On Wednesday, Asian markets eased in low volume with many market players away for year-end holidays. On the other hand, oil kept gains from the previous day on worries about possible supply disruptions after Iran threatened to stop the flow of oil from the Gulf.

“More people want to bring their positions to neutral ahead of the new year’s holidays than look for bargain hunting, and that’s keeping prices depressed in low volumes,” said Tetsuro Ii, the president of Commons Asset Management in Tokyo.

“The only way Iran would actually close Hormuz is when it is attacked and war breaks, but such a possibility appears low as no country would want to take the risk when growth worldwide was likely to slow down,” said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory Co.

On Wednesday, Bank of America Corp’s Countrywide Financial unit agreed o pay a record $335 million to settle civil charges that it discriminated against minority homebuyers, which is an historic settlement for the Obama administration in the wake of the subprime mortgage morass.

The settlement covers conduct between 2004 and 2008 and involved a range of alleged wrongdoing, including charging African-Americans and Hispanics higher interest rates and fees than non-minorities.

“The victims had no idea they were being victimized. They were thrilled to have gotten a loan and realize the American dream,” Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, told reporters. “This is discrimination with a smile.”

On Friday, over 240 domestic and foreign firms are taking part in an international eco-friendly technology expo opened in eastern China.

The three-day event takes place in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

The three-day event in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, will also see a series of symposiums on metal and air pollution, solid waste disposal and development of the eco-friendly technology industry, Xinhuanet.com reported.

China has pledged to invest three trillion yuan ($470 billion) in environment-friendly technologies during its 12th five-year plan period (2011-2015).

The sector is believed to maintain an annual growth rate of 15 to 20 percent during the plan period, while its total output value is expected to reach 4.9 trillion yuan.

The new chief of the IT business and CEO of Wipro, T K Kurien, will get an annual salary package of up to Rs 10 crore.

According to the appointment terms of Kurien, salary is in the range of minimum of Rs 3 crore to a maximum of Rs 10 crore a year.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

Kurien’s is one of the highest salary packages in the IT industry.

According to TCS’ Annual Report 2009-10, company CEO and Managing Director S Ramadorai received Rs 3.61 crore in salary, benefits and perks and commission for the period between April 1, 2009 and October 5, 2009.

Infosys CEO and MD S Gopalakrishnan received Rs 1.01 crore during the fiscal 2009-10, says the company’’s annual report.

Kurien will get 12 months salary as severance benefits in case his services are terminated. This benefit will be calculated on the basis on the last drawn salary before the termination.

“If the company terminates the agreement, the company will communicate the same in writing to the CEO and the CEO will be eligible for severance benefits as follows: 12 months last drawn salary,” the filing said.

Salary for this purpose includes basic pay, benefits and allowances and variable pay, it added.

The package details were revealed by Wipro in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

If motivation has been one thing eluding you for one reason or the other, there is good news for you. This blog, which is a compilation of inspiring quotations by eminent personalities of the world, will surely help you see the brighter side of life.

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. – T. E. Lawrence

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. – Anais Nin

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams… Man… is above all the plaything of his memory. – Andre Breton

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. – Henry David Thoreau

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams. – Jesse Jackson

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. – Christopher Reeve

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake. – Erich Fromm

Finding a place in the list of the Forbes Global 2000 is considered as a great achievement, to say the least.

The latest list of Forbes’ ranking of the world’s biggest companies is out and this year’s list highlights the dynamism of global business.

Apple, Google, McDonald’s, and Nike were the top performers in the United States as per the list.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

Forbes’ ranking of the world’s biggest companies departs from lopsided lists based on a single metric, like sales. Instead we use an equal weighting of sales, profits, assets and market value to rank companies according to size. This year’s list reveals the dynamism of global business. The rankings span 62 countries, with the U.S. (515 members) and Japan (210 members) still dominating the list, but with a combined 33 fewer entries.

This year, the following countries gained the most ground: mainland China (113 members), India (56 members) and Canada (62 members). Even Oman and Lebanon are now Global 2000 members. Also gaining a significant presence on our list this year are corporations from Ireland, South Africa and Sweden.

In total the Global 2000 companies now account for $30 trillion in revenues, $1.4 trillion in profits, $124 trillion in assets and $31 trillion in market value. All metrics are down from last year, except for market value, which rose 61%.

An analysis of the Global 2000 shows that despite the turmoil in the financial sector, banks still dominate, with 308 companies in the 2000 lineup, thanks in large measure to their asset totals. The oil and gas industry, with 115 companies, scores high in sales, profits and stock-market value, yet these sectors were not the leaders in growth over the past year. Insurance companies (up 27%) led all sectors in sales growth, while the leaders in profit growth were drugs and biotech firms (up 20%).

The list included eminent companies such as Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch Inbev, H&M (Sweden), and Honda Motor (Japan).

When it comes to promoting the prospects of an online business, most business owners fail to realize that marketing is not just online marketing alone and offline marketing is as important as its online counterpart in promotion of a business. Read on!

If you are running an online business and promoting your business only before online customers then you are losing some great marketing opportunities. It is well know that almost 72 percent of customers are on the web but can you really afford to miss the remaining 28 percent? You surely will not want to, and this is the reason why you need to advertise online as well as offline.

In addition to promoting your business online, promote your business offline with radio and newspaper advertising. No matter how much people (read customers) prefer the web, they still find enough time to switch on the radio and read the newspaper and this is the time and options you need to take benefit from.

You will be happy to know that radio stations, nowadays, stream their programming on the web as well. This means that the medium of radio advertising can help you offline as well as online. Moreover, they help you reach the local audience (most of your customers will surely be the locals) without you putting any burden on the marketing and advertising budgets. Newspapers, on the other hand, have a mass appeal (caters to local, state, and even international audience) and newspaper advertising is one of the cheapest ways to promote your products and services.

All these benefits mean that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain when you opt for radio and newspaper advertising. Complement offline advertising with online advertising and see the difference by yourself!

If you think that search engine optimization or SEO is an easy task, it is time to think again as the backbone of every SEO campaign is the keywords upon which the campaign is based. Let us read about benefits of choosing rewarding keywords for SEO.

In today’s web-dominated world, almost every other business is either online or about to go online. You can see almost the same website themes, applications, and programs on most sites on the web. So what is the deciding factor behind success in the online world? The difference is nothing but a carefully planned and well-executed SEO campaign emphasizing upon the right keywords. Since potential customers enter keywords on search engine such as Google to find a product vendor or service provider, it is important to compile a list of repeating keywords (read unique and relevant keywords) and using them to develop content. This compilation will help an online business in attracting spiders of the search engines and eventually visitors to the site.

Now that we have understood the benefits of a SEO campaign, let us find out how to find the right keywords during a SEO campaign for a successful stint on the web. Before you start with anything, put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers to get real and inside information and preferences that will help you access the right keywords. Now it is time for analyzing the keywords results by making use of the Google Keyword tool. You can, additionally, visit your competitor’s site to capitalize on the site’s strengths and weaknesses. Once you have done that, you will come with a list of keywords and these keywords should then be used extensively (as well as intensively at times) for developing content and promoting the same on your site’s pages, article content, blog posts, newsletters, and press releases. Follow these small tips and head for nothing but success and supremacy!

The U.S. Treasury Department said on 26th May that it plans to sell another 1.5 billion of Citigroup Inc shares that it acquired during the financial crisis.

The Treasury has already completed an earlier sale of 1.5 billion shares and received gross proceeds of $6.2 billion and is left with 6.2 billion more of Citigroup shares.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

The government gave the bank $45 billion in bailout money in 2008 and 2009. Citi has paid back $20 billion in preferred shares, but another $25 billion was converted to common stock last year.

Citigroup traded for less than $1 a share during the darkest days of the financial crisis when investors were worried about its survival. On Wednesday, the stock closed up 2 percent at $3.86 on the New York Stock Exchange.

A Citi spokesman said the company was pleased Treasury was making significant progress in profitably selling its shares.

Treasury once again named Morgan Stanley its sales agent. Morgan Stanley will have discretionary authority to sell the additional 1.5 billion shares under certain undisclosed parameters.

Because of a blackout period ahead of Citigroup’s second-quarter earnings release, Treasury said it would end the program on June 30, even if it has not yet sold all 1.5 billion Citigroup shares.

The Treasury acquired 7.7 billion of Citigroup shares last year at $3.25 per share.

As a business owner or marketing executive, you must have already heard so much about online presence that you feel that the whole concept is overstated. But you need to think twice.

Just like success has no exceptions, online presence has none. Moreover, success and online presence cannot be ever overstated.

No business operating in today’s competitive business environment can have enough of online presence as competitors are more than eagerly waiting to be the leader and not the second.

Moreover, a business not opting for online presence may find it that some one else has been maintaining an online presence using its name (intentionally or unintentionally) and that is not at all strange on the Web. For example – If you are running a business with a name ABC Ltd. in the United States and have not opted for online presence and there is a company with the same ABC Ltd. in Asia with an online presence, your potential market may have been explored and exploited by this Asian counterpart using the same name without you even knowing about it.

Let us read about some benefits of online presence to find out if it is overstated or understated.

More than 72 percent of world’s potential customers are on the web today and just 32 percent of businesses are on the web. This means that the demand and supply of online activities is understated and often misinterpreted to say the least. Any business, small or big, can explore new markets and create a distinctive niche but the fear of losing out is something that is still holding many businesses not to shed their offline presence and opt for online presence. The fact that an online presence can help a business gain qualified leads besides retaining existing and attracting potential customers is something that is something often left behind by modern day businesses suggests that online presence is still understated and unexplored.