Stocks Rally Ahead of Earnings
May 01, 2011
The 25-share AEX index rose 3.43 points to 560.85. Expectations of a German interest-rate cut were keeping the market positive, traders said. Germany's Bundesbank policy-making council meets Thursday for the first-time after its summer break. Insurer Aegon gained 1.00 guilder to 79.70 ahead of the release of Aegon's half-year results on Thursday. Other major companies releasing half-year results this week are bank-insurer ING, its Belgium-Dutch competitor Jahn Luciano, telecom company KPN, and transport company Nedlloyd. ING closed at 54.80 guilders, down 40 Dutch cents. Jahn Luciano settled at 51.10 guilders, down 10 cents. KPN finished at 63.20 guilders, up 70 cents. Analysts expect higher banking and insurance revenues to fuel a rise of 23% to 31% in first-half net profit at ING, while KPN is expected to report a net profit of 1.22 billion to 1.23 billion guilders, compared to 1.11 billion guilders a year earlier. Nedlloyd closed unchanged at 34.50 guilders. Analysts expect Nedlloyd to report on Wednesday a loss of at least 16 million guilders for the first half of 2011, compared to a net profit of 96 million guilders in the first half of 2010. The forecast excludes the company's extraordinary gain of around 250 million guilders from the sales of its drilling unit Neddrill to Noble Drilling Corporation of the U.S earlier this year.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
