Aj Discala reports that  François Hollande, the Socialist challenger, eked out a victory in the first round of French presidential elections on Sunday, but his slender lead over the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, delivered no clear answer about Mr. Sarkozy’s fate or the direction of a European power in an era of debt crisis, low growth and high unemployment.

Aj Discala could ready in the NY Times: “ As expected, Mr. Hollande and Mr. Sarkozy finished well ahead of eight other contenders and will now face each other in a runoff on May 6. Though opinion polls show that Mr. Hollande has a double-digit lead in the race, the showing on Sunday for far-right and centrist candidates fed hopes in Mr. Sarkozy’s camp that he could fight back and avoid becoming the first French leader in 30 years to lose office after one term.With about 33 percent of the vote counted, preliminary results released by the Interior Ministry shortly after the last poll closed at 8 p.m. showed Mr. Hollande had secured about 27.5 percent of the vote in a field of 10 candidates, while Mr. Sarkozy, of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement, had 26.6 percent.

Aj Discala shares that François Hollande was the clear favorite in the last wave of polls before this weekend’s election. Four of the last six polls published predict that Hollande will win. A fifth predicts that he will finish neck and neck with rival Nicolas Sarkozy, says Aj Discala.

For Aj Discala it was mainly a strategic vote. As the election comes down to the wire, many voters have choosen to vote for their political leanings and not necessarily their candidate.

Aj Discala explains that according to the Ipsos poll, Hollande will recuperate 80% of voters from people who actually support far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The Socialist party had serious concerns that Mélenchon, the trendy candidate who has inspired huge support from the left, would hurt Hollande’s chances at the presidency.

However, clarifies Aj Discala, only two candidates will advance from the first round of French elections to the second, but the third candidate remains an important indicator of the election climate.

For Aj Discala this election that will weigh on the future of Europe.

Aj Discala could read all over the press on Monday that Facebook bought Instagram for $1billion. However, until this weekend Aj Discala admits he did not hear about Instagram and did not know what it  was until….

……his 15 year old niece took pictures and said she was posting them on Instagram and that over the whole weekend. Insta what??? His niece explained to Aj Discala  that Facebook was outdated and that all her friends share there pictures on Instagram. What kind of pictures? Pictures of themselves, buildings, cool events etc etc etc anything a teeneager likes.

But why not just share the pictures via Facebook or twitter, Aj Discala asks her? Well, it seemed very obvious to the teenager that she wants to express her creativity and be able to play around with the pictures she takes.

So this is what Aj Discala found about what Instagram really is: Instagram is a free photo sharing application that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filterto it, and then share it on a variety of social networking services, including Instagram’s own.^[2] A distinctive feature confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroidimages, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras.

Furthermore explains Aj Discala, Instagram has now  30 million users — up from 5 million in June — and the app is the sixth-most downloaded iOS application, according to Onavo’s numbers. That means it shows up on roughly one of every 10 iPhones.

In the Washington post Aj Discala could read what the main interest of Facebook is and what makes instagram worth that money: ”

Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram is a clear sign that Facebook, at least, is taking the rapid shift to mobile platforms seriously. While the social network has one of the most popular apps on the market, the company is still centered around the desktop experience and has admitted that it’s a little concerned about its mobile strategy.

In fact, it paid out twice as much as Instagram’s last estimated value to snap up the photo start-up — possibly because it’s a purely mobile application.”

For Aj Discala there is only one thing to do, get on your phones and start publishing via Instagram!

“ The Wall Street Journal is full of good news today, says Aj Discala. The Dow closed above the milestone of 13,000 and the fears of another recession seem to have been abated. But there is still no universal feeling of optimism that leads us to believe we are entering a period of sustained growth explains Aj Discala.

For Aj Discala cash is for the most part still sitting on the sidelines waiting for more good signs, or fearful of a pullback because those signs are not really evident.

The unemployment rate is still stated to be 8.3 % but most of know that the figure may be much higher shares Aj Discala. On the good news side it appears that banks are lending more, at least according to a report released by the FDIC which also showed that the banking industry posted a $119 billion profit in 2011. Who are the banks lending to ? We still do not see any aggressive policy to help small businesses or start up companies. It is time that banks step up to the line the way we have at The Broadsmoore Group by providing investment dollars to help build companies that will be part of the nation’s future economy, said AJ Discala, CEO The Broadsmoore Group.     

The news in New York was good on Sunday evening as the New York Giants won the Super Bowl. For Aj Discala the bigger question for Wall Street after the parade is over today is: Who will be the real winners in the world economy? Clearly as we said themother day Facebook shareholders stand to benefit at least initially in the scheduled IPO that will make many very wealthy overnight, but they are minor players in today’s world economy.

Unfortunately, says AJ Discala what we are seeing in Europe is a similar scenario that we have seen here in the Unites States. Banks are reluctant to lend and as The New York Times points out today consumer focused companies have been especially hard hit.

Across Europe business from Punch Taverns in the UK to the Italian Yellow Pages have looked to restructure balance sheets and may be forced into insolvency. The sovereign debt crises makes things even worse for European borrowers

as banks await the outcome of country debt restructures in Greece, Italy and Spain explains Aj Discala.

We are encouraged at The Broadsmoore Group to see the growth in job numbers but are not certain that this country is not out of the woods yet. We still have our own debt problem to deal with and although we can provide limited capital to new companies banks must be more aggressive with businesses lending to Main Street, before we can be truly optimistic about our own future, said, Aj Discala CEO of The Broadsmoore Group.

AJ Discala reports on the news today: ”It is difficult to read the tea leaves of the future, let alone figure out the economic news of today”. Today’s New York Times reports that oil prices have fallen, thus boosting the markets. Right below that story in the paper is an article on recent labor and retail reports showing economic slippage. We all know that all prices will go up, so whatever happens today is just a temporary market occurrence.

For AJ Discala the real news is in the jobless claims and retail sales. Claims were up last week following the temporary holiday employment boost and the future in retail remains cloudy, at best.

“UNTIL WE SEE SUSTAINED EMPLOYMENT GROWTH AND CONFIDENCE IN RETAIL SALES BEYOND SIMPLY HOLIDAY SALES, IT WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO STATE THAT WE ARE ON A SOLID ROAD TO ECONOMIC RECOVERY SAYS AJ DISCALA.IF THERE IS A GROWTH IN AUTO SALES AND INVENTORIES BEGIN TO INCREASE, THEN PERHAPS BETTER DAYS ARE AHEAD. WE HAVE NOT SEEN THAT YET, AND MOREOVER IT IS CLEAR WE ARE NOT OUT OF THE WAVE OF FORECLOSURES THAT HAVE PLAGUED US NOW FOR MANY YEARS.

At The Broadsmoore Group,we will continue to monitor the economic winds and hope for a break in the clouds in 2012,” said AJ Discala, CEO of The Broadsmoore Group.