07.02.2011

The trend continues higher as global indexes are at 2,5 years highs. All of the Nordic exchanges posted positive numbers. German industrial orders lessened in December and Euro weakened as a result.Russia joined to boat of countries raising banks reserve ratio requirements.

Wirtschaftswoche writes that Nokia is likely to fire three executive board members. The dismissals could be announced as soon as Friday, when Nokia Capital Markets Day is held. There is much more suspension ahead of the event than the last few times, so give that to the new CEO. It seems as though everyone needs to get their guess in and the one who gets it right receives bragging rights. Another example of bullet-proof journalism is a vague WSJ article citing unnamed sources that Nokia has trimmed search for North American leader down to three candidates. Nokia has also finally gotten around to selling E7 on selected markets. Nokia was up strongly today.

Assa Abloy reported quarterly sales of 9.6 billion SEK on Q4 2010. The company experienced strong demand growth from Asia and South America. The operating margin was a solid 16.6%. Telenor was down slightly after a couple of its subsidiaries reported quarterly earnings. Telenor also announced that it is seeking injunction in the Vimpelcom case.

Banking sector advanced in most European exchanges with Denmark a notable exception as Amagerbanken's lenghty struggle finally led to the bank declaring bankrupcy. This after it became clear that after another mammoth set of write-downs in Q4 2010 bank's equity has been exhausted. Financial Stability, a governmental organization handling banks in crisis, will take over its operations. Customers are mostly unaffected besides those with large accounts but shareholders obviously lose their investment. Couple other small Danish banks announced they had currency deposits in Amagerbanken resulting in some losses but no credit exposure. Particularly the small banks were under pressure in the markets. Hvidbjerg Bank takes a bigger beating since it had just last week, in a move that is certainly hard to justify, taken a large deposit exposure relative to Hvidbjerg Bank's own activities into Amagerbanken and stands to lose up to 11.5 million DKK.

EpiCept announced encouraging results from a Phase IIb trial with NP-1 for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. The company said all endpoints were met with statistical significancy and the primary endpoint of change in average daily neuropathy intensity scores was reduced with a p-value under 0.001. The study included more than 460 cancer survivors. The stock advanced 14%. AstraZeneca's prospective cancer drug Zibotentan failed a phase III prostate cancer study. The investors were expecting the outcome. AstraZeneca also announced that it has in collaboration with Targacept initiated a phase IIB clinical trial of TC-5214 for major depressive disorder.
AstraZeneca was up slightly in Stockholm today.