The Traderszone Network

U.K.’s FTSE 100 heads for its first gain in three days on Tuesday, with upbeat earnings reports from BP, GKN and Next lifting the trading mood.
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UBS posted a forecast-beating second-quarter net profit as it booked a $280 million charge to help settle litigation in Germany.

The charge had been led by Chinese banks after a Reuters report said the country’s fifth-biggest bank by assets planned to seek more private investors. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.2 percent to be just a whisker from a peak last touched in April 2011. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.4 percent to a six-month high as investors focused on the positive in some mixed economic news.

NEW YORK/SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s metals warehousing unit is exploring its first foray into China, and privately held C Steinweg has expanded capacity there, sources said, as a financing scandal in a major Chinese port fuels a scramble for market share. It has intensified a battle between new entrants and entrenched rivals in the multi-billion dollar business of securely storing the world’s commodities in China, the world’s biggest producer and user of base metals.

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Factory owner Norberto Garcia was poised to launch a series of new toys this year after grafting hard for the past decade to rebuild his business following Argentina’s 2001-2002 economic crash and debt default. Garcia’s wait-and-see attitude is typical of other businesses who anticipate a slowdown in sales in a country grappling with a surging inflation rate but are convinced any economic downturn will be moderate. While unsettling, the debt crisis today is a far cry from the turmoil of Argentina’s $100 billion default in 2002, and Garcia is optimistic things will ultimately improve.

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Russia tests a new type of intermediate-range missile, prompting President Barack Obama to send a letter of protest to his counterpart Vladimir Putin.
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BP, the U.K. oil giant, announced a 34 percent rise in profits Tuesday – but its results bore out the importance of its Russian investments.