Russia has reached a new record high in monthly oil production, at more than ten million barrels a day in October, maintaining its position as the world's biggest oil producer.  Rosneft is at the forefront of the increase with production from its new Vankor field in the Arctic.  Vladimir Putin has nodded approval for a Danish initiative on CO2 emissions that could replace the Kyoto Protocol, but with two caveats - that Russian interests be taken note of, ie the country's immense CO2-absorbing forests, and that the resolution be ratified by all the world's biggest economies.  Russia may increase threefold its supplies of gas to Denmark, which could see supplies reach a total of 3 billion cubic meters a year via the Nord Stream pipeline.  The Prime Minister has urged the 'stingy' EU to assist Ukraine in its difficulties ...

Colgate Palmolive Company (CL) reported results for the third quarter of 2009 with earnings of $1.12 per share, which was a penny above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.11. Earnings were up 13.1% year-over-year, driven by effective price implementation and ongoing aggressive cost savings program. Net sales for the quarter were flat year-over-year declining marginally by 0.3% to $3.9 billion as unit volume increased 1.5% and pricing contributed 5.0%. This was partially offset by negative foreign exchange translation of 6.5%. Organic sales (excluding foreign exchange, acquisitions and divestitures) increased 7.0% in the quarter. North American sales increased 3.0% driven by 1.5% pricing and 5.0% unit volume growth, partially offset by 0.5% negative currency translations. In Latin America, sales grew 5.0% as unit volume increased 3.0% driven by solid gains in Venezuela which were partially offset by an 11.0% negative foreign exchange impact. In Europe/South Pacific, ...

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Denmark-based Genmab received some good news with the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval for Arzerra (ofatumumab), a monoclonal antibody for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a slowly progressing cancer of the blood and bone marrow.  Arzerra is approved for cancer patients who are no longer responding to the current available treatment options using fludarabine and alemtuzumab. Following the approval, Genmab has become eligible to receive a milestone payment of DKK 116 million (approximately $23 million) from Glaxo.  Earlier, in May 2009, Arzerra had received a positive recommendation from the FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) in which the panel had voted 10-3 in favor of the drug. They had found that Arzerra provided some clinical benefit to patients with CLL whose disease was refractory to fludarabine and alemtuzumab.  Arzerra has been approved by the FDA under the accelerated approval process ...

On Monday morning, the Food and Drug Administration panel approved Arzerra, a leukemia treatment that will be marketed and commercialized by GlaxoSmithKline Plc (ADR) (NYSE:GSK). As per the announcement made by the GSK executives, Arzerra is for those patients who have failed to respond to other therapies that cure leukemia. This new drug marketed by GSK was originally developed by GlaxoSmithKline and Genmab A/S, a Danish company. The drug is designed to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia also known as CLL and for those whose disease has progressed despite previous treatments with other cancer drugs.

GSK is a global healthcare company that is more into the creation and development, manufacturing and marketing of various pharmaceutical products including vaccines and over the counter medicines and other health related

...

This analysis is from John Derrick, U.S. Global Investors Director of Research. The market has rallied dramatically since the March 9 low, with the biggest beneficiary of this rally being low-quality companies. This intuitively makes sense, given that companies with the most troubled outlooks are the ones most likely to have a strong recovery when the dire outcomes predicted at the bottom of the crisis failed to transpire. Quality may have different meanings to different investors, but in a recent research piece, Citigroup ranked performance based on multiple definitions of quality. Samp;P earnings quality ranking, debt-to-capitalization ratio and return on equity were used as proxies for quality. The research universe was the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, but I believe broader market conclusions can be drawn as well. Based on Samp;P earnings quality rankings, companies with C or D (the two lowest categories) ratings returned about 55 percent over the past six months, while the ...

Luke Harding has two pieces on Russian climate change in today's Guardian: an audio report on Northern-Siberia's seasonal shifts, and a special report on the Yamal peninsula.  Rumors abound that China, Japan, Russia and France have been in secret talks on using an alternative to the dollar for oil trading, but OPEC's Secretary General says that, even if there were to be a shift, it would be a long process, and that 'tradition' would make it difficult.  Serbian oil monopoly NIS, majority owned by Gazprom Neft, has signed a $100 million loan with Bank of Moscow on the back of Medvedev's Belgrade visit.  Italy, Russia, and Turkey, have signed a joint statement on the construction of the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline linking Turkey's Black Sea coast and Mediterranean coast (the New York Times has a special report today ...

Russia set a new monthly record for crude oil production in September, at 10 million barrels per day for the first time in a single month.  Naftogaz has not repaid its $500 million eurobond.   Russia will await the approval of the IAEA before enriching Iran's uranium stocks.  Ukraine's state pipeline operator has refused to supply crude to Lukoil's Odessa refinery, imperiling the future of the Russian company's operations there.  A unit of Gazprom has apparently begun the trading and marketing of natural gas in North America.  Uranium miner ARMZ is in talks with Canada's Cameco Corp on potential joint mining ventures in Australia and Africa.  Hungary's MOL has completed an emergency gas storage facility to operate in the event of a disruption in supplies.  Denmark's Dong Energy has apparently signed a contract with Gazprom to ...

The United States is the New Tanzania? Ugh…

by Robert Williams, Publisher

Switzerland sits atop the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report, just released by the World Economic Forum, representing the first time since 2004 that the United States doesn’t hold the top spot. But hey, that’s what being at the epicenter of a global financial crisis will do, right?

Singapore, Sweden and Denmark round out the top five.

The shocker, however, is how badly the United States scored for the soundness of its banks. It placed 108th, just ahead of Venezuela, Serbia and Vietnam and right behind Tanzania.

“Given that the financial crisis originated in large part in the United States, it is hardly surprising that there has been a weakening of the assessment of its financial market sophistication…” said the WEF.

Yeah. But Tanzania?

For the record, Tanzania borders nations

...

The global recession claims another victim - the United States is no longer the worlds most competitive economy. Switzerland, a beacon of relative stability during the past 18 months of worldwide economic turmoil, toppled the topsy-turvy U.S. from the No. 1 spot in the latest update of quot;The Global Competitiveness Reportquot; from the World Economic Forum. The WEF uses a wide range of metrics to measure competitiveness, which it defines as quot;the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a countryquot; as a means to produce prosperity for its citizens. The U.S. was panned in the report for too-close relationships between government regulators and the private sector, and for quot;the perception that the government spends its resources wastefully.quot; Specifically mentioned were the massive additions to the federal deficit made by the Bush and Obama administrations, used to finance the Iraq war and economic stimulus. Singapore ranked third, with ...

The global recession claims another victim - the United States is no longer the worlds most competitive economy. Switzerland, a beacon of relative stability during the past 18 months of worldwide economic turmoil, toppled the topsy-turvy U.S. from the No. 1 spot in the latest update of quot;The Global Competitiveness Reportquot; from the World Economic Forum. The WEF uses a wide range of metrics to measure competitiveness, which it defines as quot;the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a countryquot; as a means to produce prosperity for its citizens. The U.S. was panned in the report for too-close relationships between government regulators and the private sector, and for quot;the perception that the government spends its resources wastefully.quot; Specifically mentioned were the massive additions to the federal deficit made by the Bush and Obama administrations, used to finance the Iraq war and economic stimulus. Singapore ranked third, with ...