Brazil markets churned on U.S. rates interpretation opinion

Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:35pm EST Stocks & &

By Guillermo Parra-Bernal

Stocks&&&&Currencies&&&&Bonds

SAO PAULO, Brazil, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Brazilian stocks fellfor a third day on Wednesday, while the country"s currencyfirmed, as new signs of a deep slump in the U.S. housing marketoffset optimism that U.S. borrowing costs, key to Brazil, wouldlong remain near zero.

Sales of newly built U.S. single-family homes unexpectedlyfell to a record low in January, suggesting potential troublefor a fragile recovery in the housing market in the world"slargest economy and prospects of a global economic rebound.

That countered Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke"srenewed pledge that he would be prepared to keep benchmark U.S.interest rates low for a long time to bolster the recovery.

Low U.S. rates have helped lure money into emerging marketcountries like Brazil, where returns are hefty and the level ofrisk greater. But fears of a fragile global rebound are leadinginvestors to reduce exposure to riskier assets in recent weeksto guard against any market relapse.

"Markets are walking on thin ice because we either growslowly and are hostage to low rates for a long time or weundergo a strong recovery and are hostage to inflation," saidDanny Rappaport, who manages 130 million reais ($71 million) inBrazilian stocks for Invesport in Sao Paulo.

The benchmark Bovespa stock index .BVSP reversed earlygains and shed 0.7 percent to 65,664.80, its lowest since Feb.10, after the homes data was released in the United States.Exchange operator BMFBovespa (BVMF3.SA), the world"s thirdlargest, led losses after reporting lower-than-expectedfourth-quarter earnings data late on Tuesday.

The currency gained 0.3 percent to 1.82 reais to thedollar, erasing half its 0.4 percent jump earlier in the day.

Investors in Brazil have become more U.S. data-dependent asdevelopments in equity markets there are seen as a gauge ofrisk-taking and global confidence.

Riskier emerging market assets have lost some of theirallure since Feb. 18, when the Fed raised its discount rate,which governs Fed emergency lending to banks, by 25 basispoints to 0.75 percent. Market participants interpreted themove as the preamble to a broader increase in borrowing coststhat could risk thwarting the U.S. economy"s nascent recovery.

Yields on Brazilian interest rate futures contracts<0#DIJ:> rose as investors in the fixed-income market were on a"wait-and-see approach" regarding Bernanke"s comments, said atrader who declined to be cited by name.

Yields represent investors" expectations for the benchmarkcentral bank overnight lending rate, known as the Selic, at thetime of each contract"s maturity.

BMFBOVESPA TUMBLES

Stock in BMFBovespa fell 3.4 percent after it reported an8.8 percent increase in net income, way below the 43 percentseen in a Reuters poll of seven analysts. The company also saidit will sell $310 million in bonds to invest in a partnershipwith Chicago-based CME Group. For more see [ID:nSPG002756].

"Markets were expecting a better performance," said AlvaroBandeira, chief economist at Rio de Janeiro-based brokerageAgora.

Commodity producers fell as oil CLc1 and other major rawmaterials fell in international markets, Bandeira added.

Preferred shares of Petrobras (PETR4.SA), Brazil"s stateoil company and the index"s most heavily traded stock, fell 0.7percent to 33.97 reais. The company reports fourth-quarterearnings on Friday.

Steelmakers fell, led by Usiminas (USIM5.SA). Shares of thelargest producer of flat steel in Brazil fell nearly 1.8percent to 47.50 reais.

Limiting the declines, preferred shares of Vale (VALE5.SA),the world"s largest iron ore producer and also a major miner ofcopper and zinc, rose 0.8 percent to 44.12 reais in Sao Paulo. (Additional reporting by Paula Laier and Silvio Cascione inSao Paulo; Editing by W Simon and James Dalgleish)

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Mother quizzed by military on guess of attempted murder after her daughter 2 is found passed at home

Jasmine Bellfield was found dead in a house in Dewsbury

A woman was being questioned by police today on suspicion of murdering her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Jasmine Bellfield was found dead in a house in Naylor Court, Dewsbury, yesterday afternoon.

The results of a post-mortem examination on the toddler were inconclusive, police said tonight.

Her mother, Sonia Bellfield, continues to be quizzed on suspicion of murder.

West Yorkshire Police said a 29-year-old woman was arrested at the scene.

The toddler was discovered by police after officers broke down the front door.

The search followed a request by healthcare workers.

Janine Barraclough, 36, a neighbour of the address in Naylor Court said: "She was a good mum. A brilliant mum. That kid was so well looked after. She would want for nothing."

Ms Barraclough described the girl as "beautiful with mousy brown hair and blue eyes".

She added: "She was a happy kid. You would see her playing in the park."

The neighbour also said that she saw the woman about a week ago and she "was fine", adding that she was separated from the girl"s father.

Another neighbour Helen Cocker said: "We"re all shocked, it"s hit this community hard."

She described Jasmine as "absolutely beautiful" and said her mother was "a 100% top mum".

"That child wanted for nothing," said Mrs Cocker.

"She was well fed, well dressed. She loved her child so much, we are all shocked by this."

Naylor Court is a cul-de-sac of relatively new-build, modern houses. Last night the house remained sealed off with a policeman standing outside.

Dewsbury is still recovering from the Shannon Matthews kidnapping in 2008.

The nine-year-old"s mother is currently serving an eight-year prison term after her and accomplice Michael Donovan were convicted of orchestrating the fake abduction.

Police and forensics at the scene on Naylor Court, Dewsbury, where a two-year-old has been stabbed

George Osborne concluded that I competence pouch him says David Cameron

Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor & , : {}

David Cameron has pronounced that he has oral to George Osborne a series of times about the probability that he competence pouch him as Shadow Chancellor.

Recalling their discussions, the Conservative personality praised Mr Osborne as a big man and a great crony who accepted that it was his right to move him to an additional job.

While aides insisted he had dictated to be supportive, the remarks could supplement to doubts about the celebration leaderships majority critical relationship.

In an talk with Sir Trevor McDonald to be promote tomorrow, Mr Cameron acknowledges that nonetheless the span are friends, we recognize that there are tensions in any domestic relationship.

Related LinksSamantha Cameron prepares for battleTory aphorism to be "vote for change"

Asked if he could boot Mr Osborne, the Tory personality says: Yes, and weve had that conversation. He is a great crony but weve had that review a series of times over the past 4 years.

He added: To be satisfactory to George, he pronounced if ever you wish to move me to an additional pursuit it is your preference and it is your right. Also, it was his preference and expostulate to move behind Ken Clarke, an ex-Chancellor. George is a big man. He understands governing body is about big decisions and he longed for to move Ken back, the last Chancellor to move us out of a recession, and I thought, Great.

The hour-long ITV form of the Tory personality will additionally underline an publicity of her father by Samantha Cameron.

In an relate of Sarah Browns mural of her own disorderly spouse, Mrs Cameron criticises her husbands housekeeping. Mr Cameron is really not undiluted and, similar to any husband, he has lots of really vitriolic habits. Id contend one of the shining things about him is he loves cooking. But he, you know, he creates a distressing mess. He is not really great at clearing up as he goes along. He is not really great at picking up his clothes.

Mr Cameron told a daytime radio show this week that his mother had asked to take a distinguished purpose in the ubiquitous election. It is thought that Mrs Cameron will stick on her father t once a week during the grave debate and lift out one additional revisit a week on her own, essentially in await of Conservative-run village projects.

Aides emphasised that her talk had not been given in reply to a idea by the couples crony Ed Vaizey, the Shadow Arts Minister, that in the past she competence not have voted Conservative.

In the initial key talk she has given as a domestic associate Mrs Cameron says she is ready to have the required sacrifices if her father enters No 10. If he did turn budding apportion I would be incredibly unapproachable of him. And the hold up would change, you know, and that is daunting and Im certain we would have to have sacrifices. But for me privately it would be a outrageous honour to do all that I presumably could to await him and have certain that he could do the pursuit to the really most appropriate of his abilities. Mrs Cameron acknowledges that she became intent at twenty-three at a immature age. But I think I felt sincerely assured that, you know, Dave was the one for me, for lots of reasons. Hes a really clever kind of arguable person, she says. I think that ever given the day I met Dave he has patently taken his pursuit really seriously, and he loves governing body and I think that so most of the Dave that I initial met and fell and love with is Dave the politician.

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Tsunami be scared after Chile earthquake

Tony Allen-Mills and Nathan Crooks in Santiago & , : {}

JAPAN was warned of the probability of 10ft waves early currently as a tsunami swept opposite the Pacific after the outrageous trembler that struck Chile early yesterday.

The initial 12ft tsunami waves generated by the trembler strike French Polynesia and the Chatham Islands in New Zealand.

On an island off Chile the high waves swamped a encampment with five people failing and eleven blank but elsewhere there were no reports of repairs though authorities warned that higher tides could come later.

Waves of up to 6ft strike Hawaii at about midday internal time, washing over a low-lying play ground nearby the city of Hilo.

Related LinksTsunami sweeps opposite the PacificFifth-biggest trembler in memoryEye declare accounts of Chile earthquakeMultimediaIn pictures: the Chilean trembler

In Chile itself, hours after the pulverising shock of the bulk 8.8 earthquake, rippled opposite the southern Andes, ministers in Santiago, the Chilean capital, pronounced they did not design the fee to climb majority on top of the central fee of 214.

It seemed that a multiple of despotic construction regulations in Chile and tsunami alarms via majority of the segment had averted what President Michelle Bachelet had primarily called a catastrophe.

The misfortune repairs was inflicted on Concepcion, Chiles second-largest city and the closest to the quakes epicentre 70 miles out to sea. First reports described screams and cries from the hull of a 15-storey building.

Alejandra Gouet, a radio contributor in Concepcion, said: There isnt a travel but damage. Other reports spoke of buildings on glow opposite the city. The genocide toll, however, rose some-more solemnly than had been approaching at the outset.

In the collateral of Santiago, 200 miles from the epicentre, Bachelet warned that we positively cant order out some-more deaths and injuries but emphasised: The complement is functioning.

Huge waves battered Chiles Juan Fernandez archipelago, that includes the island where Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish sailor, was marooned in the 18th century, moving the novel Robinson Crusoe.

Chiles Easter Island, a universe birthright site famous for the staggering Polynesian statues, was in between the areas deemed majority at risk. Tsunami warnings were released to at slightest 59 nations and Pacific territories.

Charles McCreery, executive of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, pronounced waves reaching Hawaii could be the largest to strike the islands given 1964. People had left the seashore and motor fuel stations were jammed.

On Tahiti trade was criminialized from going inside of 500 yards of the sea.

Central Chile was exceedingly influenced by the earthquake, that struck at 3.34am and was followed by aroused aftershocks. Much of the nation lost power, H2O reserve and communications.

It was one of the majority absolute tremors available in a segment tormented for centuries by seismic upheaval. Concepcion was broken by earthquakes or tsunamis five times in between 1570 and 1751, when the city was changed to a opposite place on the Bio-Bio river. It was broken again in 1835.

Charlotte Mountford, a Briton vital in Santiago, pronounced the shock lasted about thirty seconds. We crouched in bathtub on 14th construction whilst things crushed around us, she wrote on the Twitter networking site. Was terrifying.

John Grace, a British mining consultant, 54, said: I have lived in Santiago fifteen years and never felt anything similar to this trembler before. It was by far the worst. I have a TV trustworthy to the wall in my room and it only collapsed.

Claire Cunningham, 29, an IT expert from Bromley, south London, added: I am in Santiago on legal holiday with my husband, Tom. Our road house room only rattled and rattled for a great minute. I thought the roof was about to cavern in. It was horrifying.

We went down to the travel and detected that a TV pillar had collapsed. There was petrify everywhere. If I had been underneath that at the time, I am certain I would have been killed.

The trembler shop-worn 1.5m houses in Chile, one third of them seriously. Cars overturned, roads were separate by fissures and the nation suffered some-more than 100 aftershocks majority of them stronger than five on the Richter scale.

On May 22, 1960, southern Chile was strike by the majority absolute trembler recorded, at a bulk of 9.5. At slightest 1,600 people died. As a result, roughly each large construction assembled in Chile can ward off tremors.

Yesterdays trembler was majority some-more absolute than the 7.0 shock that killed an estimated 230,000 people in Haiti in January, but the resources Chile derives from being the worlds third-largest copper writer valid a poignant separator opposite mass destruction.

Chile is not Haiti, remarkable one reporter. The construction codes are utterly strict.

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Tiger Woods reunited with coach, sparking rumours of lapse to golf Sport

Tiger Woods and his coach, Hank Haney, graphic at the 2006 US Open. Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images Sport

Tiger Woods is reported to be operative with the manager Hank Haney, the man who has helped the universe No1 to win his last 6 vital championships given being asked to reconstruct his pitch in 2004.

Golf Digest is stating that Haney arrived in Orlando on Sunday afternoon to outlay a couple of days operative with Woods nearby his home in Isleworth, Florida. The move is heading to renewed conjecture that Woods is scheming to finish his self-imposed outcast from the game.

Following a fibre of revelations about his in isolation life, Woods voiced in Dec that he was receiving an "indefinite break" from golf in sequence to save his marriage. Last month, whilst creation a open reparation about his behaviour, he still seemed capricious when he competence lapse to the sport. "I do plan to lapse to golf one day, I only don"t know when that day will be," he said. He has not played given pushing his car in to a tree outward his home in the early hours of twenty-seven November.

Woods resumed practising last week, but is deliberate doubtful to lapse for subsequent week"s Transitions Championship in Palm Harbour. Speculation is centring on the probability of Woods personification in the Tavistock Cup, an muster eventuality at Isleworth on 22-23 March, or in the Arnold Palmer invitational in Orlando after that week. Woods has traditionally waited until the last impulse prior to committing to a tournament.

House cost drop might be great headlines in the finish for economy

Francesca Steele and Martin Waller & , : {}

The initial tumble in residence prices for ten months could be a certain expansion that prevents the housing marketplace from racing forward of the ubiquitous economy, Britains greatest construction multitude has said.

House prices went in to retreat in February, descending 1 per cent on the prior month, as factors such as the sleet and the expiry of the stamp avocation legal holiday disheartened buyers and pushed down prices, according to Nationwide. The normal cost of a skill in Feb was �161,320.

House prices rose by 1.4 per cent in January. However, Martin Gahbauer, Nationwides arch economist, pronounced it would have been startling if residence prices had confirmed the ceiling movement seen for majority of last year.

In light of low expansion in domicile incomes and towering levels of unemployment, residence prices were commencement to move forward of the ubiquitous recovery. With the long-term fortitude of the marketplace in mind, it would be a certain expansion for residence prices not to competition as well far ahead.

Related LinksHouse cost rises facade diseased salesHouse cost rises are not a great signSt Georges Day wretchedness in store for Gordon Brown

House prices astounded most commentators by superfluous comparatively expansive via the second half of 2009, after descending by an normal of twenty per cent from climb to trough.

Mr Gahbauer combined that the postponement in cost rises would come as a service to first-time buyers no longer benefiting from stamp avocation service on properties costing �125,000 to �175,000.

First-time customer mortgages strike a two-year high in Dec as buyers rushed to kick the finish of the stamp avocation holiday, according to new interpretation from the Council of Mortgage Lenders. However, in January, sum debt lending fell to an estimated �9.1 billion, a 32 per cent dump on the prior month.

Mr Gahbauer pronounced it was formidable to sign either the Feb tumble was a proxy blip or the begin of a new downward trend.

The Feb decrease is the sharpest given the same month last year, when there was a 1.5 per cent tumble month-on-month. This month the annual rate of cost acceleration increasing to 9.2 per cent, given of a steeper monthly decrease last year.

The falls will come as a warn to impending sellers awaiting growth, after Nationwide pronounced that if prices one after another to climb they would shortly move in to stand in digits on an annual basement for the initial time in 3 years.

Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight, pronounced it was critical not to infer as well most from one months figures, indicating to the three-month measure, from Dec to February, that showed a 1.6 per cent climb overall.

Meanwhile, Rightmove reported jot down full-year increase yesterday. The skill website available increase after taxation of �30 million, up from �25.5 million in 2008, a outcome that it attributed to a shift in residence hunter habits.

Ed Williams, the handling director, said: To contend it incited out improved than approaching would be a large understatement: 2008 was the misfortune skill marketplace incident given the Second World War.

Its still a really difficult marketplace for housebuilders and estate agents.

Exhibition reveals Henry Moore as "darker, edgier than we realise" Art and pattern

While he is majority appropriate well well well well well known for his sculptures of recumbent women, Henry Moore additionally constructed "darker and some-more formidable work" as a Tate Britain muster will show

Henry Moore, Britain"s majority appropriate well well well well well known and majority vicious sculptor, is mostly seen as a buttoned-up Yorkshireman whose work is as tractable and protected as it gets. But a new muster opening tomorrow reveals his demons: this is a man majority darker, edgier and some-more formidable than we realise, contend curators.

Tate Britain tomorrow opens the majority vicious muster of Moore functions for a generation. It hopes to warn those who think they know Moore – and he is mostly well well well well well known for his outrageous postwar outside sculptures – as well as introducing him to a total new audience.

More than 150 works, together with mill sculptures, timber carvings, bronzes and drawings, have been collected for what is additionally one of Tate Britain"s longest exhibitions in new mental recall – it will run for roughly 6 months. A mouthpiece pronounced it was "an experiment" and the goal was the show would capture some-more abroad visitors during the summer.

Chris Stephens, the show"s co-curator, called it reassessment, or "a revisiting". He pronounced the muster was environment out to show there is majority some-more to the artist than his simply recognizable kindly dull womanlike total and epitome forms. Familiarity with the artist had roughly bred contempt, he said. "We think we know Henry Moore given he is still so perceivable and recognizable and additionally still so popular."

Instead Moore was producing art that was sensitive by the mishap and horrors of the initial universe war. And when it came to sex, he was sculpting pieces that were unconditionally intimately driven and erotically charged. "The sort of things we accept but subject about Francis Bacon or Picasso but they additionally run by Henry Moore"s work as well."

Stephens believes Moore"s initial universe fight practice – 3 buliding of his corps died and was gassed at the conflict of Cambrai – had a surpassing outcome on his art. It brought a dark and mental complexity to his work.

Moore, son of a Yorkshire spark mining engineer, was regularly demure to speak privately about what sensitive his art, he was from a category and era who only did not go on about their emotions or their feelings.

After the fight Moore became a luminary artist, formulating outrageous functions in places similar to Harlow and Stevenage that were emblematic of the new gratification state, of the reformation of Britain.

24 years after his death, he stays renouned but not as regarded as a little hold he should be. "The maze is that he is still incredibly popular, incredibly familiar," pronounced Stephens, "and nonetheless he someway lacks a vicious respect. We longed for to relapse to what was it about Moore that finished him the majority vicious sculptor of the complicated age."

Moore competence be one of Britain"s biggest artists nonetheless the last big show clinging to his work was a commemorative show at the Royal Academy in 1988, dual years after his death.

For exhibitions at the Tate – an establishment Moore is firm up with and to that he donated a large volume of work – you have to go behind to a drawings retrospective in 1977, his 70th birthday retrospective in 1968 and prior to that the 1951 Festival of Britain retrospective.

"It is a era given his last vital show yes and mostly it takes a generation," pronounced Stephens. "You need a relapse in time sometimes, it allows you to move new ideas and ways of seeking at art."

Richard Calvocoressi, executive of the Henry Moore Foundation, said: "It is no deceit to contend that this is the majority vicious Henry Moore muster in the 33-year hold up of the foundation. It is loyal that we"ve finished exhibitions in the last 3 decades all over the world, in China, Brazil, the United States but this is undoubtedly the majority vicious show in the last thirty years. It is not a retrospective and it"s all the some-more sparkling and smart for that."

The muster additionally asserts that Moore, as Official War Artist during the second universe war, constructed drawings – well well well well well known as the Shelter Drawings – that he claimed were finished from his own tact when, in fact, they were copied from photographs in Picture Post.

While this creates it appear that Moore was a dissembler, according to Stephens the revelations raise Moore"s repute even more. He competence not have longed for it well well well well well known but by reproducing the photographs he was utilizing automatic facsimile techniques that artists such as Bacon and Richard Hamilton used.

• Henry Moore, Tate Britain twenty-four Feb – 8 August