20.09.2010

Nordic markets joined the festivities and rose handily. The United States National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the big recession which had begun in December 2007 ended in June 2009. OECD is recommending USA to introduce VAT, something that would not go down easy with the Republican Party. WTO raised its prognosis for the growth rate of global trade for 2010 to 13.5%.

The governing centre-right coalition failed to gain an outright majority in Swedish general election. The centre-right coalition lost 6 seats compared to the previous election, this despite the fact that prime minister Fredrik Reinfelds’t Moderate Party gained 10 seats. The opposition Red-Greens lost 14 seats as Social Democrats, led by Mona Sahlin fumbled 17 seats in what is their worst result in nearly a century. The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats won big and landed 20 seats. Swedish press is terrified of the prospect that the ruling coalition may have to socialize with a racist party to govern. Prior to elections, ruling coalition politicians were stating that a minority government is preferable to joining forces with evil. PM Reinfeld has restated this ex-post. Green Party leaders commented they will not join right-wing government. The market however took the silver lining of the election result, the fact that centre-right coalition will continue to govern, and rose in early trading.

Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan have escalated during the weekend, in what began as a small skirmish involving Japanese coastal guard and a Chinese fishing boat near the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Pinnacle (depending on who you ask the name from) Islands has now resulted in China cutting ministerial and high level ties. Both sides must be seeing an opportunity to further their domestic cause on the matter. Chinese side may be using the opportunity to move drilling equipment to a disputed gas field and the hawkish new Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara gets to show his tough stance.

The board’s proposal for the establishment of an incentive programme for all employees of the H&M Group will be on agenda in an Extraordinary General Meeting on October 20th. Songa offshore divested Songa Saturn for 260 million dollars. Certain conditions still need be met before the deal becomes binding. Aker Solutions received a 900 million NOK contract from Statoil. Bjørge ASA will split into two. Process, fire and safety solutions will be demerged into a separate independent company

The Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees (trade union STTK) sponsored study (that might give some statisticians ulcer for all sorts of biases), claimed overwhelming majority of Finns supports raising capital gains tax. For reasons unknown to me, cuts at unionized public sector workers and such did not make the list of desired actions.

46th European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting is taking place in Stockholm. Both Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and AstraZeneca in partnership presented promising late-stage diabetes drug data. Sanofi’s drug was in-licensed in 2003 from Danish Zaeland Pharma A/S.