China hikes trading tax three times
Mumbai: In a move aimed to pierce the stock market bubble China's finance ministry announced tripling of tax on stock trades, a New York Times report said.

Just seven days ago, the finance ministry and the State Administration of Taxation had publicly denied that they had any plans to change the tax on trading.

A composite index of yuan-denominated A shares traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen plunged 6.3 pc at the opening today, partly recovered by midmorning for a loss of 2.7 pc then slumped to post a loss of 6.3 pc again by midafternoon.

The report said that millions of citizens have invested their savings in a market that has nearly quadrupled since the start of last year. New investors, many of them with no experience in trading stocks, have been opening brokerage accounts at a pace of about 300,000 a day for the last two weeks, with a record 455,111 accounts opened on Monday.
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Dow makes record high
Mumbai: The US markets surged on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve reassured investors about the economy's health. The Dow Jones industrial average surged 112 points to 13,633. The Nasdaq moved up 21 points to 2593.
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IBM to lay off 1570 US employees
San Francisco: International Business Machines Corp. has laid off about 1,570 employees in the United States, as part of a plan to cut costs in the unit.

With this IBM has cut 3,700 jobs this year in its services unit, which accounts for about half of total revenue but whose profit lags the company's software business. Earlier this month, IBM eliminated about 1,300 jobs in the U.S. services business. The rest were cut in the first quarter.

IBM, which had 355,766 employees at the end of 2006, said on April 17 it was cutting costs in the United States amid weaker U.S. demand for its services and products in the first quarter. IBM spokesman John Bukovinsky said he did not have information showing where Wednesday's job cuts took place.

IBM, based in Armonk, New York, is trying to boost profitability in services by replacing some employees with software that can be replicated from one contract to another.
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