By Poornima GuptaSAN FRANCISCO, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans
to shutter U.S. retail stores for several hours on Wednesday so
employees can take part in a company-wide celebration of
co-founder Steve Jobs’ life, a person familiar with the
celebration said.Store employees in United States will use that time to view
a live broadcast of the event, which is being held at an
outdoor amphitheater at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino,
California.The celebration — which will be held from 10 a.m. PDT
(1700 GMT) to 11:30 a.m. PDT — will follows a private memorial
service for the late tech visionary at Stanford University
expected to be attended by Silicon Valley luminaries,
politicians and celebrities.Many Apple stores across California were not accepting
online bookings for Wednesday morning, either for tech-support
or tutorial appointments.Employees across Asia and Australia will be able to view a
re-broadcast of the celebration, the person said.An Apple spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for
comment.Jobs died on Oct 5 at the age of 56 after a long battle
with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Chief Executive Tim Cook
had said in a memo to employees on Oct. 10 that a celebration
of his life would be held Wednesday.
“Also you must take into account that Ireland, Portugal and
Greece already have amounts set aside for bank recapitalisations
within their programmes,” said Frankel, who is chief financial
officer of the EFSF, and deputy to its chief executive.Frankel’s remarks come amid concerns on financial markets
that demands for help from the EFSF to bolster weak banks would
leave the 440 billion euro fund with little firepower to rescue
a country, if that were to prove necessary.European officials are attempting to launch a
recapitalisation drive, with estimates for the final bill
ranging from 100 to 200 billion euros and beyond.Frankel also said the EFSF would tap short-term funding
markets — paper with a maturity of less than one year — which
makes it easier to raise big sums.He said the EFSF’s funding would become more flexible and
diversified.”This also means that we will implement a short-term funding
strategy which could be structured around a bill programme.”Frankel said preparation for the new permanent euro zone
support scheme, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), was
under way and that technically, the EFSF could already carry out
its mission.”ESM will have the same mission as the EFSF so in practical
terms, we are already ready,” he said. “We have already started
preparing the ESM internally.”
“Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu,” the owners said in a joint statement.Reuters reported last month that the auction of online video site Hulu has been slowed due to conflicts over complicated digital rights, a wide bid-ask gap and the lack of commitment to sell by Hulu’s owners, among other things.This is the second time its owners have fashioned a full or partial exit strategy that has failed. After nearly six months of planning, the owners ditched an initial public offering last December to raise up to $300 million.
* Says legislation would hurt China-U.S. tiesBEIJING, Oct 12 (Reuters) - China on Wednesday urged the
Obama administration and Congress to stymie a U.S. bill aimed at
pressing Beijing to lift the value of the yuan, warning the
legislation passed by the Senate could upset efforts to prop up
the global economy.The bill is a protectionist step that “gravely violates
World Trade Organisation rules,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma
Zhaoxu said after the U.S. Senate approved it in a 63-35 vote
and sent it to House of Representatives to debate.”China urges the U.S. government, Congress and all quarters
to resolutely oppose using domestic legislation to create a fuss
about and put pressure on the renminbi exchange rate,” said Ma
in comments on the ministry’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn).The “renminbi”, or “people’s currency,” is another name for
China’s yuan currency.The bill will “disrupt the shared efforts of China and the
United States, as well the international community, to promote
vigorous recovery and growth in the global economy,” said Ma.His condemnation was echoed by China’s Ministry of Commerce.”This not only threatens the stable development of
China-U.S. economic and trade relations, it also flies in the
face of the efforts of countries across the world to jointly
respond to challenges and opposed trade protectionism,” said the
commerce ministry spokesman, Shen Danyang.Many U.S. lawmakers, trade unions and manufacturing lobbies
say China keeps down the value of its yuan currency to give its
exports an unfair edge in global markets.In remarks published on Wednesday, a senior Chinese
government researcher urged Beijing not to move ahead with yuan
globalisation efforts, saying further yuan liberalisation would
strengthen the yuan and hurt China’s exports.In July, U.S. imports from China rose 2.1 percent to $35.1
billion and helped swell the bilateral trade gap with that
country to $27.0 billion, the highest in 10 months.The bill would allow the U.S. government to slap
countervailing duties on goods from countries found to be
subsidizing their exports by undervaluing their currencies.But before President Barack Obama could be forced to decide
whether to sign the bill into law, it must first win approval
from the House of Representatives, where key Republicans have
indicated they dislike the tariff threat.Republican House Speaker John Boehner last week said it
would be “dangerous” for Congress to get involved with a foreign
country’s exchange rate.Even so, Beijing appears worried that it could become
embroiled in an unsettling economic feud with Washington in
2012, when President Barack Obama faces a fight for re-election
and China’s Communist Party navigates a leadership handover.China controls the pace of yuan exchange rate movements by
setting a daily mid-point from which the currency can rise or
fall 0.5 percent versus the dollar each day, and also by
intervening in trading on the domestic market.China says it is committed to gradual currency reform and
notes the yuan has risen 30 percent against the dollar since
2005. On Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China fixed the yuan
daily mid-point at an all-time peak ahead of the vote by the
U.S. Senate.
* London Metal Exchange received interest from suitorsBy Ann Saphir and Jonathan SpicerCHICAGO, Oct 11 (Reuters) - CME Group Inc , which
last year opened a London clearinghouse, may build out its
European operations to include an exchange, its chief executive
said on Tuesday.”We’re definitely evaluating” a build up of European
trading operations, CME’s Craig Donohue said in an interview at
the exchange’s Chicago headquarters. “I wouldn’t foreclose that
opportunity. Right now the focus has been primarily on
clearing, but that’s something that we’re certainly thinking
about.”Donohue did not say whether the plan would be to build or
to buy an exchange, but appeared not to rule out either.London Metal Exchange, which offers trading on a suite of
metals futures that is largely missing from CME’s stable, said
last month it is considering a sale after receiving expressions
of interest. LME has said there are at least 10 suitors, but
any potential deal is not likely to be done before the end of
the second quarter next year, if one is done at all.Although Donohue and other exchange officials have
repeatedly said they see no “large-scale” acquisitions in CME’s
near future, Donohue seemed to suggest LME could be a target.”I’ve never been specific about what constitutes large, but
certainly if you looked at our past, large-scale would be like
Chicago Board of Trade or New York Mercantile Exchange,”
Donohue said.CME bought CBOT for $11 billion in 2007 and it bought Nymex
for $8 billion in 2008. Observers say LME could be valued at
about $1 billion.”We’ve always had a very focused mergers and acquisitions
strategy. It’s been derivatives only,” he said. “For those
reasons, that narrows the range of exchange companies that
we’re particularly interested in.”
The first day of the Federal Reserve’s Operation Twist was a glowing success. And an abject failure. It all depends on where you look.
On the one hand, long-dated Treasury bonds rallied sharply, pushing yields lower just as the policy intended. Rates on the 10-year Treasury eased to 1.76 percent on Monday from 1.92 percent on Friday, having dipped to a 60-year low last month.
The problem is, the gains in Treasuries were due in part to steep losses in the stock market related to ongoing worries about euro zone debt — not part of the Fed’s plan. Indeed, the central bank’s policy of asset purchases or quantitative easing is supposed to work by pushing down rates of return on safe-haven assets so that investors will buy riskier securities like equities and stimulate lending and investment.
For now at least, it looks like Europe’s debt contortions might continue to outweigh any positive effects on the economic growth outlook from Operation Twist.
