Tova notes

A planned cleanup of the Lower Manhattan park that has been home to the Occupy Wall Street movement since September 17 was delayed just hours before it was due to begin by Brookfield Office Properties, which manages the publicly accessible park.The move averted a possible showdown between police and protesters who viewed the cleanup as a ploy to evict them. Protesters loudly cheered the decision, and several hundred set off marching toward the city’s financial district.Police arrested 14 people, but there were no widespread disruptions.”This development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street,” Occupy Wall Street said in a statement, estimating more than 3,000 people had gathered in Zucotti park.New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in his weekly radio address on Friday, said his office was not involved in the decision to postpone the cleanup.”My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying, ‘If you don’t stop this, we’ll make your life much more difficult,’” said Bloomberg, who added that he did not know which officials had called the company.Protesters are upset that the billions of dollars in U.S. bank bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume earning huge profits while average Americans got scant relief from high unemployment and job insecurity.They also argue that the richest 1 percent of Americans do not pay their fair share in taxes.Many protesters feared the cleaning would be an attempt to shut down the movement that has sparked solidarity protests in other cities.RATS AND ROACHES?Bloomberg said Brookfield wanted a few more days to try to reach an agreement with the protesters, who have undertaken their own efforts to clear debris from the park.Meanwhile, authorities in New York, London, Frankfurt, Athens and elsewhere braced for demonstrations on Saturday.Rallies were planned in some 71 countries, according to Occupy Together and United for Global Change.Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, in an interview with Canadian national broadcaster CBC, expressed sympathy with the protesters.”I understand the frustration of many people, particularly in the United States. You’ve had an increase of inequality,” said Carney, a former Goldman Sachs banker, noting “a big increase in the ratio of CEO earnings to workers on the shop floor.”In New York, organizers planned demonstrations in Times Square and Washington Square Park. Protesters will also march to JPMorgan Chase bank branch to withdraw their money.”It’s going to be big, it’s going to be global,” said David Sierra, 23, a carpenter from Queens.A group of Occupy San Diego protesters scuffled with police on Friday as authorities sought to clear camping equipment, tables, signs and other gear from a downtown public square in the southern California city.Police used pepper-spray on about a half-dozen protesters.In Denver, at least 21 people were arrested on Friday and tents were removed from the Occupy Denver protest.Protesters in New York had spent much of the previous night tidying the park themselves, in hopes of keeping out Brookfield, a major real estate company that counts Bloomberg’s girlfriend Diana Taylor among its board members.”We clean up after ourselves. It’s not like there’s rats and roaches running around the park,” said Bailey Bryant, 28, an employee at a Manhattan bank who visits the camp after work and on weekends.

Strengthening investor confidence in the euro zone underpinned the single currency, while receding concerns about the banks’ problems threatening the wider financial system sharply tightened Asian credit markets.”Markets are feeling better. The sense is that things are beginning to be put in place, bondholder haircuts, bank recapitalizations and the EFSF expansion,” said a Singapore-based trader with an Asian bank referring to the two-year old euro zone debt crisis.MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 1.1 percent, following a 1.4 percent gain in the MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS, which posted an increase for the sixth session in a row on Wednesday.The Nikkei average .N225 rose 1.15 percent on Thursday to a four-week high, with shares of major exporters such as Sony Corp (6758.T) rising as players bought their shares back on tentative signs of progress in the European debt crisis.In a sign some stability and risk appetite may be returning, the overall market volatility as measured by the VIX index .VIX, Wall Street’s so-called “fear gauge,” has hovered around 30. The level, pulling back sharply from crisis-like levels near 50 hit in August, suggested investors are less inclined to seek protection in stock index options against an equity market slide.In credit markets, that had been feeling the strain of waning confidence in the financial system in recent months, spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment grade index narrowed by about 15 points.But the move is likely an adjustment to a recent over-sold condition and the markets were not yet out of the woods, some analysts say.”The Vix still remains at an elevated level and the recent decline is merely a rebound from an excessively pessimistic view in the markets,” said Junya Tanase, chief strategist at JPMorgan Chase in Tokyo.”Rather than a sign of a full-fledged risk-on returning, it is just an evidence of a slight easing of risk aversion sentiment.”The euro stayed bid early in Asia on Thursday, having jumped to a near one-month high on the dollar as Europe took a step closer to shoring up its financial rescue fund.Lawmakers in Slovakia struck a deal on Wednesday to ratify a plan to bolster the euro zone’s rescue fund by Friday, effectively ending a crisis that had threatened the currency’s main safety net. Slovakia is the only country in the 17-nation bloc left to approve the revamp of the fund.Adding to the sense of urgency, the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said Europe needed to take decisive action on Greece and outlined a broad plan to contain the debt crisis.As European officials step up efforts to provide a more specific roadmap to resolve its debt woes and recover investor confidence, the European Union is expected to announce a bank recapitalization plan designed to cushion the impact any default by Greece could have on the region’s banks.Germany and France, the leading powers in the bloc, have promised to propose a comprehensive strategy to fight the debt crisis at an EU summit on October 23.Oil prices fell on Thursday, with Brent crude futures down 0.2 percent at $111.10 a barrel after rising the day before for an 11.6 percent gain over six sessions. U.S. crude futures fell 0.8 percent to $84.89 a barrel, after snapping a five-session streak of higher closes on Wednesday.China’s trade surplus narrowed in September for a second month in a row as growth of exports and imports both fell below forecasts, reflecting global economic weakness. Exports rose 17.1 percent last month from a year ago, slowing from a 24.5 percent gain in August, and imports increased 20.9 percent, compared with August’s 30.2 percent rise.Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index .HSI rose 1.5 percent while the Shanghai Composite .SSEC was up 0.4 percent.

* Brent crude gains, but Treasuries continue slide* Spot gold off its intraday highBy Barani KrishnanNEW YORK, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Stocks on major world exchanges hit three-week highs on Wednesday while the euro rose to its highest in a month as investors bet Slovakia would reach a deal to expand the euro zone’s rescue fund.Brent crude oil rallied for a third straight dayalthough a sharp sell-off in grainspushed the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index down 0.2 percent.U.S. Treasuries continued Tuesday’s downdraft as fewer investors took to safe-haven bonds amid the growing appetite for risk.Gold’s safety appeal cooled off some, with spot bullion trading around $1.675 an ounce, off its earlier intraday high above $1,691.On Wall Street, stocks climbed more than 1 percent, extending the rally across Europe.”It’s like ‘no bad news.’ We get to go up as long as you don’t see any horror stories,” said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago. “At the moment, it appears as if Europe has at least contained the crisis.”Slovakia is the last country in the 17-member euro zone that still needs to approve a plan to strengthen the currency zone’s rescue fund. Parties in the outgoing Slovak government began talks with the opposition to reach a deal on ratifying the plan.German Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in, saying she expected full ratification by the European Union summit on Oct. 23.Investors are also looking to the European Union to announce a bank recapitalization plan, which is due later on Wednesday and is designed to cushion the impact any default by Greece could have on the region’s banks.”Markets are clearly still hoping for a comprehensive plan to tackle the (euro zone) debt crisis. This may continue to support the market over the next couple of months,” said Philippe Gijsels, head of research at BNP Paribas Fortis Global Markets.The euro extended gains after surprisingly strong data on the euro zone’s August industrial output and as traders exited short positions against the single currency.The euro rose 1.2 percent against dollar to $1.38 after it broke an options barrier at $1.3700, which took it through a series of stop-loss entry orders above that. It touched a high of $1.38179 on the EBS trading platform, its strongest since Sept 16.It also rallied against the yen , up 1.9 percent at 106.54 yen, the highest since Sept 15.The Dow Jones industrial average was up 121.43 points, or 1.06 percent, at 11,537.73. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 16.42 points, or 1.37 percent, at 1,211.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 33.44 points, or 1.29 percent, at 2,616.47.Financials were among the best performers on Wall Street, with the KBW Bank index up 3 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co gained 2.2 percent to $33.In contrast, Alcoa Inc dropped 3.2 percent to $9.97, after falling nearly 5 percent earlier in the session. The No. 1 U.S. aluminum producer was one of the biggest drags on the Dow after its earnings, which were released after Tuesday’s closing bell. Alcoa reported its third-quarter profit was lower than the second quarter and fell short of already reduced expectations due to a decline in global metals prices.The MSCI world equity index gained 1.6 percent to 298.61, its highest since Sept. 19. The benchmark index is nearly 13 percent above a 15-month low hit just a week ago.The broad FTSEurofirst 300 index of European stocks rose 1.5 percent to close provisionally at a nine-week high of 975.81 points.In the U.S. Treasury bond market, investors unloaded bonds against the backdrop of the increased appetite for stocks and other risky assets — and ahead of the auction at 1 p.m. of $21 billion in reopened 10-year notes.The 10-year note fell 20/32 in price, to yield 2.22 percent, up from 2.208 percent at Tuesday’s close. The 30-year bond lost 2 full points, yielding 3.20 percent, up from 3.19 percent on Tuesday.

“Before you make a pitch, remember that investors are more likely to support an entrepreneur who’s professional, well prepared, and knows her numbers.Here are three tips to be just that:1. Prepare, prepare, prepare. Before you present, gather background information on prospective investors using Google and social media. If you know your audience you can engage them on a personal level.2. Tell your business’s story. Start with a persistent problem and then show how your proposition will fix it. Make sure it’s something the investor can relate to.3. Back up your pitch with data. Investors are primarily interested in facts. Be sure your numbers make sense. Be prepared for in-depth questions on turnover, sales figures, break-even points, and gross and net margins.”- Today’s management tip was adapted from “Secrets of a Successful Business Pitch” by James Caan.(For the full post, see: here)