Una tormenta de granizo de sólo dos minutos provoca daños en huertas, viñedos y casas

"Granizo sobre Valdeorras"

*

Sucedió de madrugada rompiendo racimos de uvas y destrozando los canalones de algunos edificios

La tormenta registrada en la madrugada del lunes causó serios daños en la comarca. Afectó a huertas y viñas, rompió canalones y provocó cortes de luz. “Eran como huevos”, comentaba un vecino de A Rúa aludiendo al tamaño del granizo.

Un fuerte estruendo despertó a los valdeorreses a las cinco de la madrugada del lunes 23 de junio. Fue provocado por grandes piedras de granizo, al golpear contra coches y cubiertas. “Eran como huevos”, comentaba un rues, quien reconocía haberse levantado para comprobar que al vehículo que había estacionado en la calle no le había pasado nada.

La granizada afectó fundamentalmente al centro de la comarca, desde Larouco hasta O Barco. Aunque la piedra fue de gran tamaño -“fueron como cubitos de hielo”, explicaba un barquense-, la poca intensidad y su escasa duración -apenas superó los dos minutos-, evitó que los daños fuesen mayores.

El tamaño del granizo dejó constancia en las huertas. Una vecina de Vilela (A Rúa), Pilar Quiroga, mostraba los agujeros ocasionados en sus lechugas o calabacines. También las casas sufrieron las consecuencias del pedrisco. Sobre todo, aquellas que cuentan con canalones de PVC, en los cuales provocó numerosas roturas. Además, sobre la calle pudieron verse losas de pizarra caídas desde los tejados.

En Vilamartín, el tejado de “Talleres Núñez” -empresa dedicada a la reparación de coches y camiones-, estaba siendo reparado cuando se produjo la granizada. Ayer podían verse los agujeros ocasionados por la piedra en el falso techo, dejando ciertas zonas como coladores. Agujeros de unos cinco centímetros de diámetros permitían el paso de la luz exterior.

Mientras, en determinados puntos de O Barco, los vecinos se quejaban de los cortes de fluido eléctrico, al parecer provocados por los desperfectos ocasionados en los transformadores.

Pero quizás los más preocupados por la granizada fueron los bodegueros. Las viñas también acusaron los efectos de la piedra, aunque la baja intensidad y el acompañamiento de la lluvia aminoraron unos daños que podrían haber sido catastróficos, según explicó Ricardo Dobao, ingeniero técnico agrícola de la bodega ruesa A Coroa.

El temporal tiró por el suelo y agujereó un buen número de hojas y algún que otro racimo en zonas muy concretas de sus viñedos. En estos mismos puntos, algunas uvas mostraban el color oscuro provocado por los golpes del granizo.

La primera tarea que acometieron los técnicos de las bodegas de la Denominación de Orixe Valdeorras durante la mañana fue visitar los viñedos para comprobar los efectos del granizo. Muchos de ellos aún habrá que esperar algunas horas para que se pueda apreciar si las plantas se resienten de la piedra.

Una primavera de pérdidas

La tormenta coincidió con la valoración que Unións Agrarias realizó de los daños derivados de las lluvias y de las variaciones de temperaturas de la primavera. Las cifran en un 30 % para los cultivos hortícolas y para la patata y de un 40% para el sector vitivinícola. Según sus estimaciones, las pérdidas en Galicia suponen 26 millones, correspondiendo 13,44 millones a las denominaciones de origen.

VIÑEDOS

Los técnicos atribuyen al retraso en la floración y a la proliferación de hongos las pérdidas en los viñedos.El descenso en la producción de uva en Valdeorras supondrá 582.448 euros.Este mismo dato fue cuantificado en 1.868.731 euros, en el Ribeiro; 234.671 para Monterrei y 1.998.221 en la Ribeira Sacra.

Fuente: La Region

Any source

Has rural development money been wasted?

This is the question posed by Professor Harald von Witzke, Chair for International Agricultural Trade and Development at Berlin's Humboldt University, in the latest of the Agra Focus series of interviews on the future of agricultural policy.

He argues that a lot of white elephants are being financed with 2nd pillar money because there is more money available than good projects. In particular, some job creation projects are not creating the jobs.

He considers that it would be better to shift money into research and development than rural development policy. Of the increase in production between 1961 and 2000, only 22 per cent was due to an increase in land area. The remaining 78 per cent was due to improvements in yields. That is why increasing productivity remains the key.

He points out that the justification for direct payments to farmers keeps shifting. Initially, he thought they were made in order to compensate farmers for quality regulations they have to observe that competitors outside the EU don't have to observe and that they are being compensated for the production of public goods.

However, he had not seen any analysis that suggested that the amount of public goods and the competitive disadvantage for farmers is as high as €400 a hectare. Farm payments should be reduced to a reasonable level that reflected the public goods being produced by agriculture and represent some compensation for the competitive disadvantage for quality regulations in the EU.Any source

How To Interpret Ratios?

Sharpe Ratio:
Sharpe ratio gives a single value to be used for the performance ranking of various funds or portfolios . It measurse the risk premium of the portfolio relative to the total amount of risk in the portfolio. This risk premium is the difference between the portfolio's average rate of return and the riskless rate of return.

Formula	Rp- Irf
	SDp

where; Rp stands for return on portfolio;
Irf means Risk free rate of return which in India is considered either to be the bond rate or 181 days treasury bill.
SDp: Standard deviation of portfolio.Which is the total risk.

The advantage of sharpe ratio is that it assigns highest values to assets that have best risk adjusted average rate of return. It is also known as reward to volatility ratio.
Example: A company is considering the ranking of two industries based in India

Industry	Expected Return	Standard Deviation
FMCG	18%	2
Banking	12%	1.5

Risk free rate of return is 7%. and return on market portfolio is 16%.
Rank both these industries.

Putting the above mentioned formula we get

FMCG:	Rp- Irf
	SDp

we get (18-7)/2=5.5%
Similarly we get 3.33% for banking.
So FMCG industry is better because the return on risk taken is higher in comparison to Banking.

The greater the portfolio’s sharpe ratio, the better is the risk adjusted performance. In Simple terms, Sharpe Ratio indicates the clear difference between the portfolios created by two different funds. For eg. If XYZ Fund has given 50% returns in 1 year & has a Sharpe Ratio of 1 & there is another fund ABC which has given 35% return over the same period with a Sharpe ratio of 2, then on the basis of Sharpe ratio, ABC fund is a better choice as it comes with a lesser risk but higher risk adjusted performance.

Expense ratio:
It measures expenses incurred by the investment company to operate mutual funds. The costs of owning a fund are called the expense ratio. This is distinct from the costs of buying a fund, which are the sales loads. The expense ratio represents the percentage of funds assets that go purely towards the expense of running the fund. The expense ratio covers the fees paid to fund manger, costs incurred in record keeping, custodial services, taxes, legal expenses, audit fees, accounting fees.It is also known as management expense ratio.Operating expense includes the fees paid to fund manager, costs incurred in record keeping; custodial services , taxes, legal expenses, audit fees.accounting fees

Alpha:
Alpha takes the volatility in price of a mutual fund and compares its risk adjusted performance to a benchmark index. The excess return of the fund relative to the returns of benchmark index is a fund’s ALPHA.
It is calculated as a return which is earned in excess of the return generated by CAPM.
Alpha is often considered to represent the value that a portfolio manager adds to or subtracts from a fund's return.
A positive alpha of 1.0 means the fund has outperformed its benchmark index by 1%. Correspondingly, a similar negative alpha would indicate an underperformance of 1%.
If a CAPM analysis estimates that a portfolio should earn 35% return based on the risk of the portfolio but the portfolio actually earns 40%, the portfolio's alpha would be 5%. This 5% is the excess return over what was predicted in the CAPM model. This 5% is ALPHA.

Beta:
Beta measures the sensitivity of the stock to the market. For example if beta=1.5; it means the stock price will change by 1.5% for every 1% change in sensex.
It is also used to measure the systematic risk. Systematic risk means risks which are external to the organisation like competition, government policies. They are non-diversifiable risks. Beta of the market is always 1. The best index fund will have beta value equal to the market namely 1.

If beta>1 then aggressive stocks
If beta<1 then defensive stocks
If beta=1 then neutral

Price to Earnings ratio:

Popularly known as P\E Ratio.

It shows how much an investor is willing to pay for every Rupee earned by the company. A P\E ratio of a stock is 14, it means an investor is willing to pay Rs.14/- for every
Re 1/- earnings by the company. It also tells lot about the future growth/ earnings of the stock.

Formula:=	Market price per share =P\E ratio.
	Earnings Per share

Eg: Consider the share price of reliance(RIL) to be Rs.500/-;Earnings of the company be RS.500000/- and number of outstanding shares be 5000

Where EPS=	Rs500000= Rs100/-
	5000

Then P\E=	500 = 5.
	100

Conclusion: an investor is willing to pay Rs 5/- for every rupee company would be earning in future.

Important point: If the P\E of two stocks A & B is:
A 20
B 10

It does not mean that stock A is overvalued and stock B is undervalued. It just means that the investors have more confidence in the growth story of stock A rather than stock B.

However, the P/E ratio doesn't tell us the whole story by itself. It's usually more useful to compare the P/E ratios of one company to other companies in the same industry, to the market in general or against the company's own historical P/E. It would not be useful for investors using the P/E ratio as a basis for their investment to compare the P/E of a technology company to a consumer goods company as each industry has much different growth prospects.

The biggest drawback in case of P\E valuation is that the Earnings in the denominator is an accounting concept which is prone to manipulation by the company.

Price-to-Book Ratio:
A ratio used to compare a stock's market value to its book value. It is calculated by dividing the current closing price of the stock by the latest quarter's book value per share.
It measures how aggressively the market values the firm.
A lower P/B ratio could mean that the stock is undervalued. However, it could also mean that something is fundamentally wrong with the company.

Price –To-Sales Ratio:
It is a ratio which is used to value start-up firms, since they do not have profit to show so sales is considered. Price to sales is calculated by dividing a stock's current price by its revenue per share for the trailing 12 months
A low P/S ratio is better since the investor would be paying less for each unit of sales

Price Earnings to Growth ratio:
Commonly known as PEG ratio.
It measures the value of the firm while taking into account the earnings growth.

PEG Ratio = Price earnings ratio
Annual EPS Growth

Investors prefer to use PEG ratio to value the firm instead of P/E ratio because PEG takes into consideration the factor called growth.

A lower PEG means that the stock is undervalued.

Keep in mind that the numbers used are projected and, therefore, can be less accurate. Also, there are many variations using earnings from different time periods (i.e. one year vs five year). Be sure to know the exact method your source is using.

Regards
Praveen Kumar
www.laymansfinance.blogspot.com

Any source

Canvis a la vista

Després d’uns dies ben estiuencs, amb temperatures a la nostra vila properes als 30ºC, tot sembla indicar que cap a final de setmana ens visitarà una àrea d’inestabilitat que podria deixar ruixats a la nostra vila de cara a la tarda. Encara queden dies i s’haurà d’anar seguint ja que es podria presentar una situació de tempestes intenses i amb fenòmens severs.

Tanmateix, demà dimarts tindrem un dia una mica variable, tot i que difícilment arribarà a ploure a Tossa. No obstant, cap a la meitat oest i interior de Catalunya es podrien registrar tempestes, localment intenses degut al pas d’una petita bossa freda en alçada.

En aquest models d’Energia Convectiva Potencialment Disponible (CAPE), podem veure com arriba de cara a divendres a valors superiors als 1500 J/Kg. És a dir, tindrem una disponibilitat d’energia a l’ambient bastant importants per permetre el desenvolupament de moviments verticals en el seu interior que sumat a les bones condicions d’humitat afavorirà la formació de nuclis convectius importants.
Tanmateix, trobem l’índex LI (Lifted Index) de fins a -6, un valor tan negatiu que es tradueix en fenòmens molts severs i extrems (a partir d’aquest valor es donen els fenòmens tornàdics). Aquest valor LI té en compte la temperatura i humitat a 950 hPa i 500 hPa, i quan els valors són negatius significa que tenim inestabilitat i que les corrents ascendents seran més fortes i permetran el desenvolupament de grans tempestes.

El model GFS de precipitació, ja ens indica la presència de precipitacions a la meitat nord de Catalunya, especialment al nord-est, podrien ser importants.

Any source

Faster search for Nokia smartphones now available in eight international flavours

Posted by Paul Hadfield, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

Back in February we announced a new search shortcut for Nokia smartphones. We've been really pleased with the uptake and with the very positive reaction it's received from the Symbian community. Even though we launched it in the US, we saw some very interesting usage patterns -- people all around the world were downloading and using it.

Of course, Symbian phones are popular almost everywhere. So we're now releasing an international version of the search shortcut for those of you in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia and the UK. Nokia smartphone owners in these countries can now enjoy 40% faster search and get Google search results from their own country.
It's a free download. Just add it to your phone now by going to the URL for your country using the phone's browser and then choosing the download link for Search. The download and installation should only take a minute or so and you'll be good to go. Happy searching!
Any source

Quotazioni a portata di clic

Scritto da: Christian Pezzin, Consumer Operations Strategist

Vi siete mai chiesti come sta andando un certo titolo azionario in Borsa? E magari non sapevate come ottenere questa informazione al volo? Da oggi è possibile direttamente dalla home page di Google.

Abbiamo infatti lanciato una nuova funzionalità nel nostro motore di ricerca, che vi permette di ottenere delle informazioni utili sui titoli di borsa e il loro andamento, semplicemente inserendo delle parole chiave opportune.

Un esempio? Una volta collegati a www.google.it, provate a cercare il nome del titolo e "azione", senza le doppie virgolette... e... magia! Ecco un breve box informativo che mostra l'andamento del titolo di borsa cercato, insieme ad una serie di link utili ad approfondire il discorso, in cima ai risultati di ricerca.

Bene. Non ci resta che augurare buona ricerca a tutti!Any source

Segunda noche tropical del año

Hoy se ha registrado la segunda noche tropical del año, aunque ha sido casi al límite entre lo tropical y lo no tropical, ha sido de 20,1ºC. Y es que a pesar del continuo viento de levante la temperatura máxima del día de ayer fue de 32,6ºC con lo que al termómetro le ha costado reponerse. Vamos a ver como ha ido evolucionando la temperatura a lo largo de la noche:

A las 0:33 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 23,5ºC
A las 0:58 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 23,3ºC
A las 1:34 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 23,0ºC
A las 1:59 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 22,6ºC
A las 2:29 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 21,4ºC
A las 2:59 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 21,2ºC
A las 3:29 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 21,0ºC
A las 3:59 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 21,0ºC
A las 4:29 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 20,6ºC
A las 4:59 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 20,7ºC
...
A las 6:35 horas, la temperatura ha sido de 20,1ºC --> Momento en el que se ha registrado la mínima tropical.

Tras ver esta lista, podemos decir que la temperatura ha bajado muy lentamente con zonas de estancamiento térmico. Además el viento de poniente ha aparecido en intervalos cortos de tiempo durante la noche, que ha podido estancar o subir la tempetratura cuando este soplaba.

No es de extrañar que en los próximos días tengamos varias noches tropicales seguidas debido a que las temperaturas máximas que se van a registrar van a ser muy altas, sobretodo mañana. Cuidado que mañana podemos alcanzar valores muy cercanos a los 40ºC.Any source