CBRE has made available its Global Office Rent Index and Global Capital Value Index for 2011, and both indicate growth in the commercial office market. Investor caution and instability in the global economic market subdued growth, resulting in 5% and 8.2% gains in each index, respectively, and experts expected continued delays in the full recovery of commercial markets. Isolating statistics by region showed the Americas performed comparatively better than most other areas including Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
CBRE reported a 5 percent increase for its Global Office Rent Index and an 8.2 percent increase for its Global Capital Value Index for 2011. Deal momentum slowed down in the fourth quarter, however, with the Global Office Rent Index rising only 0.48 percent and the Global Capital Value Index rising 0.44 percent.
In contrast, the average growth rate for the Global Office Rent Index during the five quarters leading up to fourth quarter of 2011 was 1.2 percent.
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WPP, the largest communications services provider, has reported a rise in its full year revenues by 7.4% to £10.022 billion and pre-tax profit of £1.00 billion for the first time. Billing rose by 4.9% at £44.792 billion. With a rise in operating margins of 14.3% WPP has declared a dividend of 24.60 pence share, up over 38% from the previous year.
The group saw a robust growth in all regions and business sectors, characterised by particularly strong growth geographically in Asia Pacific and Latin America and functionally in advertising, media, investment, management and direct, digital and interactive. Its trading in Januray 2012 is in line with the budget and posted a growth of 4% in like-for-like revenue and gross margin.
In 2011 the group achieved record performance in difficult circumstances, particularly in the second half of the year. The gr
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Mortgage delinquency rates dropped on both a quarterly and yearly basis in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2011, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said in a recent report.
The Q4 2011 mortgage delinquency rate came in at 7.58 percent, a drop from the third quarter (Q3) 2011 rate of 7.99 percent and an even further drop from one year earlier (Q4 2010), when the rate stood at 8.25 percent.
Mortgage performance continued to improve in the fourth quarter, reflecting the improvement we saw in the job market and broader economy, Jay Brinkmann, MBAs Chief Economist, said in a statement. The total delinquency rate and foreclosure starts rate decreased and are back down to levels from three years ago.
Year-over-year, the mortgage delinquency rate decreased for both adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and fixed-rate mortgages for prime borrowers.
People often ask where we are in the housing recovery and how far we still have to go, Brinkmann said.
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The global financial system is not a game of checkers. It is a game of chess. All over the world today, news headlines are proclaiming that this new Greek debt deal has completely eliminated the possibility of a chaotic Greek debt default. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. Rather, the truth is that this new deal actually “sets the table” for a Greek debt default. When I was studying and working in the legal arena, I learned that sometimes you make an agreement so that you can get the other side to break it. That may sound very strange to the average person on the street, but this is how the game is played at the highest levels. It is all about strategy. And in this case, the new debt deal imposes such strict conditions on Greece that it is almost inevitable that Greece will fail to meet some of them. When Greece does fail, Germany and the other northern European nations may try to claim that they “did everything that they could” but that Greece just did not “live up to its obligations”. So does this mean that we will definitely see a chaotic Greek debt default? No. What this does mean is that the chess pieces are being moved into position for one.
The following are 8 reasons why the Greek debt deal may not stop a chaotic Greek debt default….
#1 Greece Is Being Set Up To Fail
The terms of this new debt deal impose some incredibly harsh austerity measures on Greece and from now on the Greek government will be subject to “permanent monitoring” by EU officials.
In other words, they will be under a microscope.
Any violation of the terms of the debt deal could be used as a pretext to bring down the hammer and cut off bailout funds. Potentially, this could even happen just a few weeks from now.
It has become obvious that there are many politicians in Europe that would very much like to kick Greece out of the euro. In a recent column, the International Business Editor of The Telegraph summed up the situation this way….
It is clear that Berlin, Helsinki, and the Hague have taken the decision to eject Greece from the euro whatever the country now does. Even if Greec
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Morning Report
Breaching areas of 1763.00 supported gold to move strongly higher to negate our negative expectations for today. Stochastic shows heavy overbought signals that might trigger the downside correction, yet assessing the chart above, we can see gold stable above top C of the double harmonic pattern. Stability above 1763.00 might cause an upside move to test the horizontal resistance areas at 1794.00 and a breach of which will support the move towards the extended target at 127.2% at 1828.00. Therefore, according to the harmonic expectations we see valid chances for the metal to move higher with steady trading above 1735.00 and preferably 1763.00.
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