Apple denies the allegations of U.S. government price fixing

Apple denies the allegations of U.S. government, which accuses him of conspiring with some publishers to fix prices of digital books and undermine the dominance of Amazon. Com in this market ... The charge of the Department of Justice "of collusion against Apple simply is not true," said Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for the firm at the apple, reports Bloomberg.

The company's digital library, introduced in 2010, has "fostered innovation and competition, breaking the monopoly position of the Amazon on the publishing industry." Following the entry of Apple in the market, "customers have benefited from e-books that are more interactive and engaging," says N.Kerris. "Just as we have allowed developers to fix prices on the App Store, publishers set the prices on the iBookstore".

In its complaint, the U.S. government accuses Apple for facilitating the efforts of publishers to end the competition on retail prices by coordinating their transition to a model called "agency" where publishers set prices. Publishers are referred other that Hachette Book Group, a subsidiary of Lagardère, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin Group, Pearson and Simon & Schuster, CBS affiliate.

Markets / weekly balance sheet: the CAC40 lost almost 4%!

New week shortened for the Paris and another week of heavy consolidation! ... The CAC 40 and 3.9% yield over the last four sessions to 3.1989 points on Friday night, signing its fourth consecutive week of decline. The debt problems of Spain and Italy continued to weigh on markets after an auction of medium-term tense carried by Rome Thursday. But the situation is especially worrisome in Madrid, Spain being the latest country to show more and more difficult to stem the debt crisis and to restore its fiscal balance. This morning the Bank of Spain has also announced that financial institutions in the country had increased their borrowing from the ECB in March, as investors translated as a sign of increased tension on the market European bank financing in general and Spanish in particular. Chinese growth weaker than expected first quarter 2012 (8.1%) and a Beige Book confirming a U.S. recovery at a pace considered modest to moderate also have little enthusiastic operators.

On the corporate front, Alcoa has yet positively opened the ball of the Atlantic quarterly earnings surprise by unveiling. The latest accounts of JP Morgan and Wells Fargo also reassured. In the hexagon, Carrefour and L'Oreal were the first groups to publish their CAC40 first quarter revenues.

ECO AND CURRENCY

The index of U.S. consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan and Reuters stood at 75.7 for its initial reading of April 2012, after the end of March 76.2. The consensus was slightly higher, at 76.2 also. It must still say that this sentiment index Americans had returned last month on its best levels since early 2008!

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the U.S. trade deficit for February 2012 totaled approximately $ 46 billion, against $ 51.9 billion consensus and after 52.5 billion dollars in January. Exports reached a record in February, while the deficit fell to the lowest of four months.

According to the U.S. government, the price index for U.S. production in March 2012 remained stable compared to the previous month, against 0.3% consensus. Excluding food and energy, the index "PPI" has however increased by 0.3%, 0.2% against the market consensus.

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, U.S. wholesale inventories for February 2012 increased 0.9% from the previous month, against 0.6% of market consensus.

On the currency markets, the euro ended the week virtually unchanged against the greenback to about 1.3070 / $ between banks. Finally, a barrel of oil closed up $ 2.5 in the week to $ 103 for WTI on Friday.