Of France and ...

Retweet this button on every post blogger So many things go inside your head when you are in france! When you look at people, and places... But that is another story!

For those of us who are so in love with the french:

"To understand Europe, you have to be a genius - or French.” Madeleine Albright.

quite debatable.

"The thing that's wrong with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur” George W. Bush

Can't ague with that! The man is the smartest Homo Sapien on the face of Earth.

“The reason French roads have trees planted down both sides is that the Germans like to march in the shade"

Now this is what I call sense of humor!!

The Dow Jones Industrial Average

Retweet this button on every post blogger The Dow Jones is a stock market index (when people say Dow Jones they mean the Dow Jones Industrial Average, DJIA, or the Dow Jones 30) consisting of the top 30 stocks of the US markets, usually referred to as the blue chips, these 30 stocks are not static, they can be changed according to some criteria put by the index founders, the financial company Dow Jones & Company founded Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. Some of these criteria are the volume traded over a specific period of time, and how many stocks held by the public.

The Dow Jones components:

3M, Alcoa, American Express, AT&T, Bank of America, Boeing, Caterpillar, Chevron Corporation, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, DuPont, ExxonMobil, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, Intel, IMB, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, Kraft Foods, McDonald's, Merck, Microsoft, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, United Technologies Corporation, Verizon Communications, Walmart, Walt Disney.

What is the importance of a stock index?

A stock index is a benchmark for investors to gauge the performance of a country’s equity market and the health of it’s economy, it can also be used to compare the Funds and Fund Managers performance and take a decision who to invest with.

Types of Indices

There are 2 types of indices; broad-based and specialised indices.

Broad-based indices represent the whole stock market performance and hence, the investor sentiment on the health of the economy. Examples of this type are, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, FTSE 100, CAC 40, and S&P 500.

Specialised indices represent the performance of one market sector such as the petrochemical sector or the financial sector. Examples of this type are, Morgan Stanley Biotech Index, and the Dow Jones Chemicals.


*For more about this topic please refer to the following links:
http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/index.cfm?event=components&symbol=DJI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market_index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average
http://www.investopedia.com

U.S. stock gain after rate cuts in see-saw action

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock indexes edged higher on Wednesday afternoon after several wild swings into positive and negative territory after the Federal Reserve axed interest rates with other central banks in an effort to stem the panic freezing the credit markets.

"It seems to be a tug of war between the bulls and the bears," said Robert Olman, president, Alpha Search Advisory Partners. "What we're really seeing is a complete lack of conviction from anyone of where the market is going."

The Fed cut its key lending rate by half a percentage point, bringing it down to 1.5%.

The European Central Bank trimmed its key refinancing rate to 3.75% from 4.25%, while the Bank of England cut its rate to 4.5% from 5%. China's central bank slashed its one-year benchmark lending and deposit interest rates, while the Bank of Japan sat out the moves but endorsed the coordinated actions. Rate cuts were also made by the Bank of Canada, the Swiss National Bank and the Swedish Riksbank.

"I was somewhat encouraged by the Fed rate cut, but it adds confidence back more to Main Street than to Wall Street," said Robert Pavlik, chief investment officer at Oaktree Asset Management.

A day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Dow Jones Industrial Average's record close of 14,164, the market is facing record losses over the past year. The Dow has dropped nearly 35% from the peak, while the market value of the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 has seen more than $7 trillion of its value wiped out

By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch

*For full story please visit http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-stocks-edge-higher-see-saw/story.aspx?guid=%7B1AE87086%2D330D%2D4E85%2D9FA7%2D505B331835C4%7D

Arab stock markets is heading south

Retweet this button on every post blogger Arab financial markets is heading south affected by the fall of the US and European markets.

The Saudi market lost almost 1.5% today hitting 6160, the biggest weekly loss since 2006, while the Egyptian CASE30 Index has lost more than 7% after loosing almost 16% yesterday, the Jordanian market has hit 3493, the lowest since December 2007. Dubai index has lost almost 8.5% and Abu Dhabi recorded a loss of 6.43% today. Muscat stock index has lost more than 514 points or 7.21%, while Doha index has recorded a 712-point loss or 8.75%.

Analysts connect this huge plunge to the credit crunch in the international markets, and see the situation getting worst if the if the US crisis persists. However, Arabic governments are still insisting that we were not affected bye the international crisis and that this is going to have a positive effect on our markets, I personally agree with that, only if they have the right agenda to deal with it.

*Photo from http://www.tickerchart.com/

Today's Dose of Wisdom: Success

Retweet this button on every post blogger Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.
Al Bernstein

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. David Brinkley

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
Dale Carnegie

Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.
Sam Ewing

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.
William Feather

Dow Jones Industrials is trading under 10,000

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Stocks tumbled on Monday, sending the Dow industrials below the 10,000 mark for the first time in nearly four years, as last week's $700 billion bailout package and government interventions in Europe over the weekend failed to soothe nervousness in global markets.

European governments didn't reach a common deal on bailouts over the weekend. Instead each country is handling the fallouts on its own, with Germany backing its retail deposits, following similar moves by Ireland and Greece. Holland nationalized the Dutch operations of Fortis, and a new 50 billion euro financing package was reached for Germany's Hypo Real Estate.

Shares in Europe saw their biggest one-day fall on record, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 index sliding 7.6%.

"With global equity markets selling off today, and the developments which followed the weekend European crisis meeting, much nervousness abounds," said Jennifer Lee, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 491 points, or 4.8%, to 9,833, after falling by nearly 600 points to a low of 9,738.

It's the first time the blue-chip index has traded below the 10,000 mark since Oct. 29, 2004.
"Psychologically, it does play a role," said Owen Fitzpatrick, head of U.S. equity at Deutsche Bank, of the Dow's drop below the key level. "But investors are not concentrating on this," he said. "The big worry of the moment remains liquidity and the economy."

Among blue-chip financial shares, Citigroup Inc. fell 9%, Bank of America dropped 5% and J.P. Morgan Chase lost 5.4%.

"We've had the passage of [the $700 billion] bailout but it will takes time for it to start getting traction," Fitzpatrick said.

"Right now, it's about stabilizing the financial system and then see how much collateral damage has been done to the economy," he said. "The clear message is that the global economy is slowing rapidly, and the magnitude of the slowdown is starting to be realized by the market."

The S&P 500 fell 58 points, or 5.3%, to 1,041 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 110 points, or almost 5.6%, to 1,837, led by a 5% decline in shares of eBay, which announced it was slashing 10% of its workforce.

Trading volumes showed 818 million shares exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, and 652 million shares trading on the Nasdaq. Declining issues topped gainers by 30 to 1 on the NYSE and by 8 to 1 on Nasdaq.

President Bush signed a $700 billion bailout package into law Friday just as the latest U.S. employment report showed 159,000 jobs lost in September.

"These really are unforgiving times and it was a case of buy the rumour, sell the fact as the S&P 500 moved from being up more than 3% as the last few necessary 'yes' TARP bill votes were being registered, to a near four-year low at the close," said Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank.

Last week, the Dow lost 7.4%, the S&P 500 fell 9.4%, and the Nasdaq lost 10.8%.

Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans both are due to speak on the U.S. economy on Monday. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is due to speak on Tuesday.