Headlines Of International Financial Media On October 18

Bloomberg: Rio Tinto and Rio Tinto Abandon the Joint Venture Plan of Iron Ore Project

BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, the world's two largest iron ore giants, announced that they would give up the plan to establish the world's largest iron ore export agency through joint venture, because the opposition of European and Asian regulators led to the increasing difficulty in implementing the plan. BHP Billiton, headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, said in a statement on Monday: "Recent signs continue to show that this joint venture scheme is almost impossible to be recognized by the regulatory authorities."

Subsequently, Rio Tinto also confirmed in a separate statement that the plans of the two companies to merge their Australian businesses had run aground. At present, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are the first and third mining companies in the world respectively. The two companies had previously said that if they could combine their mining, railway and port businesses in Pilbara, they could save at least $10 billion in costs. Pengana Capital Ltd., an investment institution, believes that because global iron ore prices have risen in the past 16 months, the stranding of this cooperation plan can benefit Rio Tinto more than BHP Billiton, because the former's products are mainly raw materials for steel production.

　　CNNMoney： US stocks The trend of this week depends on the quarterly report of enterprises

last week, Federal Reserve The main trend of has become the focus of the market. With the opening of the financial disclosure of enterprises, industry insiders pointed out that the trend of the US stock market and the market this week depended on the profitability of enterprises. According to the plan, seven Dow blue chips will release financial reports this week. These seven enterprises are IBM, Bank of America, Johnson&Johnson, Caterpillar, McDonald's, American Express and Verizon.

In addition, large financial institutions such as Citigroup Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo Group are also the focus of the market. Last week, market investors worried that a comprehensive investigation of the "foreclosure" business might damage the bank's mortgage business and cause endless lawsuits.

Reuters: US officials said the foreclosure problem shamed financial institutions

Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said on Sunday that the recently exposed illegal foreclosure procedures of financial institutions have shamed the entire industry and may lead to further deterioration of the U.S. real estate crisis. At the same time, Donovan pointed out that the US government has launched a comprehensive investigation into the foreclosure crisis and will take strict legal measures to deal with the problems found.

It is alleged that major American banks and mortgage service providers did not seriously review relevant foreclosure documents or provided false statements when conducting foreclosure procedures. At present, the attorneys general of all 50 states in the United States have announced that they will investigate the foreclosure issue. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have also begun a preliminary investigation on this matter.

Wall Street Journal: Pension Funds Escape from the Stock Market

Like many individual investors, corporate pension funds have experienced strong fluctuations in the stock market and the huge impact on their investment performance in the past. Now, these pension funds are also planning to adopt the same investment strategy as many individual investors, that is, to escape from the stock market that rose too high in the previous period and invest in the bond market that is regarded as a safer investment. At present, many pension fund managers admit that it was a mistake to seek the maximum return in the past. On the contrary, many funds are now seeking more stable investment returns.

Data shows that many corporate pension funds entered the market during the stock market boom in the 1990s, but by the first five years of the new millennium, the scale of these pension funds has generally shrunk by about 30%, which is basically the same as the investment performance of individual investors. According to the data provided by the Center for Retirement Research of Boston University, as of July this year, the stock position held by pension funds has dropped to 45% of the funds under their management. Many market analysts point out that this trend will continue.

The street: Ford says the relationship with Mazda will remain unchanged

Ford Motor, an American automaker, said on Sunday that its relationship with Mazda, a Japanese automaker, has never changed and that the two sides will continue to cooperate as always. It is reported that on Saturday, the Nikkei Shimbun quoted unnamed insiders as saying that Ford Motor may reduce most of Mazda's shares, and the number one shareholder position may be ceded. Ford made the above statement in response to this report. {page_break}

Ford said that the above reports were just speculation of the media. Not willing to make too many comments on this. Mark, a Ford spokesman, said that the partnership with Mazda has never changed. He said: "We will continue to promote the cooperation with Mazda and work together to achieve 'win-win' in many fields." It is understood that Ford currently holds 11% of Mazda.

Yahoo Finance : Global luxury sales return to pre crisis levels

The latest survey report released on Monday showed that the recovery of the global luxury industry in 2010 was better than previously expected, thanks to the renewed improvement of the consumption of high-income Americans and the growing enthusiasm of wealthy Chinese for luxury consumption. According to the annual report released by Bain, the global sales of high-end clothing, furs, jewelry, watches and other luxury goods are expected to increase by 10% to 168 billion euros ($236.7 billion) in 2010. This also means that the luxury industry will fully recover from the 8% recession in 2009.

Claudia D'Arpizio, a partner of Bain and an expert in the luxury industry, said: "Since 2010, the enthusiasm of consumers for luxury goods has been impressive, especially the recovery of the U.S. and European markets is very good."

Marketwatch: Federal Reserve officials say higher inflation is acceptable

Charles Evans, chairman of the Chicago branch of the Federal Reserve, said on Saturday that he supported the proposal to raise the short-term inflation target of the Federal Reserve to help the US economy get rid of the current downturn and reduce its risk of falling into deflation. Evans believes that temporarily raising the inflation level is one of the tools that the Federal Reserve can consider using, because conventional monetary policies such as reducing short-term interest rates have not had a good effect.

Since about two years ago, the Federal Reserve has kept short-term interest rates within 0 to 0.25%. However, according to the latest forecast, the US economy is still in a downturn, and the unemployment rate may remain high throughout 2011. Evans said that technically, he supports "price level targeting", which will be very different from the previous policy of the Federal Reserve.

　　CNBC： US stocks Whether the strength can continue to attract attention

After the early strong rise of the US stock market, an old question reappears before investors: will the recent good performance of the US stock market be sustainable in the future? So far in 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard&Poor's 500 Index have both increased by more than 5%. In the two indexes, most of the increase comes from two sectors: one is the equipment manufacturing industry used for large-scale construction projects; The second is the hotel, restaurant, clothing department store and other consumer industries. So far in 2010, the average growth of these two sectors has exceeded 15%.

Among them, the performance of some individual stocks is more prominent. For example, the share price of Cummins Inc., an engine manufacturer, has risen by 100%, while Priceline.com Inc. has risen by about 60%. Some fund managers pointed out that their investment in equipment manufacturing and consumer industries will continue.