ADR Report: Shares Mostly Lower As Broader Market Ends Down

9th Jun 2010 22:05

By Caitlin Nish Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--International companies trading in New York ended mostly lower Wednesday as the broader market reversed course after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it's time to withdraw stimulus. The Bank of New York index of ADRs slipped 0.8% to 111.89 as the European index lost 1% to 100.02. Shares of BP Plc (BP, BP.LN) weighed down the European index, as they plunged 16% to $29.20 amid speculation about the company's financial viability. The U.S. government's point man on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill sharply criticized the company in a letter released Wednesday, saying BP was taking too long to process compensation claims filed by people whose livelihoods have been affected by the disaster. Meanwhile, expectations are increasing that the company will cut dividends to help pay for the Gulf of Mexico disaster. French oil company Total SA (TOT, FP.FR) also declined Wednesday. Production of oil and gas has been halted at Total's North Sea Elgin field after a technical problem, the company told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday. "We can confirm that a minor technical issue occurred on our Elgin field last night [Tuesday], which stopped production," said Sandra McIntosh communication adviser for Total. "We are working to resolve the problem and hope to resume production as soon as possible." Shares lost 1.5% to $44.86. Meanwhile, Ireland's Department of Finance Wednesday released two major reports on the country's banking crisis, which jointly blamed the near-implosion of the banking sector on government fiscal policy, poor corporate governance and weak financial regulation. Bank of Ireland (IRE, BIR.DB) and Allied Irish Banks Plc (AIB, ALBK.DB) both ended lower, down 3.7% to $3.61 and 2.7% to $2.17, respectively. Bank of Ireland PLC also said Wednesday it got 94.6% take-up of its rights issue, a key part of its capital-raising plan, and said the new ordinary stock will commence trading on the Irish and London Stock Exchanges on June 14. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS, RBS.LN) also declined, ending off 2.3% to $11.91. RBS priced its EUR1.25 billion, 2013-dated covered bond at 125 basis points over midswaps, a bank running the transaction said Wednesday. French software company Dassault Systemes' (DASTY, DSY.FR) said Wednesday that it is buying Exalead, a French provider of search platforms and search-based applications for consumer and business users, for about EUR135 million. Shares rose 2.5% to $58.50. The Asian index closed 0.8% lower at 113.72. China-based Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) agreed to supply Edison International Co.'s (EIX) Southern California electric utility with solar panels with a total capacity of 45 megawatts through the first quarter. Trina Solar's shares climbed 4.6% to $16.40. Protests against South Korean steel producer POSCO's (PKX, 005490.SE) proposed 12-million-metric-ton steel plant in the eastern Indian state of Orissa have flared up again with activists trying to block a government-conducted socio-economic survey of the villages that will be affected by the project. POSCO's stock fell 3.1% to $89.32. Honda Motor Co. (HMC, 7267.TO) will decide Thursday on when to resume operations at two automobile assembly plants in southern China, after a strike was resolved at its affiliated exhaust systems plant in the country, a spokesman for Honda said. In a separate development, industrial action also broke out Wednesday at Honda's wholly owned company, Honda Lock (Guangdong) Co. in ZhongShan, which makes car keys, the Honda spokesman said. Shares lost 2.6% to $28.91. Also declining were Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (NSANY, 7201.TO) and Toyota Motor Corp. (TM, 7203.TO) as investors worried about wage increases in China. "People think profitability may be hurt," says Mattia Ciancaleoni, director at equity sales at Citigroup. Nissan closed 3.7% lower at $13.47 while Toyota fell 1.3% to $69.48. Bucking the trend Wednesday was the Latin-American index, which ended up 0.1% to 338.51. Brazil's natural gas consumption has returned to pre-crisis levels after Latin America's largest economy posted record growth in the first quarter, a key executive at state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR, PETR4.BR) said Wednesday. Petrobras' shares rose 1.2% to $37.56. Meanwhile, the golden share Portugal's government holds in Portugal Telecom SA (PT, PTC.LB) won't be used to block Telefonica's bid for the company's stake in Brazil's Vivo Participacoes SA (VIV, VIVO4.BR), PT said. Vivo's shares climbed 1.5% to $27.59. The emerging-markets index was unchanged at 279.12. Russian stocks closed mostly higher, with dairy and fruit juice company Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods OJSC (WBD, WBDF.RS) up 3.7% to $20.35, fixed-line telephony operator Rostelecom (ROSYY, RTKM.RS) up 3.4% to $19.85 and metals and mining company Mechel OAO (MTL, MTLR.RS) up 2.1% to $19.90. -By Caitlin Nish, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2076; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 09, 2010 17:05 ET (21:05 GMT)