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Washington announced Friday it had cleared the merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines. The Department of Justice indicated that the two U.S. companies had responded to his objections to their merger, leaving a number of slots for landing and takeoff at Newark International Airport near New York.

Downstream Europe in July

United Airlines, the third American company, Continental Airlines and fourth, had announced in May their intention to merge under the single name of United. The European Union, the guardian of competition in Europe, had already given its approval to the transaction at the end of July. In a statement, Brussels stated that his investigation confirmed the complementarity of the two companies' networks for Transatlantic routes, since they operate hubs in different U.S. cities."So there will be a marginal increase in market share," concluded the European Union. But a refusal of the United States was to be feared, as authorities in 2001 vetoed a previous merger between United Airlines and U.S. Airways on the grounds that it would reduce competition in the transport sector to the detriment of the public.

Fusion 1 October

The U.S. Department said it had closed its investigation as a result of the merger between the two companies, which gives them the field libre.Dans a statement, the two companies said they expected to complete their reconciliation of by 1 October. By marrying, they hope to better withstand the difficulties faced by the industry today, including the rising cost of fuel and competition from low cost airlines.Together they serve 370 destinations in 59 countries, with a combined turnover of 29 billion dollars, a fleet of nearly 700 aircraft and about 87,000 employees worldwide.

In short, if you want cheap car insurance for your new driver, don't just buy any car and then look for deals. You need to be deliberate in your selection of vehicle.

A cloud of 200 million dollars (148 million euros). That bill, by far, the paralysis of traffic due to volcanic ash cloud, according to an estimate made Friday by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). This amount corresponds to "the financial impact (…) day in terms of lost revenue," said a spokesman for IATA said in a statement.

"In addition to lost revenue for airlines costs to change the routes of their machines and take on passengers and equipment stranded in various airports," he added. This is a "first conservative estimate".

According to many analysts, the closure of airports in North Europe was difficult to quantify an impact on the finances of airlines. Experts estimate that it will depend on claims from customers.More recently prefer to postpone their flight, the more it will limit the losses to the industry.

"While we have no visibility on the duration of these disturbances, it is difficult to say what is the cost for companies," Marina J. Devitt, the Irish Goodbody brokerage told AFP.

An invoice of $ 30 million for Air France

In the ladle, it is possible to obtain an estimate by dividing the annual turnover of a company by the number of days during which the aircraft remain grounded. Based on this rough, it is possible to establish that, for Air France-KLM, the cloud would cost 30 million euros and 25 million for British Airways, advance a Paris-based analyst.

In Germany, total paralysis of traffic is expected to weigh on the entire industry to the tune of 50 million euros in total per day and "less than 10 million euros a day" for Lufthansa, said analyst Per-Ola Hellgren, bank LBBW, told AFP. An invoice less salty than the recent pilots' strike which had cost 48 million euros in total.

Finally, the "one-time impact on earnings of the Irish Ryanair should be low since most of the operational costs will be avoided, except for aircraft rental and labor costs," notes the brokerage Irish NCB.

Rush predictable

Companies should still limit the damage thanks to the predictable rush of customers at the end of the flight ban. The aircraft should then record load factors much higher than normal, making profitable at the same time much better flights.

Without waiting to preliminary figures, the titles of European airlines fell sharply on the Stock Exchange on Friday. At closing, Air France-KLM took down 3.42%, British Airways fell by 3.13%, 4.10% Lufthansa.

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The Paris Stock Exchange began the week on a positive note, after four consecutive days of closure for Easter. In the middle of meeting, the CAC 40 0.50% advance to 4 054.40 points. The Paris Bourse and reached a record since the beginning of the year.

Thursday evening, the CAC 40 finished up sharply from 1.5%, moving beyond 4000 points, 4034 points exactly, carried by the American tone of the evening, and for good economic indicators.

Friday, while Paris and Wall Street were closed, as expected figures on employment have been published. They are good: in March, the United States has created 162,000 jobs, the best performance in nearly three years. It is partly due to the hiring of 48,000 federal agents responsible for conducting the population census planned this year. But overall, the trend shows that employment in the private sector restarts.The ISM and the promise of home sales were also better than expected.

These figures were in any case allowed to appear in Asian stock green overall, except in Tokyo, but this index had increased many previous sessions. The trend was still a bit cool to the announcement by the Australian central bank as falling interest rates to 4.25%, the fifth increase since October.

Few statistics Tuesday

On the macroeconomic front on Tuesday, few new major.The INSEE published at noon on turnover in wholesale trade, retail trade and personal services for French companies in January on line pay day loans.

In the U.S., will be followed by the minutes of the monetary policy meeting of the Fed's March 16 to 20 hours.

Renault honor

Criticized in France, Sanofi-Aventis drug against heart rhythm disorders is considered less effective than existing generic by the Cedars-Sinai Heart Center of Los Angeles whose analysis should be widely listened to. The group shares yield 0.93%, to 54.65 euros.

Historic day for Renault, whose shares climbed 2.21% to 36.28 euros. The French manufacturer is on Tuesday morning a special board.It must give its approval to a broad industrial cooperation with the German group Daimler and equity participations cross.

Total has been indicted for corruption, but its shares rise 1.4%, to 44.25 euros, while oil is still above $ 86. Total advances from 1.90% to 44.47 euros.

As India began the population census, the service companies that handle such services are identified on the alert, like Capgemini and Steria.

Beneteau released Thursday night after a stock turnover of more than 253 million euros for the first half of fiscal 2009-2010, as against less than 240 million euros last year. Beneteau expects a growth of 15% over the year. The stock price up 0.15% to 13.40 euros.

Wall Street started badly the meeting this Thursday. On opening the Dow Jones lost 0.75% at 10,194 points and the Nasdaq fell by 0.87% to 2172 points. The Exchange NEWYORKAISES is affected by the disappointing numbers of jobs. The U.S. Department of Labor lists because 480,000 new applications for unemployment benefits from January 24 to 30, or 1.7% over the previous week. The indicator has thus regained its level of December 12. It's much more than was expected by analysts, who figures the department would have to show a decline in new listings to 455,000 files.

Moreover, markets can not rely on the monthly sales featureless published by major U.S. retailers.

On the values front, Cisco will be monitored closely.The action of the number one global internet network equipment gained 4% in hours trading Wednesday after the publication of quarterly results, above expectations and with comments upbeat on the prospects for recovery in 2010.

Monster Worldwide also should be surrounded. The Action Group on Internet recruitment gained 2.3% in hours trading Wednesday after the quarterly earnings release and the announcement of the acquisition of HotJobs to Yahoo for $ 225 million in cash.

Athens finally got the good report from Brussels. The European Commission ruled Wednesday that the savings plan acceptable Greek. "The Commission shares the ambitious deficit reduction that the Greek government has set, and the fiscal and structural reforms announced in the stability program," she said in a statement.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, had presented new budget measures, including freezing the salaries of all officials at the last moment on Tuesday evening. The Commission appreciated the welcoming approach.

The approval of Brussels is not a blank check Payday Loan for Bad Credit .The Commission "calls on Greece to explain the tax measures announced and the timetable for their implementation in the coming weeks" and ", more detailed measures to be implemented in 2011 and 2012.

Athens will be placed under surveillance and will be an infringement procedure for lack of reliability of its statistics.

After the announcement of the Commission, the Greek bond yields back down to 6.516% against 6.742% on Wednesday morning around 8:30.

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For the last meeting of the year, the U.S. markets move down slightly: the Dow Jones lost 0.07% at the opening, and the Nasdaq Composite yield 0.08%. The volume should be particularly weak in a few hours and Eve in the absence of significant news on the business side. Entries weekly unemployment have been lower than expected, which could support the trend.

The rise of the euro is lower because of "good" figures of unemployment in the United States. The euro bought 1.4372 dollars against 1.4386 dollars in early morning.

Good indicators Americans support the dollar because they "reinforce expectations of an early withdrawal of measures to support the economy in place by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed)," explained brokers ETX Capital.

On the currency front, the dollar is declining due to adjustment of positions at year end.Futures on the Nasdaq 100 and S & P 500 are respectively increased by 0.09% to 1878.50 points from 0.14% to 1123.70 points.

As for values to follow, we will keep an eye on Ford. Geely has announced that it was supported by the Chinese government to acquire Volvo, the Swedish subsidiary of Ford Motor. "Without government support, the transaction could not be done," said Gui Chengyu, CEO of Geely Auto, quoted by Reuters. "The ultimate goal is to list Volvo Award," added the officer.The first private Chinese automaker also said it expected robust growth of automobile sector in China next year, with support from Beijing.

AIG has announced the departure of its Legal Director Anastasia Kelly, who was to receive millions of dollars in compensation to d?part.Le U.S. government imposed in October cuts in executive pay of the seven companies have been bailed out by the more 'State, including AIG.

A first since 1983 in the United States. The unemployment rate rose above 10% in October, to 10.2%, due to massive destruction of new posts. The U.S. economy has indeed lost 190,000 jobs over the period. Since the beginning of the recession, this brings to 7.3 million the number of jobs destroyed. Statistics released by the Labor Department are well below economists' expectations, which anticipated an unemployment rate close to 10% and job losses a little lower, around 175,000.

For the White House, these figures are "painful proof of the continued weakness in the labor market.President Obama will sign on Friday an extension of unemployment benefits for long-term unemployed.

The number of hours worked do not take off

Another vector for concern: the recovery is not yet so intense it would force companies to increase the number of hours worked. The latter remained taped to 33 hours weekly in October, hours worked throughout the economy has even declined 0.2%. For now, companies are content, therefore increasing the productivity of hours worked, as evidenced yesterday in the Labor Department. The only positive note in this sea of bad news, the number of job losses were revised down for September, with 219.000, against 263,000 originally announced.

If the trend over the last few months remains bonnne, with a decrease in job destruction, we are still far from the inflection point that the U.S. economy will create employment and reduce unemployment. Sign of the economic crisis in the United States: Another index, alternative at the official rate of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those forced to work part time has increased to 17.5%. Either its highest rate since its 1995 record. The task of Barack Obama, elections before the 2010 interim, is therefore difficult. Like the Fed, which had warned Wednesday that weighed the risks still on the recovery. Forecasting the central bank of U.S. unemployment up to 10.1% in 2009 is indeed already expired …

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