Conglomerates

Thanks to the Government of India and Finance Minister of India for backing the interest of Indian companies through various stimulus packages. Now the impact of the economic slowdown is almost over and software, banking, finance and other companies aim to give the benefit to its employees in form of bonus.

Warren Buffett, the world's greatest investor, recently released his 2010 letter to shareholders. Here are 5 points of wisdom that investors can learn from it.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the U.S. retailing behemoth which under-cuts all of its competitors with its made-in-China merchandise, has declared “war” on other U.S. retailers – a “price war”, to be exact.

Capmark has just filed for bankruptcy and can now exercise its right to sell its assets to Berkadia (JV b/w Leucadia and Berkshire Hathaway) that it earned by paying $40 million. Can Leucadia profit from Capmark's bankruptcy?

An in depth look at GE's current valuation using two valuation methodologies - discounted cash flow and public comps. We determine through two methods that GE's stock currently implies a valuation which allows you to buy growth in its core businesses as well as any value in the capital finance segment for free.

S&P downgraded GE from AAA to AA+ today. Moody’s has not followed suit yet, but likely will soon. The uncertainty surrounding a dividend cut and ratings downgrade have caused investors to flee from GE stock over the last month and brought to lows not seen since 1991.

GE the world’s biggest nonbank finance company is seeing their fare share of problems. Profits are faltering forcing the company last week to reduce its dividend by two-thirds. The question that is being discussed is if G.E. will retain its triple-A credit rating. GEs finance arm has brought on tremendous damage to it’s shareholders. Since the beginning of last year, G.E.

Finally GE has accepted the reality of its situation and joined the chorus of companies that are cutting dividends. GE needs the capital to shore up its balance sheet largely because of the toxic assets held by GE Capital.

The question is will AIG survive? AIG has basically two terrible choices, they can sell prized assets to their competitors or they can
give a large portion of their business to the US Govt. AIG is faced with huge losses. The US government is trying to keep the giant

The hits just keep on coming for Textron, as they announced today that they will be slashing their dividend by 91 percent. As we explain, there is a big difference between a company appearing undervalued and a stock that is a good investment...this is a great example of the difference.

Mad Money's Jim Cramer spent a lot of time praising Honeywell last night. Aerospace has not been a favorite of his in recent months, but Honeywell and their management are doing the things to keep this company triving in these difficult times.

GE got a lift today from speculation that the company may slash its dividend in the coming year. While this is normally bad news for most stocks, for GE it isn't unexpected and may help the company shore up its AAA credit rating. Thist breaks a streak of 32 years of increasing dividends but is undoubtedly in the best interest of shareholders.

During these turbulent economic times, companies with strong balance sheets should look to gain market share and boost long term revenue by acquiring smaller competitors at discounted prices. Nike

Walmart was not immune to the economic downturn as so many analysts had predicted. Walmart saw its same store sales increase by 1.7% last month. Good news

For years Kmart has struggled to compete against discount retailers Walmart, Costco and Target. It seems that Kmart can’t find the right niche to compete with the larger retailers.