World stocks rise on Greek bailout hopes The London stock market gained 0.25%, Frankfurt added 0.78% and Paris won 0.26 in late morning European trade

London: Global equities rose Friday after heavy losses earlier this week, and the euro pulled further away from recent lows as crisis-hit Greece appeared to edge closer to a bailout, dealers said.
The London stock market gained 0.25%, Frankfurt added 0.78% and Paris won 0.26 in late morning European trade.
All three main markets had rallied Thursday on news that a Greek debt bailout was near, with sentiment also lifted by positive company results.
“Expectations of an announcement about a joint EU-IMF bailout of Greece within days have helped soothe investor anxiety about an imminent Greek default,” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
“And (this) has seen the euro continuing to pull away from this week’s 12-month lows,” he added.
The euro jumped as high as $1.3307, up from $1.3244 in New York late Thursday, and after striking a one-year low of 1.3115 on Wednesday.
As pressure eased, Greek bond yields, indicating the price the government would have to pay to raise new money on financial markets, were stable.
The rate on 10-year paper came to 9.052% against 9.039% on Thursday. The yield on Wednesday soared to a record 11.142%.
Asian stocks rallied at the end of a tough week, with sentiment boosted by hopes that a Greek bailout is in sight. Tokyo bounced 1.21% higher and Hong Kong won 1.59% in value.
Greece, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund are “very close” to agreeing austerity measures needed to secure badly-needed loans, and a deal will be announced by Sunday, a Greek government source told AFP.
Fears over debt-laden Greece and the fiscal health of the eurozone have hammered global financial markets this week.
Markets were rocked on Tuesday after Standard & Poor’s slashed Greek debt ratings to junk status.
They took another heavy knock from rating downgrades to Portugal and Spain that sparked fears of contagion from the crisis in Athens.
“Reports suggest that some form of agreement has been reached in the negotiations on the Greek rescue package, involving additional budget cuts for €24 billion, or 10% of Greek GDP, spread over the next three years,” said Citi analyst Giada Giani in a note on Friday.
“However, doubts remain about the ability of the Greek government — already facing strong opposition from trade unions — to implement such draconian measures over such a short period of time.”
Social tensions mounted in Greece on Friday as the embattled government negotiated over the huge cuts in spending needed to save the country from a debt default.
Aside from Greece, traders were on tenterhooks before publication of US gross domestic product growth figures for the first three months of 2010.
“On the economic data front, US GDP numbers will be the highlight of the day and they are due to confirm that the US economy has returned to decent health,” said Capital Spreads analyst Simon Denham.
Wall Street had rallied on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring 1.10% as fears over the eurozone debt crisis ebbed and traders clawed back losses from earlier in the week.
Next week, financial markets in Tokyo will be closed from Monday to Wednesday due to national holidays.
London will be shut on Monday for a public holiday, before Britons head to the polls in a general election on 6 May.

Post Comments

Apple buys up another chip maker Apr 27, 2010 07:36 pm | Macworld.com by Marco Tabini

Apple has bought the firm widely believed to be responsible for the design of the engine behind the A4 CPU that powers the iPad.
Austin, Texas-based Intrinsity does not directly make microprocessosrs; instead, it specializes in designing and licensing high-performance chips for mobile applications. In fact, its primary product is a set of design tools, called Fast14, which implement a number of sophisticated algorithms and techniques to improve the efficiency of CPUs based on a number of different architectures, including the ARM family that at the core of many of Apple's mobile devices.
In characteristic Apple fashion, the company has only now confirmed the purchase, although many of Intrinsity's employees had changed their online profiles on the business-oriented social network LinkedIn to reflect their new positions with the Cupertino giant earlier this month.
Apple hasn't detailed what it paid for Intrinsity or how it plans to use the chip designer's technologies. Company spokesman Steve Dowling told the New York Times that "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we do not comment on our purpose or plans." The newspaper, however, cites an industry expert claiming that the acquisition set Apple back $121 million--chump change, really, for a company that ended its fiscal second quarter with $41.7 billion in cash and investments on hand.
This isn't the first time Apple has snapped up a chip specialist. In 2008, the company bought chip designer PA Semi for a reported $278 million.

Overseas business grads target Indian job market

BANGALORE: Business graduates from foreign institutes such as the University of Chicago Booth School of Business are seeking opportunities to Job market Cos that are hiring Workplace Issues
Recruiting best talent IT companies hiring? work in India, at a time when an economic recession is resulting in more job losses and lack of opportunities for them in the US.A group of around 25 students from the University of Chicago Booth, which is the second oldest in the United States, have started a program called India Business Week (IBW) to visit Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi for seeking jobs in the segments of private equity, IT, investment banking and consulting.
“We received very convincing and receptive response from several firms that we visited. Most of us are originally from India, we want to move back,” said Nitesh Jain, IBW lead from The University of Chicago Booth.These students, having a work experience of five to ten years are visiting Indiabased companies such as Tata Group, Wipro, Infosys, ICICI Venture Fund, Intel, IBM, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.

iPad security: IT's foolish double standard Yet another analyst report fails the iPad on security -- and Neanderthal IT puts another nail in its coffin

There they go again, those Neanderthal IT folks who use security as a reason to resist change. A recent Computerworld story cites unnamed analysts as giving the iPad an "F" for its security features, then quotes Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney on why iPhones shouldn't be used in the enterprise:

Despite Apple's updates and the inclusion of the Cisco VPN, Dulaney said Gartner concludes that the iPad is "not enterprise ready ... and Apple would have no problem with Gartner saying this was not enterprise ready. ... We don't endorse use of netbooks, and the iPad is in the same category. ... We don't think it has the security and manageability capabilities for offline applications and, more importantly, the support of Apple for the enterprise."

 Stay up on tech news and reviews from your smartphone at infoworldmobile.com. Or download our free InfoWorld iPad app. | Get the best iPhone and iPad apps for pros with our business iPhone apps finder. | See which smartphone is right for you in our mobile "deathmatch" calculator. ]

Dulaney is a smart guy, and Gartner tends to be conservative in its recommendations; it was one of the first analyst firms to backtrack on promoting Windows Vista, for example, and it traditionally tells IT to avoid major operating system updates until 18 months or so after the initial version ships. Thus, I know he's being honest in his cautious approach. It's clear his standard applies to a broad range of devices, not just iPads.