The complete list of Italian ADRs traded in the U.S. is listed below:

The complete list of Japanese ADRs traded in the U.S. is listed below:

The complete list of Taiwan ADRs traded in the U.S. is listed below:

The complete list of Danish ADRs traded in the U.S. is listed below:

The US Broad Dividend Achievers Index published by Mergent consists of 283 well established companies with consistent dividend payments in various sectors. Many of the financial stocks that performed poorly last year were eliminated from the index back in January during the annual reconstitution of the index. Currently 32 banks are represented in this index under the state commercial banks category.

Dividend Achievers share the following criteria:

It is common knowledge that foreigners own many of the assets in the U.S. This is true especially with financial assets where China and Japan hold some of the largest chunks of U.S. treasuries. But what about direct investments? Do foreign companies invest more in the U.S than U.S. Multi-National Companies (MNCs) invest abroad? This article presents some analysis on this subject.

According to the “Direct Investment Positions for 2008" report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA):

The Complete List of Greek ADRs traded in the U.S. organized exchanges are listed below:

The outstanding US public debt is over $11 Trillion and the interest payments alone total over $22B per month. The unemployment rate reached 10.2% in October. The number of unemployed persons now stands at 15.7 million. The true unofficial unemployment rate is over 17%. While the federal government and the states have taken various cost cutting initiatives in the past few months, one question that the mainstream media, think tanks and other outlets failed to ask the politicians is this: Should we drastically cut the bloated military budget to help solve some of the economic problems facing this country? There should no sacred cows when it comes to finding ways to reduce the ballooning deficit.

US defense expenditures have been soaring since the 2001 9/11 terrorist attacks. In 2008, the US spent $711B accounting for 48% of the world’s defense expenditures as the chart shows below. Russia, the former superpower spent just $70B. Europe accounted for 20% of global defense spending. The US defense spending was more than the combined total of the next 45 countries.

The complete list of Spanish ADRs traded in the U.S. is listed below:

click to enlarge

Investors looking for consistent dividend-paying foreign stocks are attracted to Canadian equities. There are many Canada-based companies that pay decent dividends and have excellent dividend growth rates too.

In order to identify some of the high dividend growth Canadian stocks, we shall use the Canadian High Yield Dividend Growth 30 Portfolio Index created by Mergent, the creator of the Dividend Achievers family of indices.

The UK has the largest number of companies listed in the US markets after Canada. Among the many British ADRs, some stocks are good picks for dividend income. To select the British ADRs that are excellent dividend payers, I used The International Dividend Achievers Index.

Mergent created The International Dividend Achievers Index to track the performance of solid companies with increasing dividend payments. The components of this index have the following characteristics:

The top 10 Canadian banks based on assets held as of Dec. 2008 are listed below:

Source: BankScope

The complete list of Korean ADRs traded in the U.S. is listed below:

The complete list of sponsored Hong Kong ADRs traded on the U.S. organized exchanges is listed below:

Hutchison Telecommunications International (HTX) is a holding company that provides fixed and mobile telcom services in Hong Kong and many other countries in Asia. YTD the stock is down 25%.

After the credit crisis last year, China is increasingly focusing more on developing markets for growth. Chinese companies have been making large investments especially in developing resource-rich Middle East and Africa.

An interesting article in the Der Spiegel titled Reluctant Partners - Global Crisis Makes US More Dependent on China than Ever discusses the trade relationship between the USA and China and the rising power of China.

The AEX High Dividend Index (AEXHD) consists of 12 Dutch stocks with the highest dividend yields. The selection of stocks is based on the past calendar year's dividends. The eligibility criteria is that all these stocks must be part of the AEX Index, the main blue chip index of the Dutch stock market.

The weighting is based on the dividend yield and is capped at 15%. The inception date of this index was 3/4/2008. Last year the index was down 46%.

We reviewed China’s largest banks by 2008 assets on November 9th.Today let's take a look at some of China's most profitable banks.

China’s 10 Most Profitable Banks based on Net Income in 2008:

The complete list of Dutch ADRs traded on the U.S. exchanges is listed below:

The Chinese banking sector showed strong growth last year despite the global economic downturn. Interest rate cuts, reduced reserve requirements and the massive $585B infrastructure focused program helped Chinese banks achieve high growth. It will be interesting to see if Chinese banks are able repeat this performance in 2010.

The Top 10 Chinese Banks based on Assets held as of Dec 31, 2008 are listed below:

Healthcare is one of the few sectors in the U.S. that is creating jobs now and is projected to add more jobs in the future.

The Unemployment rate in the U.S. rose to 10.2% in October as per the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The sectors which had the largest job losses were construction, manufacturing, and retail. Another 558,000 persons joined the unemployed rolls which now stand at 15.7 million in the U.S.