Diversification is a strategy to reduce a portfolio's exposure to risk by investing across different asset classes. Investments like stocks, bonds and real estate respond differently to different economic situations. So, if an asset class is not performing well, your entire portfolio is not affected. The aim of a well-diversified portfolio...

Measured by profits, Microsoft trounces Apple and Google. In the most recent three months, Microsoft earned $4.52 billion, versus Apple’s $3.25 billion and Google’s $1.8 billion. But, dear investors, where is the love for this beaten-down company? Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s vice president for corporate communications, recently...

Concluding the FTA negotiations will send a clear signal of engagement on both sides. It would boost both trade and investment between EU and India, said Daniele Smadja, head of India’s delegation to the EU New Delhi: India and the European Union (EU) are to hold a fresh series of free-trade talks in August in Brussels in a bid to clinch...

The council has already moved up the forecast for wholesale price inflation at the end of March 2011 from RBI’s 5.5% to 6.5% The Prime Minister’s economic advisory council’s candid comments on the need for monetary tightening are clearly aimed at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which will hold its quarterly review of monetary policy on...

The letdown announced on Thursday stemmed from Google’s expanding payroll and a run-up in the US dollar that has been driven by fears that the euro will crumble if governments in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy default on their perilously high debts  San Francisco: Google Inc.’s second-quarter earnings missed analysts’ target...

It's too early to say the economic crisis in Germany has passed because considerable risks to the recovery remain, the head of the Federal Labour Office, Frank-Juergen Weise, was quoted as saying on Saturday. Weise told German newspaper Rheinpfalz am Sonntag that while developments on the labour market were better than expected, he...

In efforts to play the role of a matchmaker, investment bankers are tracking some old pvt banks in the south. HDFC Bank Ltd, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd and IndusInd Bank Ltd. have set their eyes on acquisitions. The Indian banking industry may see a few mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals this year, ahead of the banking regulator...

So this is the way the quarter ends: not with a whimper but with a bang.First investors had their hair set on fire by the "flash crash" of May 6. Then came the jolt of June, as stocks lost another 5.2% and finished the month with five down days in a row. As usual, the markets made a monkey out of anyone who had been certain about what...

RNRL shareholders, including the promoters, would get Reliance Power shares worth about Rs7,150 crore, as per the current market prices New Delhi: In a mega Rs50,000-crore deal, Anil Ambani group on Sunday announced merger of RNRL with another group firm Reliance Power, which would now become a direct beneficiary of the gas deal signed...

Want to make money off India's infrastructure boom? No, you can't invest in the $11 billion fund which the government recently said it would set up to finance India's much-needed infrastructure development. That fund will be available only to large institutional investors like insurance companies, pension funds, and so on. For individuals...