MONEY & MARKETS JAPAN

IBM moves

in General
IBM announced that it is going to lay off 5,000 U.S. workers and shift many of those jobs to India.
Did you know that 71% of IBM’s 400,000 employees work outside of North America? That ups from 65% in 2007.
Getting computer nerd training was a sure-fire way to a successful technology career a few years ago. Today’s nerds are competing against similarly trained, English-speaking nerds in India.
Very few jobs in America are immune from cheap foreign competition. The next time you read any Reuters or Associated Press stories, check the byline and you will find that many of the personal finance and business stories you read were written by people across the ocean.
And it is why you should keep an eye on Indian technology outsource companies like Infosys (INFY: 35.28 0.00 0.00%).

Business crashes at Taiwan chip testing company
by Tony Sagami on March 26, 2009
in Asian Market
Taiwan-based ChipMOS, a company I visited it during my last trip to Taiwan, is a chip testing company. The last thing you want your new computer to do is not work when you take it out of the box. ChipMOS (IMOS: 0.69 0.00 0.00%) makes sure that doesn’t happen.
Business stinks though. Q4 sales dropped by 50% to $93 million from the same period in 2007 and a fell by 30% from the previous quarter.
ChipMOS reported a loss of $178.2 million compared to a loss of $26.7 million the previous quarter.
One of ChipMOS’s largest customers is Intel. Connect the dots folks.

China: Architecture in Recession
by Tony Sagami on March 26, 2009
in General, Investing in Gold Stock
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, one of the world’s largest architectural firrm and a big beneficiary of the China building boom, is laying off people because of the lack of work in China. “Six months ago we were turning down work,” says Silas Chiow, SOM’s China director, and “the next six months are going to be very, very uncomfortable.”
If SOM is right, you should connect the dots to China Architechtural Engineering (CAEI: 1.70 0.00 0.00%), the largest Chinese architectual firm.
Japan exports drop by 50% in February
by Tony Sagami on March 25, 2009
in General
Japan just won the World Baseball Classic yesterday but its exporting companies are conquering anything.
The Japanese Finance Ministry reported that exports shrunk by 49.4% in in February from the previous year. That is, by the way, the biggest drop in two decades.
That puts Japan on course for its worst depression since WWII.
By the way, the biggest drop in exports was to the U.S. and that should tell you something about the U.S. economy.