This year, Debt Freedom Day fell on 20^th February – which is both good news and bad news. On the one hand, it’s startling to think that the ‘average’ person needs to work 50 days of the year just to pay off the interest on their credit card and personal loan debt, but on the other hand, that’s a lot better than the figure we saw last year – or the year before, for that matter.

In 2010, Debt Freedom Day, the day of the year when the ‘average’ person will have earned enough to pay for the interest charged on their debt, actually came over a month earlier than it did last year.

• In 2007, Debt Freedom Day fell on 1^st February, meaning people were spending around a twelfth of their income on servicing their debts.
• In 2008, it was on 10^th March, which meant that debt interest was taking up around one in every five Pounds people earned.
• Last year, it didn’t come until 25^th March. We were approaching the point at which interest would take up one in every four Pounds earned.

So this year does, at least, mark a turn-around. It was the first time in three years in which Debt Freedom Day came earlier, not later, than it did the year before. When Debt Freedom Day comes 50 days into the year, that means we’re spending around one Pound on our debt interest for every seven we earn. Hardly an encouraging figure, but at least the trend is moving the right way.

Last year, something very unusual happened. The British public actually repaid more unsecured debt than they took on. At the start of 2009, according to official Bank of England figures, we collectively owed £233.216 billion, but by the end of the year, that figure had dropped to £226.458 billion. That’s a fall of £6.758 billion, which means we repaid, on average, £563 million more than we borrowed every month.

You might think that would be normal in a credit crunch or a recession, but look at 2008’s figures. On average, people collectively borrowed almost £1 billion more than they repaid during every month in 2008.

As Karen Barrett, Chief Executive of Unbiased.co.uk, said: “It may come as a shock that Debt Freedom Day actually only marks the day when we have paid off the interest on our debts, rather than the actual debt itself! Debts can quickly mount up to a considerable sum and this date demonstrates that debt is something that we need to take control of and actively manage.”

The latest ‘Trends in Lending’ report from the Bank of England (January 2010) states that: ‘Availability of consumer credit was reported by lenders to have tightened further. And although consumers’ expectations for unemployment have fallen, consumer credit demand was expected to remain subdued.’

In other words, lenders are still feeling quite ‘risk averse’ – quite wary of lending to people when there’s any doubt they’ll get their money back. At the same time, borrowers themselves are very cautious about carrying debt. They’re not sure what the future holds, so they’re keen to improve their financial situation – and reducing their debt levels is a great way of doing that.

Taking example of 1929 Stock Market Crash, the market initially shooted up from the period of 1920 to 1928-29 and then crashed in a big way in 1929 , October 24, 1929. On that day, nearly 13 millionshares of stock were traded. It was a record number of stock trades for the U.S. and marked the end of an upward trend on stock prices. Stock markets kept on falling with short recoveries , these short time upside were unable to sustain the selling pressure, markets recovered after 1954, this is one of the greatest stock market crash ever.

This lead to depression and collapse in the economy, some of the effects were
Losses to factories which over produced goods, as demand dropped and supply increased.
Farmers planted more crops but were unable to sell due to lower demand then earlier, prices went down and they went into huge losses. Later some measures were taken to help farmers. From inflation the market turned to deflation state due to the crisis situation.

Safest investment at this time would be us saving bonds, as these are government securities, and they would be in position to even print new notes and return the funds assured to people buying these bonds, 100% guranteed by the government.

Stock Markets worldwide have pick up this week, its been steady upwards movement for stocks , volumes have picked up , looking forward to a bull market trend for times ahead. 

USA Markets were up dow jones closed week at 8574 points 

Brazil’s index bovespa crossed 52,000 points mark

Europe :

• FTSE : 4462 points
• DAX : 4913 points
• CAC : 3312 points

Asian Stock Markets

• Hang Seng : 17400 points
• NSE stock market india : 12,000 points above
• Straits TImes : 2238 points

Commodities

• Gold made a intra day high of $925
• Crude Oil Made a high of $58 for 1st time in last 6 months

Start of month of  May has been really good for finances worldwide, looking forward to stable times ahead with markets.

Dow jones index nearing to 8000 levels after falling heavily almost 300 points, it came back to positive closing up by 127 points , Current close is at 7969.
Staying above 8000 will be challenging, after the recent high of 8150 it made a low of 7791 which shows trading range of about 400 points. The market is slowly coming out of the bear phase, yet there will be lot of resistance in market as selling on top levels will come across by lot of people stuck up at higher levels, also chances of temperary fresh short positions being built, market has covered lot of ground since its earlier lows of 6440, about 1750 points.

Looking forward to todays trading, must watch as

• News regarding freddie mac official who is found dead. 
• At & T Quarter 1 earnings have dropped by 9.7%
• Volkswagen AG (Germany) , europes largest car manufacturer of germany declares lower profits by 74% compared to last year figures.
• Losses Posted by Quantinental Airlines
• Boeing the largest aircraft manufacturer says its 1st quarter profit declined by 50% , due to global recession orders dropped during this period.

Nicholas Cosmo recently carried out a $380 million Ponzi scheme, and a class action law suit has been brought up against Bank of America for helping Cosmo make this happen. They claim that Bank of America set up a Long Island office that helped create these false bank accounts in Cosmo’s scheme.

Bank of America had established a branch in Mr. Cosmo’s firm, Agape Merchant Advance. The suit claims that Bank of America in effect helped Cosmo’s scheme which caused investors to search out for the best CD rates for their money to keep it safe.

The suit claims that Bank of America played a key role in the the whole scheme and that it wouldn’t have been possible without Bank of America.

Mr. Cosmo promised his investors a 48-80% return per year, which should have signaled illegal activity right away. Mr. Cosmo surrendered to authorities earlier this month.

Bank of America, which is known for offering the best credit cards has yet to release a statement about the case.

Wal Mart stores 3rd quarter results

Walmart outperforms the wallstreet, net sales for the third quarter were $97.6 billion, higher by 7.5 percent from $90.8 billion a year earlier. the best pricing stratergy worked as consumers look forward to cost cutting measures and sales went up. Profits were at $3.14 billion, or 80 cents per share, in the quarter ended Oct. 31. That’s up from $2.86 billion, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.  Walmart has projected modest growth for future considering the global slowdown effects which is considerable.