Oil surge prompts stock sell-off, dollar rally (Reuters)

By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent – 1 hr 20 mins ago

LONDON (Reuters) – World stocks fell nearly 1 percent on Tuesday as revolt in Libya drove oil prices sharply higher, prompting fears of disruption to global economic growth.

Widespread risk aversion boosted the dollar and Swiss franc and prompted strong flows into U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. stock index futures also tumbled, suggesting losses on Wall Street when it opens.

U.S. crude futures hit a 2-1/2 year high, rising close to 8 percent to more than $94 a barrel on the latest contract's last day of trading, as deadly clashes wracked exporter Libya's biggest cities.

Brent oil was up close to $2 a barrel at $107.60, somewhat shy of Monday's intra-day 2-1/2 year peak.

Libya is by no means the world's largest oil producer, ranking third in Africa after Nigeria and Angola, but investors are concerned about the spread of trouble and a serious disruption to supply.

"Investors are scaling down on exposure across the board," said Richard Falkenhall, currency strategist at SEB in Stockholm. "Libya is the first major oil exporting country to be affected ... if this spreads to other oil exporting countries, it will not be a good sign."

Adding to the uncertain mood, two Iranian ships entered the Suez Canal on Tuesday on their way to the Mediterranean, a move that is bound to anger Israel.

Investors are primarily concerned that Middle East/North Africa trouble will keep oil prices high, driving up inflation, cutting into corporate profits and crimping economic growth.

This could be seen most clearly on Tuesday in MSCI's benchmark emerging market stock index (.MSCIEF), which was down 1.7 percent. Leading emerging market economies are among the fastest growing in the world and the most susceptible to inflationary pressure.

Globally, world stocks as measured by MSCI (.MIWD00000PUS) were down 0.9 percent. Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 (.FTEU3) was down about 1 percent. Japan's Nikkei (.N225) earlier lost 1.8 percent.

FLIGHT TO SAFETY

The risk-averse mood triggered a broad flight to safety. The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries fell nearly 8 basis points to 3.505 percent. Yields on core euro zone debt lost 5 basis points to 3.131 percent.

"The situation in the Middle East is overshadowing everything else, and we've broken a series of technical levels on the way up," a trader said.

On foreign exchange markets, the dollar rallied broadly, up 0.6 percent against a basket of major currencies (.DXY) while the euro lost close to 1 percent to $1.3551.

The euro also fell 1 percent on the day to 1.2793 Swiss francs, pushing the traditional safe-haven currency to its strongest in three weeks.

Separately, the New Zealand dollar hit a near two-month low against its U.S. counterpart after investors fretted about the economic damage caused by a strong earthquake which rocked the country's second biggest city, spurring speculation about the chance of an interest rate cut.

(Additional reporting by Naomi Tajitsu and William James, editing by Mike Peacock)

View the original article here

Apple, Android surge in 2010; Nokia, RIM slip

(Credit: IDC)
In 2010, the smartphone arena continued its shift with Apple and Android vendors grabbing a greater slice of the global market and Nokia and Research In Motion watching their shares drop, according to research firm IDC.
The year as a whole still found Nokia and BlackBerry maker RIM in first and second places, respectively, with the highest market shares and units shipped across the globe, according to IDC's latest "Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker," which was released today. But Nokia saw its annual market share fall to 33.1 percent, from 39 percent in 2009, while RIM's share dropped to 16.1 percent from almost 20 percent.
Those numbers contrasted with third-place Apple, whose share rose to 15.7 percent from 14.5 percent and shipped 47.5 million phones, up from the 25.1 million shipped in 2009.
The iPhone captured a great chunk of global smartphone customers last year, with solid growth coming from Asia/Pacific and Japan. Apple's flagship phone also found its way further entrenched in the enterprise market, IDC noted, as more businesses have added the iPhone to their list of approved smartphones. For the final quarter, Apple actually surged past RIM as the world's second leading smartphone vendor.
The biggest waves, though, were created by Google's Android as vendors Samsung and HTC rounded out the top five list of global mobile smartphone vendors. Shipping 23 million smartphones last year compared with 5.5 million in 2009, Samsung's market share climbed to 7.6 percent from 3.2 percent. And with 21.5 million units shipped last year versus only 8.1 million the prior year, HTC saw its share jump to 7.1 percent from 4.7 percent.
"Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market," Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team, said in a statement. "It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors' smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to market leader Symbian. Although Symbian has the backing of market leader Nokia, Android has multiple vendors, including HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung and a growing list of companies deploying Android on their devices."
Despite the ups and downs of individual smartphone vendors, the overall industry boomed during 2010 and the quarter that ended it.
The year as a whole saw 302.6 million smartphones shipped, a gain of 74 percent from the 173.5 million shipped in 2009. The fourth quarter alone accounted for 100.9 million smartphones shipped, up 87.2 percent from the 53.9 million shipped in the prior year's final quarter.
Looking at 2011, IDC is eyeing further gains for the smartphone industry as vendors continue to expand their product lineups. Though the high-end smartphone market has helped drive growth over the past few years, more mid-range and low-end models are expected to hit the market. That will make smartphones in general more affordable by pushing down prices on higher-end units and ramping up overall competition in the industry.
View the original article here

Apple, Android surge in 2010; Nokia, RIM slip

 (Credit: IDC)
In 2010, the smartphone arena continued its shift with Apple and Android vendors grabbing a greater slice of the global market and Nokia and Research In Motion watching their shares drop, according to research firm IDC.
The year as a whole still found Nokia and BlackBerry maker RIM in first and second places, respectively, with the highest market shares and units shipped across the globe, according to IDC's latest "Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker," which was released today. But Nokia saw its annual market share fall to 33.1 percent, from 39 percent in 2009, while RIM's share dropped to 16.1 percent from almost 20 percent.
Those numbers contrasted with third-place Apple, whose share rose to 15.7 percent from 14.5 percent and shipped 47.5 million phones, up from the 25.1 million shipped in 2009.
The iPhone captured a great chunk of global smartphone customers last year, with solid growth coming from Asia/Pacific and Japan. Apple's flagship phone also found its way further entrenched in the enterprise market, IDC noted, as more businesses have added the iPhone to their list of approved smartphones. For the final quarter, Apple actually surged past RIM as the world's second leading smartphone vendor.
The biggest waves, though, were created by Google's Android as vendors Samsung and HTC rounded out the top five list of global mobile smartphone vendors. Shipping 23 million smartphones last year compared with 5.5 million in 2009, Samsung's market share climbed to 7.6 percent from 3.2 percent. And with 21.5 million units shipped last year versus only 8.1 million the prior year, HTC saw its share jump to 7.1 percent from 4.7 percent.
"Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market," Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team, said in a statement. "It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors' smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to market leader Symbian. Although Symbian has the backing of market leader Nokia, Android has multiple vendors, including HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung and a growing list of companies deploying Android on their devices."
Despite the ups and downs of individual smartphone vendors, the overall industry boomed during 2010 and the quarter that ended it.
The year as a whole saw 302.6 million smartphones shipped, a gain of 74 percent from the 173.5 million shipped in 2009. The fourth quarter alone accounted for 100.9 million smartphones shipped, up 87.2 percent from the 53.9 million shipped in the prior year's final quarter.
Looking at 2011, IDC is eyeing further gains for the smartphone industry as vendors continue to expand their product lineups. Though the high-end smartphone market has helped drive growth over the past few years, more mid-range and low-end models are expected to hit the market. That will make smartphones in general more affordable by pushing down prices on higher-end units and ramping up overall competition in the industry.
View the original article here