Focus on earnings may help markets
It's often that the case that once bad financial news hits the front pages, as opposed to the business pages, the financial markets start to improve.
By the time it dawns on the news reporters that things are bad, the markets have priced in the bad news and shares, having hit lower levels, begin to find buyers.
Markets have plummeted in part because this year's earnings figures, apart from commodities and some tech stocks, are down on last year.
But everyone's used to this now and, with the US Dow Jones hovering above 11,000 (last year it reached 13,000) and the FTSE100 looking nervously at 5,000 (last year's high was 6,700) the markets' earnings expectations have clearly reduced.
This week the focus will be firmly on company earnings in the real economy rather than financial stocks and the oil price (barring disasters, of course).
In Europe, Vodafone and a gaggle of car companies including VW, Fiat, Peugeot, Daimler (Mercedes) and Renault will report second-quarter figures.
In the US, Bank of America and American Express will maintain the focus on financials but no one's expecting too many disasters after Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported better than expected numbers last week (although Citigroup's were still pretty grim).
Even Merrill Lynch shares rose despite writing off another near $5bn.
Today Apple, drug giant Merck and Texas Instruments report while tomorrow Yahoo!, McDonald's and Amazon enter the lists.
While consumer and business confidence figures have been plummeting (clearly they've been reading those front pages), there's actually some evidence from the US that new houses are being sold again in some states and production and sales of consumer goods are keeping their heads above water.
In the UK, some mortgage rates have begun to inch down, the banks are completing their first round of capital-raising (even though most of the shares have been left with the underwriters) and the government is rewriting its financial rules so it can borrow more money to try to give the economy the boost that the Bank of England can't or won't do.
Some decent ( ie better than they might be) earnings figures may just herald a break with the pattern of stock market rises one day and calamitous falls the next.
Brand builders are ever the optimists
And they need to be of course.
The Superbrands Council is a collection of marketing, advertising and media experts apparently and it has just produced its list of top UK brands.
One reason marketing folk often fail to rise to the top of their companies may be that their view of who's doing well is often at stark variance with the markets.
The top five in the latest list are Google (which recently disappointed the markets with its latest figures), Microsoft (so-so at best), Mercedes-Benz (still recovering after its disastrous investment in Chrysler), the BBC (somewhat embattled if you ask me) and British Airways (facing a spectacular profits collapse from rising fuel costs).
Marks & Spencer's premium food offering was also voted into the top 20 even though a 5% drop in sales prompted the recent calamitous fall in the company's share price (somewhat overdone admittedly).
But the point about brands, so the Super councillors would say, is that they see you through bad times as well as good.
As indeed they do. And the markets don't always get things right.
But there's quite a gulf there all the same.
Who's the best owner for ITV?
According to the Sunday Times, American "distressed asset" fund Silver Point Capital, founded by two former Goldman Sachs bankers, is interested in buying Sky's 17.9% stake in ITV.
ITV's share price may be in the knacker's yard but the business is most certainly not a distressed asset, reinforcing Endemol founder John de Mol's recent observation that life as a public company doesn't suit broadcasters.
ITV boss Michael Grade's problem is that the only way out of the public sector is probably via a buyout by private equity, and that might be a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.
Maybe he should just grit his teeth and hang on. Broker Collins Stewart said over the weekend that it fancied Daily Mail & General Trust as a recovery play because newspapers, apparently, come out of a downturn quickly as relatively small increases in ad sales move rapidly to the bottom line.
If that's true of the Daily Mail, it's certainly true of ITV.
Glenn to expand Birds Eye empire?
One person who does know about brands is Martin Glenn, the former PepsiCo UK boss who now runs Iglo Birds Eye (where did Iglo come from?) for private equity outfit Permira.
Birds Eye is reported to have made an approach to another private equity outfit CapVest, which owns Findus and Young's seafood.
Clearly there would be competition issues if Birds Eye bought all of Findus but maybe not if the deal was looked at on a European basis (although Findus is apparently the biggest frozen foods brand in France).
But Birds Eye, surprisingly sold to Permira by Unilever a few years ago, has thrived under Glenn.
He's changed the cod for pollock in his fish fingers and therefore reduced his costs as well as winning brownie points from the greens. And he's sharply cut back the number of new product launches and line extensions, most of which lasted barely a year.
A much-needed feather in the cap of the private equity business.
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