AT SHOPS in Shanghai's bustling Xinyang market, fake Apple iPhones and Bose speakers sit neatly alongside bootleg copies of Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system, a week before its official launch."Which version do you want? Ultimate? Normal? English or Chinese?," beckons one shopkeeper, proudly pointing out her ample supply of discs packed in unmarked white boxes.Microsoft may be baiting the world as it prepares to launch the newest version of its Windows franchise, but Chinese have been able to buy pirated copies this month for just 20 yuan ($3.14) each - a fraction of list prices as high as $469 in Australia.Research firm IDC estimates about 80 per cent of software sold in China was pirated last year. While that figure is falling, it is still double the global average and about four times that of developed markets such as the US and Japan.
Cheap competition
"The big issue that is driving piracy in China today is price," said Matthew Cheung, an analyst at Gartner, another research firm.
"If you're trying to sell a program that costs 2000 yuan to a student living on 400 yuan a month, that's simply not going to work out for most consumers."
In a nod to such pressures, Microsoft cut the price of its Office 2007 Home and Student Edition. It will also sell its low-end Windows 7 Home Basic version for around $64 - modest by Western standards, but still 15 times higher than pirated copies.
Violation of intellectual property rights has been an ongoing sore spot in China's relations with its major trading partners. A Chinese court jailed four people in August for spreading their bootleg version of Windows XP, in what China's official Xinhua news agency called the nation's biggest software piracy bust.
The Business Software Alliance, a trade association created by the software industry, says the sector lost more than $6.6 billion in China last year to piracy, second only to the US.
New solutions
Piracy in China is a long term issue, experts say, but conditions should improve as software makers slash prices, users become more educated and living standards rise.
"Piracy in China is reducing year by year because the government is placing more attention on it and prices between the real and fake have narrowed," said Qian Liyong, director of the EU-China Project on the protection of intellectual property rights.
Gartner estimates China software piracy rates will fall to as low as 50 per cent by 2012, almost on a par with developed Asian markets such as Hong Kong.
In a bid to tackle the problem, Microsoft last year launched an unconventional campaign in China that caused a black screen to be displayed every hour for users of pirated Windows XP.
But that just caused thousands of irate Chinese to migrate to free software from domestic companies like Kingsoft, leaving Microsoft with its own black eye.
Some believe such free web-based software, supported by advertising, may ultimately help to reduce piracy in China by letting third parties pay for development costs.
"Because of the internet, we are seeing a trend that software is by and large becoming free for consumers from point to point," Mr Yu said.
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The secretary general of OPEC, Abdullah al-Badri said that most likely will be assessed a possible increase in production for the month of December, during the next summit, enabling economic framework. In fact here are the statements about al-Badri, "If prices continue to rise if the stock will return to normal levels, on the average of five years, if we assess that there is a real economic recovery, I am sure that our member countries will make the decision to increase production, "in earlier days, however, the same Badri was quoted as saying that oil should not go further in that it delayed a probable economic recovery.
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Start of the document on climate by the environment ministers meeting today in Luxembourg. The agreed text contains the target of reducing CO2 EU 80 to 95% to 2050 and is the basis for negotiation for the UN conference in Copenhagen next December. A text that has suffered the negative effect of the results missed by Ecofin, as regards the financing of the fight against climate change. The Council has also placed a 30% reduction in 2020 and stressed the need for an overall reduction required in the medium term. The document submitted to the Ministers initially contained 71 points including 12 directly employed by Ecofin. Beyond the objective of reducing long-term, the text deals to include shipping and aviation. Environment ministers endorsed a global reduction in emissions from transport: -10% to -20% for aircraft and ships, both targets were calculated over 2005 and 2020. Council incisive actions against deforestation, while the deepening is postponed to a matter that affects the surplus of emission allowances allocated to certain countries. The document released by the Council will be a document of political views in the Council of Heads of State of 29 and 30 October before the UN conference in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, ministers have approved the part that concerns the eco-efficiency.
"It's a clear message to the world that the EU is ready for negotiations. Full mandate to Copenhagen, "said Andreas Carlgren, Swedish Minister of Environment, in a press conference. "We want to negotiate with all parties. We have paved the way for a message for the world. "
The financial crisis that began in 2007 is without precedent in post-war economic history. It was preceded by a long period of rapid credit growth, low risk premia, abundant liquidity, and the development of real estate bubbles. Overstretched leveraging positions rendered financial institutions extremely vulnerable to corrections in asset markets. As a result, a downturn in a relatively small corner of the financial system (the US subprime market) was sufficient to topple the whole structure. Such episodes have happened before (e.g. Japan and the Nordic countries in the early 1990s, the Asian crisis in the late-1990s), but they remained largely regional. The important difference is that, like during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the current crisis is global.
While it may be appropriate to consider the Great Depression as the best benchmark in terms of its financial triggers, it has also served as a great lesson. Governments and central banks are now well aware of the need to avoid the policy mistakes of the 1930s. Bank runs have been avoided, monetary policy has been eased aggressively, and governments have released substantial fiscal stimulus. Unlike during the Great Depression, countries in Europe or elsewhere have not resorted to protectionism large enough to have a macroeconomic impact. This crisis demonstrates the importance of EU coordination, even as it has called attention to the need for further progress in this regard.
5 key challenges
Notwithstanding the heavy policy intervention, the EU economy, like other developed economies, is projected to shrink by some 4% in 2009, the sharpest contraction in the EU's history (European Commission 2009). Signs of incipient recovery abound, but this is expected to be rather sluggish as demand will remain depressed due to deleveraging across the economy as well as inevitable structural adjustments. As discussed in a recent Commission report (European Commission 2009), the crisis is likely to raise five challenges.
1. Unless policies change considerably, the growth potential will suffer as parts of the capital stock are obsolete and increased risk aversion will weigh on capital formation and R&D.
Recent studies suggest that past episodes of financial distress have resulted in sizeable output losses that are never entirely recovered. Estimates emerging from econometric work by the European Commission and simulations with its QUEST model put the potential output loss at up to 5%. Moreover, a reversal of financial development may weaken the incentives for structural reform, thereby adversely affecting potential growth further. But the historical evidence shows that crises also provide great opportunities to undertake far-reaching structural measures. This opportunity should not be missed.
2. While job losses have been contained so far, eventually the impact of rapidly rising unemployment will be felt.
So far lower levels of activity have been reflected mainly in shorter working hours, fostered by employment support schemes that have limited the increase in headline unemployment statistics . The relatively muted unemployment response may partly be the result of past labour market reform, but this is not uniformly the case in all Member States. Where labour markets are still rigid, the weak unemployment response is probably not sustainable and more lay-offs are likely to be in the pipeline. It will entail social hardship of many kinds, especially for highly indebted households already hit by downturns in housing markets. In those Member States, labour market measures should be high on the reform agenda.
3. The fiscal deficits and debt will continue to increase, also in a structural manner as tax bases shrink permanently and contingent liabilities stemming from bank rescues may materialise.
The pace of increase of the deficits is comparable to earlier financial crisis episodes. But the distribution of the increases in fiscal deficits is wide. The public finances of countries with important financial centres and/or that have seen major housing and construction booms have been particularly affected. To some extent this is deliberate, broadly in line with the distribution of “fiscal space” and serving to provide short-run demand support. But, as may be expected, public indebtedness is increasing too, and this will need to be reversed when recovery takes hold. The projected increase in public debt – about 20% of GDP to end 2010 – is typical for a financial crisis episode. However, the jumping-off point is considerably higher than in the past.
4. The financial crisis has asymmetric effects, which poses a long-lasting challenge for intra-EU adjustment.
The way countries are affected depends on their initial conditions and associated vulnerabilities.
- Countries that entered the crisis with a housing bubble and a large net foreign liability position face a need to shift activity from construction to export-oriented activities and to diminish their dependency on external financing.
- Countries that had been running large current account surpluses and had an associated greater exposure to toxic financial assets need to reduce their export dependency and work off their balance sheet problems.
Adjustment is necessary in both cases, but the policy recipes may be quite different.
5. There are potential implications of the present crisis for the resolution of the global imbalances.
The ongoing correction of the current account deficit of the US associated with the deleveraging of its economy is unlikely to be matched by an equivalent correction of the current account surpluses of the emerging market economies (China, in particular). If so, the euro area, representing more than two-thirds of the EU economy, will have to bear the brunt of the adjustment. The euro area would need to find "indigenous" sources of growth, including through nurturing dynamic services sectors.
Towards a crisis-management framework
This crisis has demonstrated the importance of a coordinated crisis-management framework. It should contain the following building blocks:
- Crisis prevention to avoid a future repeat.
This should be mapped onto a collective judgment as to what the principal causes of the crisis were and how changes in macroeconomic, regulatory, and supervisory policy frameworks could help prevent their recurrence. Policies to boost potential growth and competitiveness would also bolster the resilience to future crises.
- Crisis control and mitigation to minimise the damage by preventing systemic defaults or by containing the output loss and easing the social hardship stemming from recession.
Its main objective is thus to stabilise the financial system and economic activity in the short run. To strike the right balance between national preoccupations and spillover effects affecting other Member States, it must be coordinated across the EU.
- Crisis resolution to bring crises to a lasting close and at the lowest possible cost for the taxpayer, while containing systemic risk and securing consumer protection.
This requires reversing temporary support measures and action to restore economies to sustainable growth and fiscal paths. This includes policies to restore banks' balance sheets, restructure the banking sector, and an orderly policy “exit”, including from expansionary macroeconomic policies.
The beginnings of a framework
The beginnings of such a framework are emerging, building on existing institutions and legislation, complemented by new initiatives. Naturally, most EU policy efforts to date have focused on crisis control and mitigation. EU policymakers became acutely aware that financial assistance by countries to their financial institutions and unilateral extensions of deposit guarantees entail large and potentially disrupting spillovers. This led to emergency summits of the European Council at the Heads of State Level in the autumn of 2008 – for the first time in history also of the Eurogroup – to coordinate these moves. The Commission's role was to help ensure that financial rescues attain their objectives with minimal competition distortions and negative spillovers. Fiscal stimulus also has cross-border spillover effects, through trade and financial markets. The European Economic Recovery Programme (EERP, European Commission 2008) adopted in November 2008 was motivated by the recognition of these spillovers.
The framework for financial crisis prevention that was in place prior to the crisis proved underdeveloped – otherwise the crisis most likely would not have happened. But first steps have also been taken to redesign financial regulation and supervision – both in Europe and elsewhere – with crisis prevention in mind. Most recently, the European Commission has adopted draft legislation to create a new European Systemic Risk Board to detect risks to the financial system. It will also set up a European System of Financial Supervisors, composed of national supervisors and three new European Supervisory Authorities for banking, securities, and insurance and occupational pensions. The design of crisis resolution policies is now becoming a main task – not least because it should underpin the effectiveness of crisis control policies via its impact on confidence. Any premature withdrawal of policy stimulus should be avoided, but exit strategies should be ready for implementation when the recovery is firm, and they should be embedded in a broader policy framework that also entails growth-enhancing structural reforms.
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The results of the online casino games and offline games.Online casino games such as those offered by online casino, have a growth forecast compared to a date like that of 2012, approximately 10.3%, while for games offline, it will expand with a more modest +2.2 %, with a trend that is estimated at approximately 25 billion euros, a 6.3% of betting online internet, adding both channels.
The estimates and sector studies, they give significant results, with continued growth of Internet gaming, with a geographical extension, which then is simply the strength of these online casino games, the continued rise of technology, the study of new game platforms, as well as improving safety, project the spread of the game and the ability to choose the player with a few mouse gestures favorite game and online casino, even though there was a remote oceans, and more importantly we are really at the beginning, we can not fully imagine what will happen in a few years, sure you can predict, but the technology could find another technology with incredible boom of innovative systems faster and innovative.
One of these innovations is the availability of broadband, faster, better able to reach any place around the globe.
It 'clear that all this technology is in favor of online casino games on the internet, keeping in mind that the industry is really in its infancy. If we analyze the phenomenon of poker, which is becoming increasingly popular, with its Texas Hold'em tournament, broadcast by the media as a powerful means TVs, even we are already in the program of reality about this game, a phenomenon such as poker Sports, who until recently it was nowhere near to that known today, just think that in major live tournaments a few years ago, the players signed were a few hundred (perhaps only in major events), now an event not of utmost importance has thousands of subscribers, with prize money millionaires.
The landscape for online games casino, sports betting, lotteries instant (scratch cards), bingo, slot machine (more and more technology with innovative themes ever) matched to the games with progressive jackpot millionaires, video poker ever closer to a real table game is changing, is evolving into a sort of explosion, the technology offers the potential to play favorites, also via PDAs, cell phones, laptops, in fact anywhere without restrictions and giving the best graphics .
Technological progress is like a shock wave unstoppable, no one is immune to technology, even the most conservative roots, we see in everyday life with mobile phones, ATMs, supermarkets (accounting for the cost of shopping with a laser while out with the charge by credit card).
The online games are becoming more realistic, with tables live online, webcams, microphones, in fact the player can even play roulette live without leaving home, it is said that soon will be formed table games like blackjack, with holograms that identify the player, in short any gentlemen for all and as we said before, we are really beginning.
To continue with the numbers and estimates with actual parameters, the field of online gambling, excluding the "Skill Games" (now increasingly in the hands of government agencies), is very diversified. The sector is now more important than the betting, followed by poker sport. Certainly for the moment there are not difficult to circumvent barriers that still prevent growth higher growth market of online gambling, but its positive fair gaming and responsible (do not forget that the first market was almost entirely in the hands of organizations criminals).
Online casinos in America have had a major firm, a sharp contrast from the government, not by chance that the U.S. market has had a -12% of the total world, which has contributed to its growth in the European market.
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What's more, advanced all the problems that the crisis is giving Europe, notably Italy, the news, very bad, the day we are opening today of the first page of "Il Sole 24 Ore ","On supermutui the altar of Europe ". It seems that the Eurocrats are about to issue a directive that one can only hope that some sense of government (such as Italian) contrasts to the death: lower 80% to 40% of the maximum coverage allowed by the price of the dwelling banks. Other then that house plan: in a single blow to the EU have found a way to destroy the housing market and the loans. The rest, they argue, should be covered by insurance policies with a crazy cost increases. All this to protect the capital base of banks, of course, the real economy and at the expense of savers. If you pass' this thing to build a house or two hundred thousand euros to renew it from top to bottom will be payable up to 80 thousand euros. Ergo? The house can not buy more or is restructured. In a period like the current credit crunch we lacked this icing on the cake. And right now the middle class and upper middle are being heard today depleting another title this time taken from "Italy Today", always in the front: "Lawyers: market collapsed mergers and acquisitions. Take only two law firms. In the world market has collapsed "merger and acquisition" -35% abroad, -63% in Italy. Holds only two law firms around the world: Chiomenti and Freshfields. You do not do business then, the crisis is always before our eyes and the EU Commission, rather than tear Basel 2, which did not prevent scams like those of Madoff and risks of exposure such as Zaleski, imposes constraints crazy for the provision home mortgages, in fact defeating government plans such as the brave Italian on construction. In fact, if the bank does not deliver any enlargement will be only virtual. Here the money do not cash them none. And often even the same banks. And to witness that "it's all over again" there is further news on the trust issue and the renegotiation of the same for SMEs to take Corriere economy ', ie the insert's economic Monday of everyday via Solferino "Companies and the sickness spreads. The North rates go over 8% in the South more than 12%. And many companies have seen demand the return overnight. And more Tremonti roars right against banks more answers are these: real raspberries, you might say. While we're on the cheap inserts on Monday the two major Italian newspapers, you might as well also take the opening of the "Republic", namely "Business and Finance": "The conspiracy against King Dollar." People always talk about the usual vexed question to stop using the American currency as a means of international payment, especially as they would like developing countries, those of the BRICs, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China. From the first page of the same insert is also another news outlet that shows how in Italy you tripped each other in the eternal war between gangs, "Deposit and loan-turn the board halved the delegation of Varazzani. Tremonti's man wanted in that place to help supply the small and large municipalities and companies, new blood money is halved in the proxy through a maneuver by the President. Who happens to call Franco Bassanini, former Minister Prodi and certainly no great friend of this government. Then he says he has no reason to make the Cav rallies like the one on Sunday in Benevento in denouncing the massacre game against Italy by the foreign press, and as reflected in the opening all the major newspapers including the "Print "(Berlusconi against the foreign press), also fears the onslaught of big powers and occult against this government perhaps with the intent to reduce our country to conquer the land of big corporations are friends of the left and men like Bassanini . We close with good news that we take from page 23 of the "Giornale": "The task force blesses Chrysler." The American held at the Lingotto is progressing well and in the coming weeks we will present the plan to financial analysts around the world (more precisely, November 4 in video conference) but meanwhile the U.S. has already had the approval was needed. Fiat shares, to you, at least for today, life will seem rosier.
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(Bloomberg) -- Confidence in the world economy rose for a third straight month in October as gains in manufacturing and equities added to signs of recovery, a Bloomberg survey of users on six continents showed.
The Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index increased to a record 61.7 from 58.54 in September. The index exceeded 50 for a third month, which means there were more optimists than pessimists.“Conditions have reached a point of stability worldwide,” said Guy LeBas, chief economist and fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, who participated in the survey. “We’re seeing growth even in parts of the world that were looking dull earlier. The eurozone is coming out of the recession fairly quickly and in decent shape and the U.S. is improving.”
The global equity rally has added about $20 trillion to the value of stocks since this year’s low on March 9 as evidence mounts that the world economy is emerging from its deepest recession since the 1930s. The pace of the recovery may be tempered as stimulus measures undertaken by policy makers fade out and unemployment threatens to continue rising.
“Asset markets are rising and that’s having positive wealth effects and helping confidence come back a bit stronger,” said Robert Subbaraman, chief economist for Asia excluding Japan at Nomura International Ltd. in Hong Kong. “There are still problems with the world economy as a lot of the support is being fueled by loose policies which cannot be sustained.”
China Exports, Intel
Stocks rose today. The MSCI World Index climbed 0.9 percent to a one-year high as the decline in China’s exports slowed and Intel Corp.’s sales forecast topped analyst estimates. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, said profit in the third quarter soared almost sevenfold as fixed-income revenue surged.
Confidence may abate in the event that stocks erase part of their advance. The MSCI World Index has surged 67 percent since March 9, driving valuations on the gauge of 23 developed countries as high as 27.9 times annual earnings, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is priced at 20.3 times profit, the highest level since 2004.
The survey of more than 1,400 Bloomberg users was conducted between Oct. 5 and Oct. 9. Since the previous survey, Group of 20 leaders vowed to keep stimulus measures until growth takes hold, the International Monetary Fund boosted its forecast for the global economy this year and next, and the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates.
‘Gathering Steam’
Europe’s manufacturing and services industries expanded more than initially estimated last month, while some U.S. gauges of production are showing an acceleration in activity. India’s industrial production rose the most in 22 months in August, while China’s output gains were the fastest in almost a year.
“Investors think the recovery is gathering steam,” said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York and a participant in the survey. “Manufacturing has shown the most improvement, and global trade is picking up.”
The world economy will contract 1.1 percent this year, and expand 3.1 percent in 2010, the Washington-based IMF said earlier this month.
Policy makers are debating the timing of the withdrawal of monetary and fiscal policies that have helped avert another Great Depression. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Oct. 8 said the U.S. central bank is prepared to tighten monetary policy when the outlook for the economy “has improved sufficiently.”
Exit Strategies
New Zealand’s central bank is removing some of the liquidity facilities it put in place last year, while the Bank of Japan left its benchmark rate near zero today and refrained from saying if it would end its corporate debt purchase programs.
“The dynamic of the global recovery is very intense,” said Jose Carlos Diez, chief economist at Intermoney SA in Madrid. “If the central banks get nervous and put the brakes on too fast, that could abort the recovery.”
Bloomberg users in Spain are the most pessimistic on their economy as the nation remains mired in a recession even after France and Germany returned to growth. Spain’s index fell to a four-month low of 10 from 14.5 in September. The confidence gauge for western Europe rose to 44 from 43.2 last month.
Dollar Weakness
Confidence jumped the most in the Latin American region this month, with its index advancing to 72.9 from 65.5 in September. Brazil, the region’s biggest economy, is unwinding stimulus measures amid a resumption of growth as the central bank tightened rules for lenders to meet reserve requirements.
Sentiment fell in Japan, where a strengthening yen against the dollar is eating into company profits just as global demand stabilizes. The gauge for Japan declined to 38.8 from 48.8, while that for Asia rose to 76.2 from 73.6.
“In Asia, the biggest threat is the weakness in the dollar, because those economies are so dependent on exports to the U.S.,” Low of FTN Financial said.
The U.S. dollar may weaken further in the next six months against the world’s most actively traded currencies, as the survey showed sentiment near an 18-month low. The trade-weighted Dollar Index has fallen 7 percent this year, and gold, which usually moves inversely to the U.S. currency, is at a record. The dollar confidence index was 31.2 from 30.8 in September.
Users in Japan are less optimistic about the yen’s appreciation against the dollar, with the index falling to 56.9 from 62.1. Respondents in western Europe are still betting the euro will strengthen against its U.S. counterpart.
Stocks Sentiment Mixed
Bloomberg users were mixed on the outlook for their equity markets in the next six months. Respondents in the U.S., Japan and Spain expect shares to decline, while those in Brazil, Mexico and Italy predict their markets will extend their advances.
New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who predicted the financial crisis, on Oct. 3 said stock and commodity markets have gone up “too much, too soon, too fast” and may drop in the coming months as the gradual pace of the recovery disappoints investors.
Survey participants in the U.S., Europe and Latin America are also more confident short-term interest rates will rise in the next six months, the survey showed.
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Wall Street in mid-session indices oscillating around parity: the Dow Jones yields 0.11%, to 9874.61 points, the Nasdaq surplus of 0.14%, to 2142.12 and the S & P 500 loses 0 , 29%, to 1073.05. Even among the titles dominated the uncertainty gives Johnson & Johnson (-2.78%), which has seen the growth in third quarter profits, but experienced a decline in sales, while among the technology is good Cisco (+1% ) after the agreement for the purchase of Starent Networks (+16.8%). Among banks, Goldman Sachs evil (-2.11%), after downgrading by the influential analyst Meredith Whitney. Among blue chips, nineteen titles rising out of thirty, to signal the lowering of bank (Bank of America -1.28% -1.66% JpMorgan) and increases in telephone (+1.09% AT & T, Verizon + 0.41%). The New York Stock Exchange the number of shares in decline is about twice that on the increase, while the trade volume is around 303.8 million shares, against 266.7 million yesterday at the same time.
European financial exchanges have closed in negative after the maximum values obtained yesterday
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Prediction is the conclusion from the AIE (International Energy Agency), the second fact that oil will reach the figure of $ 75 a barrel, especially in the demand for oil still firm announced the weakness of international markets, and For this reason much influence on the oil consumption next year. But the quantity of barrels will be unbelievable, in fact it is estimated that the number of barrels of questions will reach an average of 86.5 million barrels a day by stating the following "Even if the pace of contraction in demand is clearly on the rise , advocating a return to growth from year to year from the fourth quarter of 2009, prospects for 2010 remain shrouded in uncertainty, "in fact the export of the 11 member countries has risen from an initial 24.8 to 26.42 million barrels per day.
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Today ended the first part of the Nobel ceremony, with the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Economics. This year, as rarely happens for this award, the award was a multiple, as are the reasons.
Definitely a lot to surprise this year was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Economics to female Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University in Bloomington for the following reasons:
"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"
Its activity was Concetrate mainly on the study of common resources: in fact may be considered a supporter of a sustainable, at least read the list of his publications. It takes care of political science (a discipline in which she graduated and took a PhD) and public administration, as you may guessed from the grounds of the award.
The second prize went to Oliver Williamson of Berkeley for the following reasons:
"for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm"
Williamson's career, at least according to scientific publications, spread all around the study of economic governance, and in perfect line with the reasoning of the premium. It takes care of contracts, corporate finance, transaction costs: in the latter field has developed a set of ideas about the incomplete transactions and the company-supplier. Williamson is to be considered for studies and career, an economist pure.
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(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp plans to select an emergency chief executive officer this week if legal issues force Ken Lewis to leave before year-end, the Wall Street Journal said, citing a person familiar with the situation.
The banking company began working on its contingency plan began before Lewis announced his retirement, the person told the paper.
The person said a five-person board committee led by the bank's chairman Walter Massey, which was formed earlier this year to respond to concerns raised by U.S. banking regulators, is leading the process.
The board committee plans to submit its choice to the bank's full board for approval, the person told the paper, adding that the regulators would be approached next.
The contingency plan would then be halted until needed, the Journal said, citing the person.
Bank of America could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.
Last week, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank, created a six-member committee to find a new CEO, after Lewis announced he would leave by year-end in the wake of criticism from prosecutors, politicians and some investors.
The committee led by Massey is separate from the one that was formed last week to find a new CEO, according to the paper.
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German investor confidence in recent weeks has seen a marked improvement, given that from September there was a peak not seen for over three years to the day, what is revealed by Bloomberg on the confidence of foreign investors, the index Zev rose by 57.7% over the previous month with a value of 56.1%.
However, analysts noted that the figure is much lower than their previous forecast had predicted a rise of 60%, while for the index was started with a slope -77.2 up to -74.0, Analysts here also we have come nearly as close as the office of -67.5 compared to the latest survey carried out earlier.
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"The End Of The Dollar" is the title brought in today by the British newspaper "The Independent" that thanks to Robert Fisk (special envoy), the news organization was able to reveal a secret revealed by reliable sources, the American currency that the dollar will no longer be the center of the world economy.
Plots to have engineered all this should be the biggest oil producers, the Arab Countries, Russian, followed by China and France, which just to get rid of U.S. currency have established a new agreement to outline the new path.
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AT SHOPS in Shanghai's bustling Xinyang market, fake Apple iPhones and Bose speakers sit neatly alongside bootleg copies of Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system, a week before its official launch.
