Financial sector key to final week of trading on Wall Street : Business

Financial sector key to final week of trading on Wall Street : Business

NEW YORK • As 2015 draws to a close this week, the fortunes of the last few trading days of the year may be dictated by the direction of the financial sector.

The financials have risen more than 6 percent this quarter, with investors expecting the sector to be one of the main beneficiaries of the first interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve in nearly a decade.

However, the potential exposure of banks to the energy-dominated U.S. high-yield corporate bond markets has unnerved investors, and caused financial and energy shares to stall during the two trading sessions that followed the hike. Stocks in both those sectors have been closely correlated in recent weeks.

"That trade, the oil-financials, it is going to be with us for quite some time," said Peter Kenny, equity market strategist at Kenny & Co. LLC, in Denver.

The benchmark S&P 500 index has rallied nearly 3 percent last week, buoyed by a jump of nearly 5 percent in the energy sector as oil prices bounced off multi-year lows. Financial stocks, meanwhile, have surged more than 3 percent last week.

In recent weeks, energy stocks have been tightly correlated to the price of crude at 0.95, which means they have moved in sync with each other, and financials have not been far behind. The 20-day correlation between the financial sector and U.S. crude is 0.75.

Should oil prices fail to stabilize and energy shares continue to fall, that could be reflected in the financials.

"The influx of money and capital into the financials over the last six months in anticipation of this move by the Fed was justified, but boy, this oil trade has turned that upside down," Kenny said.

Lawyer for convicted murderer: 'Monty's got a solid release plan' - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia News

Lawyer for convicted murderer: 'Monty's got a solid release plan' - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia News

Open Educational Resources (OER): Resource Roundup | Edutopia

Open Educational Resources (OER): Resource Roundup | Edutopia

The housing is growing at the slowest pace since the beginning of the crisis until the last decade

Have we raised enough brick? It seems that the industry has taken ... to-the sales force constitu-. Knowing that the housing stock to sell over a million properties-the million and a half, according to RR Acuña Castroviejo, it is not surprising that the housing stock will grow at the slowest pace since the start of the crisis.

According to the Ministry of Public Works, Park Spanish households grew by 0.19% over the past year, adding up to 25.44 million residences, so the slower rate of annual increase is noted from the beginning of the crisis and even the last decade. The sequence of exercises with lows in development and construction of new homes has resulted in a barely imperceptible evolution of the number of existing homes in Spain.

Almost three quarters (74.6%) of the total park floors correspond to primary residences, that is, those for primary residences, which totaled 18.99 million units, also an increase of 4.8% comparison with 2012.

In contrast, during the last year fell by 11.2% the number of non-primary residences (aimed at second home and other uses), which thus stood at 6.45 million, down from the height of seven million units for the first time since 2006, pre-crisis period. Thus, the year 2013 was the smallest increase in the total housing stock has recorded since the beginning of the crisis, since between 2007 and 2012 recorded annual progressions between 0.5% and 2.3%.

For communities at the end of last year, which had a higher housing stock are Andalusia, with 4.39 million homes, Catalonia (3.88 million), California (3.16 million) and Community of Madrid (2 93 million).

As for non-primary residences, fell the regions where the park of this type of flooring is Madrid, which ended 2013 with 325,027 secondary homes, 22% lower than the previous year, along with the Basque Country (-19.8 % to 120,105 homes) and Catalonia (-19%, with 769,483 sub floors).

Housing Price Index in USA. (HPI) 0.4% vs. 0.4% forecast

The housing price index in the United States rose last month, official data showed on Tuesday.

In a report, Federal Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) said Housing Price Index in USA (HPI) rose to a seasonally adjusted 0.4%, from 0.0% the previous month.

Analysts had expected last month Housing Price Index in USA (HPI) grew 0.4%.

Developments reborn in Florida for bargains

After a period of stagnation, the Florida real estate market began to emerge and is doing thanks to the lowest prices ever seen in years.

According to the Association of Realtors (Realtors) Florida selling apartments February 2009 to February of this year rose 59 percent, and single-family homes increased by 31 percent.

No doubt the good prices, a result of the large number of units repossessed by banks (when homeowners stop paying), have attracted investors from around the world, including from those who are willing to invest their personal savings, to billionaires large investment funds.

Adam Adache president Adache Real Estate, Fort Lauderdale, told El Tiempo that? Wholesale activity, combined with the discounts offered by lenders to exit problem projects, generated opportunities that only a situation like this can offer. The firm works with groups in the process of acquiring wholesale and resale of individual units.

From the outside see opportunities Foreign investors have been expected. One of the groups most concerned right now is Ultimate Holdings, based in England, whose objective is to acquire properties at wholesale prices and make bank repossession to sale below market price. This gives you quick profits and gives opportunity to new homeowners and investors have smaller opportunities that would otherwise be inaccessible.

? Opportunities currently offered by this market are very attractive? told this newspaper James Black, managing partner of Ultimate Holdings. ? Our focus in Florida and this allows us to offer high quality products at affordable prices. This is the best time to buy real estate in this state. These prices are a once in a lifetime? Considered.

In early 2010, Ultimate Holdings purchased 122 units at Village at Town Center in suburban Orlando. Currently resell to average $ 75,000 per unit, 70 percent below the market price bubble. They come with a tenant, which allows to produce investment from day one. In a month they have secured 40 sales

Investment slows down due to the cooling property market in China

The cooling of the Chinese real estate market will greatly discouraged promoters to increase investment in the first half of the year said a market analyst.

The decline in enthusiasm was reflected in the sharp slowdown in investment and development, particularly in the fall in the number of new projects, said Meng Yin, Deputy General Secretary of the Market Committee of the Association of Real Estate Research China.

Combined with the decline in property sales, investment in the sector will remain weak over the coming months, Meng said in an article published in the latest edition of the magazine Caijing.

According to her, the investment of real estate developers in the sector grew 16.4 percent on-year between January and April, a decrease of 3.4 percentage points of growth rate over the same period last year . Government data showed that investment in the first five months of the year slowed further to 14.7 percent.

In addition, Meng said the new projects launched between January and April totaled 430 million square meters, a fall of 22.1 percent in terms of gross floor area, and during the first five months fell 18 6 percent yoy.

The slowdown in investment was due to a fall of 7.8 percent of real estate sales in the first five months of the year, expanding by 0.9 percentage points compared to January-April, according to government data.

According to Meng, China's property market has seen almost adjustments every three years since 2005. Unlike those times, however, the adjustment in 2014 resulted largely the same market, affected by the supply and demand and prices.

In the new situation, Meng said developers may be forced to adopt more prudent development strategies, rather than a massive investment and high indebtedness. Should also try to diversify their business in order to fend off potential risks.