Unemployment rate worried traders

As per ADP National Employment report, employment fell by 298000 in August following a loss of 360000 in July. It is much less than the number of losses in since last September 2008, but more than expected by the analysts.

This report on unemployment gave investors another reason to worry about what is widely seen as the biggest problem facing the current economy. Unemployment mostly hit consumer market. People are restricted themselves for consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of U.S economic activity. It will be a real trouble in pulling the economy out of the longest recession after World War II, without getting much help from consumers.

"Until Friday's data comes, no one is really making any big bets," said Neil Massa, senior trader at MFC Global Investment Management. "A little profit-taking looks healthy at this point."getting much help from consumers.

Investors fear to take risk for the reason that a weak job market can effect in pulling up the economy and hit the stock market. For every two stocks, three fell.

The Dow fell 29.93, S&P index fell 3.29, while the Nasdaq fell 1.82. Bond price get a rise. Other smaller companies fell 2.23.

India's sensex up 14%: highest in 17 years

The BSE Sensex climbed for third week, after ruling party won general election. Sensex soared 14 percent, which is the best weekly record since March 1992.

At the start of the week, when the market was suddenly climbed more than 17 percent, few experts believe that the market is overbought, but the scenario was different. The BSE index has gone up for eleven weeks in a row, and has climbed 73 percent from the low market of 2009 March.

India's second- largest bank, ICICI Bank Ltd and India's biggest producer, Tata Steel Ltd, gone high more than 20 percent. Mitsubishi Corp. Japanese trading house, climbed 3.7 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index jumped to 99.35 (2.1 percent up). Asian markets have brought in order 41 percent since it dropped very low in March.

"Markets are euphoric,” said Rahul Chadha, the Hong Kong- based head of Indian equities at Mirae Asset Global Investment, with $46 billion in global equities."

"Valuations have become high, but people are buying because they may be left out otherwise," D.D. Sharma, vice president at Anand Rathi Securities, said.


It's a freedom for Asian shares after a drop on Wall Street on fears the US, could lose AAA rating. European shares are up now after more than 2 percent fall in last session.

Toyota cuts dividend for first time in last 14 years

The world's biggest automaker, Toyota Motors Corp, announced a loss of $8.6 billion as a result of low sales. TM files a loss of $6.9 billion for Jan-Mar fourth quarter and cuts it's annual dividend. It's the first time that Toyota cuts annual dividend since at least 1994.

The economic market downturn lowers the demand of cars, which pushed Chrysler, an U.S rival to file bankruptcy and hit Toyota badly. It's first-ever operating loss filed by this Japanese giant after a record profit the year before.

Toyota expected its sales to fall around 14% to ¥6.5 billion globally in 2009/10. For capital spending ¥830 billion is reported, which ¥1.3 trillion a year was before. Whereas, Honda Motors Co. (HMC), a domestic rival announced profit with small margin. This is because of their healthy business for motorcycle.

But many other are in the same situation as Toyota is in. General Motors Corp. reported a loss of $6 billion for the first-quarter.

Toyota said that for this financial year, it wants to cut 10% of the fixed cost or approx $5 billion. This will be done by salary cut, work-sharing and other measure. It also plans to cut down the capital spending.

It cuts its annual dividend from ¥140 to ¥100.

Dividend stock--- low risk investment in stock market

Dividend is a payment made by the company to the share holders. When a company earns more profit, they can either re-invest that in business or distribute it among the shares holder as dividend. It can be either or both. Means, a corporation can re-invest half of the profit in business and distribute the other half. The dividend offer by company is usually paid out quarterly.

There are different forms of dividend payment.

Cash: In this case you will receive a check for your dividend amount form the company.

Stock: Here you won't get cash, but get additional stock shares as per your dividend amount.

When you get dividend in cash, it's taxable, but in the case of stock tax is charged only if it get sold.

There must be a declaration date on which the Board of Directors announces dividend. On this day, the Board will also announce the dividend's size, ex-dividend date and payment date. Once the dividend is declared, the company is legally liable to pay it. The declaration date in U.S. is on the third Friday of the listed month, however it may fall on Thursday, in case there is a holiday on Friday.

As a beginner we should look for the stocks with minimal risk of dividend cuts and other negative factors with high probability of dividend getting increased. Always looks for stocks which has more than 3 percent dividend yeild and also look for the companies with low-debt.

If you are looking for a low risk investment in dividend stock, check the companies record for last 5 years if they are paying dividend every year. Also pay attention to companies earnings growth.

Investing in shares

If you are planning to invest in share market, you need to have a proper planning and strategy, so that you can make profit. As a beginner you may lose some funds, but make sure that you don't lose much. So the first thing I'd personally suggest is to keep watch on stock market for few days so that you can judge for a profitable share. Check the ups and downs in the face value of shares for different companies. You can also invest on dividend stocks.

Dividend stocks are those which pay a yearly dividend apart from profit that you make by selling. Generally, on holding a share, you can advantage from profit of the company and dividend. Dividend is a part of a profit distributed by the company. Say a company distributed 50% of the profit as dividend. So if the profit of a company is 1 crore in 2006-2007, Rs 50 lakh will be distributed as dividend and will be divided by the number of shares that the company has.

Now the question is how will you start buying shares? There are two ways to purchase share.

1. Using a brokerage: The is a most common method of buying share by using a brokerage.

2. DRIPs & DIPs: Dividend reinvestment plans or direct investment plans are plan by which Individual companies allow shareholders to purchase share directly from their company. Its a great way to invest a small amount of money.

Now you can go ahead to check stock market status and plan to invest in shares.