Galactic earnings report for Samsung

Samsung Electronics reported a massive gain of 81% in net income for Q1 of 2012 on account of surging sales of its flagship Galaxy smartphones, the demand for which increased by 36% to 93.5m handsets. The South Korean company finally overtook Nokia as the worlds biggest handset provider in terms of volume, after more than 14 years. Even though the Finnish company has sold 82.7 million mobiles in the last quarter, a good part of them were lower range.

Is JP Morgan getting too big not to fail ?

The investment bank, colloquially nicknamed JP Morgue, or the vampire squid posted a first quarter net-income of $5.4 billion, slightly down from last year`s $5.6 billion figure. Earnings per share increased by 4% due to the share buy-back programme which decreased the overall number of floating shares. Investment banking accounted for $7.3 billion our of the $27.4 billion total revenues, while retail financial services accounted for $7.65 billion. The interesting part is the ever-increasing market power attained by its proprietary trade desk, on huge markets such as the ones for MBS, Credit Default Swaps and Treasuries.

Samsung expects record earnings

Samsung Electronics, the brightest child of the massive South Korean conglomerate (Samsung Group chaebol) is due to track the phenomenal quarter of its competitor, Apple. The company announced revenues of $40 billion with a quarterly profit of $5.15 billion, beating analyst estimates of $5 billion, on accounts of higher smartphone, tablets, and TV sales. Analysts believe that Samsung won back the title of market leader in terms of volumes on the smartphones market from Apple, selling 44 million devices.

Swiss Franc: Will another peg bite the dust ?

When back in September of last year the EUR/CHF was heading towards the 1.1 level, many were expecting some sorts of monetary intervention, under the form of a showering of Swiss francs towards the commercial banks. Since the benchmark interest rate was already at the rock-bottom level 0 - 0.25%, and the minimum reserve requirements for short term debt are already at 2.5%, there was little leeway for "traditional" policy instruments. On the 6th of September the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced an unprecedented peg against the Euro at the 1.20 yardstick. Within minutes the EUR/CHF reached 1.2180, a spectacular 10% gain, after which it hovered around 1.218 - 1.245 depending on the minor jolts sent by the SNB.