International Headlines and Stories

Friendly atmosphere in Berlin between Christine Lagarde and his German counterpart Finance, Wolfgang Sch?uble, who met Monday for a preparatory meeting at the Brussels summit. Certainly, the French minister still can not correctly pronounce the name of his neighbor, but for the rest, they gave the image of a pair perfectly consistent.

"It is for us to strengthen the Franco-German base and we consult on the question of the stability pact. We have also given our views on oversight of the financial system, "said the minister, Wolfgang Sch?uble before takes the floor:" I'll just translate what Ms Lagarde said earlier, "joked the former Minister of Interior of the previous government Merkel.

On the merits, the ministers argued over several issues.They first agreed to establish a "common agenda" on a range of topics (G20 finance …). They then discussed access to bank credit for SMEs. If both countries have said that there was no reason to fear a "credit crunch", they agreed to "proposals" together. To this end, France and Germany will "exchange of experts".

Public finances have also been at the heart of discussions on Monday. The replacement of the Social Democrat Peer Steinbrueck, highly appreciated by Christine Lagarde, told the good news: the country's deficit this year would be 10 billion less than expected.For Axel Weber, Bundesbank president and also present at the meeting with his French counterpart, Christian Noyer, it "could allow Germany to return in 2012 in the nails of the European stability pact."

"Semantic shift"

The France is also changing its official position on the thorny issue of public finances. There are a few more days, Prime Minister Fran?ois Fillon and 2014 set the deadline back to a deficit below 3% of GDP, with an "effort to reduce more than 1% per year. On Monday, Christine Lagarde said she supported the goal of reducing the French deficit to 3% by 2013. One year before the date officially adopted by Paris so far."If the situation is bad, we can not achieve this goal, was still eager to clarify the French Minister.

It may be a "semantic shift" – dixit Bercy – compared to what was the prime minister, but the political signal sent to our European partners and the Commission is far from negligible. Last week, the Brussels executive had asked to return to France from 2013's deficit in the nails of the Stability Pact. She considered him already granted an extension from its requirements of spring, because of "the deteriorating economic situation."

Finally, the question of the Presidency of the Eurogroup, "we will discuss in the coming weeks," said Christine Lagarde.

Nothing very serious, but a real nervousness gripped the market on weekends. French values are clearly divided down for the fourth straight session and Wall Street began a real consolidation.

The publication of poor results by the computer manufacturer Dell, whose profits have halved in a year, has certainly cast a pall. Therefore, the decline was widespread in technology stocks in the whole document: Among the largest declines over the weekend, tech stocks, but also banks, real estate and many cyclical industries.

In fact, beyond these poor results, the market consolidates because investors are worried about the strength of the recovery, the deteriorating public finances and relapse indicators on housing states USA.Therefore, in the absence of fresh news can revive the dynamic market, investors have preferred to take profits. To top it off, President Obama held a relapse of the activity was not excluded if the recovery efforts were abandoned and the Japanese authorities have recognized that the country has fallen into recession, with falling prices for the seventh consecutive month.

After two years of crisis that we have known, investors have seen others, but should not the signs of depression are increasing, with an avalanche of bad economic data and disappointing results.The virtuous circle that has established a stock exchange, with expectations of gradual recovery in activity and improvement in profits needs to be supported, if the correction could increase.

For now, the indexes are still near the highest: more than 10,000 points for the Dow Jones, over 3,700 for the CAC 40. We must beware of making catastrophism, the scenario out of recession is good for equities, the key is to remember that the current consolidation is beneficial because it restores margin for operations to start rising.

While waiting to see clearer, gold opportunity to play its full role investment haven to more than $ 1,100 an ounce in London.

"BLOG – Learn to handle hedges