Stock News Briefs: U.S. Manufacturing Rebounds In August; Wells Fargo Repaying TARP Through Earnings

Yuan Funds on Track for $1 Trillion; U.S. Manufacturing Rebounds in August; Wells Fargo Repaying TARP Through Earnings; GM China Sales up 112% in August; Australia’s Economy Grows Faster than Expected; Credit Suisse Eyeing Acquisitions; Bombardier Profits Sink in 2Q

• China’s $337 billion (2.3 trillion yaun) fund industry may eclipse the $1 trillion mark in five years as the industry rolls out more investment vehicles such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and real estate investment trusts (REITs), Reuters reported. “A tripling of assets in five years is not an exaggerated target,” Mandy Wang, CEO of China International Fund Management Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s (JPM) China fund venture, told Reuters. “New business opportunities abound.”

• U.S. manufacturing expanded in August, a strong vote of confidence the economy is pulling out of recession, The New York Times reported. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index rose to 52.9, up from 48.9 in July. A reading above 50 means expansion, and below 50 is contraction. “It is a big deal,” John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), told the Times. “It does suggest that manufacturing is recovering.”

• Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) said yesterday (Wednesday) that it plans to repay loans from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) without issuing new shares, MarketWatch reported. Wells Fargo received $25 billion from the TARP, and a spokesman told MarketWatch that it plans to repay the government by generating capital through earnings.

• General Motors Co. said yesterday (Wednesday) that its August vehicle sales in China - now the world’s largest car market - jumped 112.7% from a year earlier, Reuters reported. The numbers put GM on track for more than a 40% rise in sales for the year, the company said. GM sold 152,365 vehicles in China in August, and sold 1.11 million vehicles there from January to August.

• Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP) unexpectedly accelerated in the second quarter, growing 0.6%, its biggest gain in more than a year, Bloomberg reported. The median estimate of 20 economists Bloomberg surveyed called for a 0.2% expansion. Australia’s economy grew 0.4% in the first quarter.

• Credit Suisse Group AG’s (CS) head of private banking, Walter Berchtold, told Reuters the Zurich-based bank is one the lookout for acquisitions “close to our compliance, close to our business model.” Berchtold wouldn’t comment on whether the bank is making a bid for the private assets of ING Groep N.V. (ING). Final bids for ING’s Swiss and Asian private banking assets are due Thursday.

• Second-quarter profits for Bombardier Inc., the world’s third-largest commercial jet maker, fell 21% as a result of reduced demand and dropped deliveries, Bloomberg reported. Net income declined to $198 million, or 11 cents a share, from $251 million, or 14 cents, a year earlier, the company reported.

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