD EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
Born May 11, 1960. Swiss citizen
Joined UBS in April after quitting UniCredit when he was passed over in a management reshuffle following the departure of former group chief executive Alessandro Profumo. He is also a non-executive director of the London Stock Exchange.
He joined UniCredit at the end of 2005 as head of the markets and investment banking division. He became deputy CEO in 2007 with responsibility for corporate and investment banking as well as private banking.
Prior to joining UniCredit, Ermotti worked at Merrill Lynch for nearly 18 years. Between 2001 and 2003 he was responsible for the firm’s equity markets activities globally.
At Merrill, Ermotti, always impeccably dressed, worked in Switzerland, London and New York. Born in Switzerland’s Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, he is an Oxford management graduate and has a Swiss banking masters degree.
Still closely tied to his home region, Ermotti is president of Lugano-based Darwin Airlines and a co-owner of a chain of luxury hotels in Ticino.


CARSTEN KENGETER, CEO UBS INVESTMENT BANK
Born March 31, 1967. German...

The contest between Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s entry should be the biggest gadget face-off of the year.
By Melissa J. Perenson, PCWorld Jul 13, 2011 5:06 pm
All indicators point to Amazon readying a tablet for this year. And according to a report by the Wall Street Journal today, the online retail giant will introduce its first color offering “before October,” according to unnamed sources.
The timing makes sense: A September or even early October introduction would be well-timed to position Amazon going into the holiday shopping season, and to build anticipation for a tablet that could be the most asked-for stocking stuffer of 2011. It also coincides with when arch-rival Apple plans to launch its iOS 5.0 mobile operating system, and, potentially, a new, higher-resolution iPad to complement its current blockbuster, the iPad 2.
Amazon and Apple aren’t the only ones planning fall tablet launches. Sony’s first Android tablets are due in the fall as well.
As expected, Amazon isn’t saying anything-the company never confirms or denies the ever-churning rumor mill. However, the company’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, has indicated in the past that a tablet is its next frontier. And that makes perfect sense, on numerous levels.

Can South Africa defy the modern conventions and ways of an entire sport in their World Cup campaign?
The question comes ever more urgently into mind in the light of their opening Tri-Nations defeat by Australia in Sydney last weekend.
It is clear that New Zealand and Australia are playing a completely different game to the South Africans. They seek to utilise the opportunities afforded by the new law interpretations by keeping possession and attacking mostly with ball in hand.
By contrast, the South African game does not appear to have moved forward hardly one iota since 2007 when they won a kicking dominated World Cup by playing tactically, relying on their impressive line-out for solid, consistent possession, driving the ball on by hammering into the opposition and landing copious numbers of penalty goals.
But that was then and this is now. Four years is a long time in any sport and in rugby terms in countries like New Zealand, Australia and even England, it is almost a generation in terms of change.
Yet the South Africans will try to retain their World Cup crown by playing virtually a similar game to 2007. Whether it be Morne Steyn or Butch James wearing the No. 10 jersey, they will seek physical contact, use the box kick to keep the ball in front of their pack, aim for the corners and hope their immense line-out, with Victor Matfield the world’s No. 1 tactician in that department to the fore, can steal opposition ball. From that, they will...

No country seems to want a rising currency—and that poses a problem for a world economy struggling with weakening prospects for growth in the world’s biggest developed nations.
In the past few days, Japanese and Swiss central banks have taken steps to restrain their currencies, which have surged amid fears about the U.S. debt ceiling and Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. The European Central Bank moved Thursday to pump more liquidity into its market. Turkey’s central bank lowered its key lending rate half a percentage point to 5.75%; as a result, the lira fell 2% against the dollar.
“You’re seeing a more concerted effort on the part of a number of countries to manage their currencies at a time when everybody has concerns about growth,” said Bruce Kasman, chief economist at J.P. Morgan Chase. Or, as equity strategy Peter Boockvar of Miller Tabak & Co. put it in a note to clients Thursday: “The race to debase continues.”
In an apparent response to Japan’s intervention and continued worries about Europe, the dollar surged Thursday against the yen and the euro.
Several of the big developed economies that let the markets set their exchange rates—the U.S., the U.K. and Japan—are counting on weaker currencies to help boost their exports at a time of domestic economic weakness. “Economies that are weak would naturally want to export more. A more competitive exchange rate would be one way to enhance the competitiveness of your exports,�...

BLUEWATER – Lighting upgrades are on their way to the Zurich Arena, with work expected to be done before the start of hockey season.
Bluewater council awarded a tender for the upgrades at its Aug. 2 meeting, accepting a $39,363.60 bid by Larry Miles Electric of Parkhill.
The upgrades are part of the second phase of energy upgrades to the arena, which is being funded in equal parts by the municipal, provincial and federal governments under the Recreational Infrastructure Canada/Ontario program.
Phase I of the project was finished in March and included installing a voltage filter on the electrical feed to the arena, according to a report from Bluewater utilities superintendent Brent Kittmer.
The second phase includes replacing existing lighting over the ice surface with a more energy efficient model, the report states.
Existing 1,000 watt high-intensity discharge (HID) fixtures provide adequate light for play when new, but over time “tend to fade and need to be replaced,” the report states. “This occurs over a 4-5 year life cycle.”
A lighting survey and design recommended the HID lights be replaced with twelve-lamp T5 fluorescent ballasts, and a three-switch control system will be installed for controlling lighting levels.
“This will provide arena attendants flexibility to control the amount of light on the ice surface depending upon the function, with settings for 4-lamp, 6-lamp and 12-lamp operation,” Kittmer’s report...

Oil dropped in New York, trimming a second weekly gain, as investors speculated a U.S. jobs report will signal the economy is weakening, curbing fuel demand in the world’s biggest crude consumer. A tropical depression shut rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Futures fell as much as 0.6 percent before data today that may show companies slowed hiring last month. Oil rose earlier after almost 6 percent of crude output in the Gulf was shut ahead of the strengthening storm. The depression may approach the southern coast of Louisiana this weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center.
“Demand out of the U.S. is pretty flat at the moment,” said Gavin Wendt, founder of Mine Life Pty., an energy and mining analyst based in Sydney. “The fear that supplies are going to be impacted can increase the risk premium that’s associated with crude.”
Oil for October delivery fell as much as 54 cents to $88.39 a barrel in electronic trading on theNew York Mercantile Exchange and was $88.47 at 3:31 p.m. Singapore time. The contract yesterday gained 12 cents to $88.93, the highest close since Aug. 3. Prices are up 3.6 percent this week and 18 percent the past year.
Brent oil for October settlement was at $113.95, down 34 cents, on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark was at a premium of $25.52 to U.S. futures, up from $25.36 at yesterday’s settlement and compared with a record close of $26.21 on Aug. 19.
Rig Evacuations
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The stock markets are entering a gloomy second-half of 2011-12, notwithstanding a grim economic scenario globally. Is it a failure of the economic policy adopted by several nation states supporting their falling financial institutions? While this question is debatable among economists and policy-makers, the Indian conditions are peculiar compared to other developing nations, which have more exposure to developed markets while India is not. This statement goes with a caveat that India is not immune to global economic incidents.

The benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30-share index, Sensex, recorded its biggest quarterly fall of 12.8 per cent as on September 30, 2011. Earlier, its biggest fall was recorded in the aftermath of the collapse of U.S.-based Lehman Brothers in September 2008, a 25 per cent downfall in the third quarter (October to December) in 2008. The Sensex closed at 16453.76 on September 30, 2011, against 19420.39 in April this year, a fall of 2966.63 points.

Meanwhile the rupee’s fall was sharper and it moved towards the range of 49.50-50 in September as compared to an average of 44.30 a dollar in April. In calendar year 2008, the average of rupee’s exchange rate was around 43.40 a dollar.

Whether these numbers indicate an imminent lack of confidence among market participants in the third quarter (October to December) of the current fiscal and a fall with the same dimension witnessed in 2008?

High in...