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Gnite man!
http://fxstatus.com/
and when you click on home you get here:
http://www.tradingstationsupport.com/
and this is the page ..
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You will get nowhere with these bozos ... I really think they messed up bigtime. The hair on my back is rising. Do you feel a tingling in your whiskers?
I just finished seeing Borat ... he is hilarious. As soon as I exit all my trades I am closing the account. FXCM has been one disaster after another.
Now I am going to bed.
Gnite cat!
I cannot believe they are still down as of 12:12am Monday morning. Unbelieveable! All of you that have moved away from FXCM ... you did a good thing. They remain closed ALL WEEKEND ... you cannot even review you trading report during the weekend. Can you imgine I had a 20000$ standard account with these amateurs? All you new people on this board .. stay away from FXCM.
I tried numerous times today for their tech support to give me and honest answer as to why they need more than 2 days to do an "improvement" as they put it to no avail.
They must have messed up big! lol!
The signals you posted on the site are what timezone?
When you say 1:32am ... what is it? GMT? NY time?
FX NOW! USD/JPY, GBP/JPY Flows - JPY to rise further; eye BoJ vote, 6-3 or 9-0 for hike?.
February 20, 2007 11:06:00 PM
* 21 Feb 07: 04:06(SGA) - FX NOW! USD/JPY, GBP/JPY Flows - JPY to rise further; eye BoJ vote, 6-3 or 9-0 for hike?
JPY remains firm after NHK report of BoJ Governor Toshihiko Fukui proposing to BoJ policy board that interest rates be raised. Focus on the "official" BoJ announcement and the votes - which are likely to be "at least" 6-3 for interest rates hike, given the 3 members - likely to be Atsushi Mizuno, Tadao Noda, Miyako Suda who called for rate hike in January, plus BoJ Governor Toshihiko Fukui, Deputy Governors Kazumasa Iwata and Toshiro Muto. If it is an unanimous 9-0 - to see more JPY buying - and indication of BoJ "solidarity" amidst recent political pressure, and could point to another BoJ rate hike this year. USD/JPY at 119.80-83, while GBP/JPY "dived" from 235.20-30 through sub 234, having risen to highs of 235.70 on earlier spike up- Mkt seen long Cross/JPY after the earlier spike up and could be vulnerable to more unwinding of JPY carry trades.WL
What timezone are the buy signals? GMT? ET?
Hedging Radar - USDCAD Looks Primed for Range Trade
http://www.dailyfx.com/story/special_report/special_reports/Hedging_Radar___USDCAD_Looks_11714771804...
Hedging Strategy of the Week
• Currency: USD/CAD
• Entry Zone: Go both long and short at the market if the price is within the 1.1646-1.1801 range
• Profit Target: Long Target at R1: 1.1801 and Short Target at S1: 1.1646
• Protective Stop: Long Stop below S2: 1.1588 and Short Stop above R2: 1.1851
• Profit Potential: Approximately 140 pips
The USDCAD is our primary target for hedging in the week ahead, with clear range-bound trade and concrete Support and Resistance levels. To hedge, go both long and short at the market if price stays within the above Hedging Zone, take profits at R1 for longs and S1 for shorts, covering losses above R2 of 1.1851 and below S2 of 1.1588. This takes the guesswork out of timing the market, providing trading opportunities within clearly defined price floors and ceilings.
Do any of you employ a hedging technique? You make money either way but you pay twice the commission in the beginning? I read on forexfactory that a lot of money can be made doing this but you have to be careful to click the right buttons lol!
Oil-Sands Producers Vulnerable to Cap, Rubin Says (Update2)
By Ian McKinnon
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Oil-sands projects are among the most vulnerable if Canada follows the lead of some U.S. states to reduce gas emissions linked to global warming, according to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Rising output and energy-intensive extraction processes mean projects that produce oil from Alberta's tar-like deposits will be a ``prime target'' if Canada adopts a market-based cap and trading system for greenhouse gases, said Jeff Rubin, chief economist for the Toronto-based bank.
``Next to coal-fired utilities, oil-sands producers rank the highest on our vulnerability index,'' he wrote in a Feb. 12 report. ``Improvements in emission intensity have been overwhelmed by increases in daily production.''
Oil output in Canada, the biggest crude supplier to the U.S., is forecast to rise 9.1 percent this year partly on increased oil-sands production, the country's energy regulator predicted earlier this month. As much as C$125 billion ($107.3 billion) will be invested over the next decade to almost triple daily oil output from the tar sands and capitalize on high prices, the National Energy Board said last year.
Companies representing about 40 percent of the market capitalization of the Toronto Stock Exchange, such as utilities, oil producers and steelmakers, would be affected and ``the vast majority will be adversely affected'' if an emissions plan is implemented in Canada, Rubin said in the report. A call to his office today was not returned.
Northeast states including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have formed a regional group to cap and reduce emissions from some power plants beginning in 2009.
Canada May Follow U.S.
Canada will likely follow the U.S. lead, and a cap and trading program to control gases linked to acid rain resulted in the per-ton cost of emission allowances rising eight-fold since 1994, Rubin said in his report.
New technology that reduces emissions may blunt the vulnerability of oil-sands projects to any new rules, Rubin said. Producing synthetic crude from tar sands currently releases about three times as much emissions as oil produced from wells, the report said.
Pipeline companies could benefit from a carbon cap because they have reduced energy intensity 15 percent since 1990 and can pass on abatement costs to customers, the report said.
Higher Electricity Prices
Limits on carbon emissions may boost electricity costs in Canada by 2 percent to 5 percent, said Don Wharton, director of sustainable development at Calgary-based TransAlta Corp., one of Canada's largest carbon dioxide emitters because of its coal- fired plants.
``These costs are going to be material costs but they will be manageable,'' he said today in telephone interview.
Investors should look at individual companies, rather than sectors, to see how the new rules will affect profitability, Wharton said. TransAlta has invested in wind plants to get about 4 percent of its generation capacity from renewable energy sources, according to TransAlta's Web site.
On Feb. 12, Rubin recommended investors reduce their holdings in Canadian energy stocks partly on the prospect of a carbon emissions cap system in North America.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, seeking to bolster his government's popularity ahead of a possible election this year, has previously promised to unveil new targets on greenhouse gas emissions for the oil, gas and other industries by June.
Royal Bank of Canada is the Canada's largest bank, followed by Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ian McKinnon in Calgary at imckinnon1@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: February 14, 2007 16:33 EST
Oil May Drop to $30 as Investors Flee, Bernstein Says (Update2)
By Nicholas Larkin
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Oil will drop more than 30 percent to $40 a barrel in March and may drop to $30 as rising prices for storing crude lead to a `breaking point' that forces speculators to sell, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said.
Oil will slide because greater investment in commodity futures has driven the market into contango, according to analysts led by London-based Neil McMahon. The phenomenon occurs when futures prices rise above spot prices, often reflecting handling or storage costs.
``As storage fills up, storage costs rise and the contango widens,'' the analysts said in a February report. ``At some point, investors will reallocate money away from the commodity funds, causing futures prices to fall.''
Last month, New York-traded crude fell to $49.90 a barrel as warmer-than-expected weather spread across the U.S. and fuel inventories surged. Crude has since risen on a second production cut by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and a cold snap in the U.S., the world's largest energy consumer.
The ``breaking point'' could come in March if Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest producer, fails to cut production below 8 million barrels per day, the level needed to keep the market balanced, the Bernstein analysts said. Spare capacity would rise, widening the contango and driving investors out.
Crude oil for March delivery fell as much as $1.56, or 2.6 percent, today to $57.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and traded at $57.81 at 1:16 p.m.
`Staggering' Flow
``The funds flow into commodities in recent years is staggering,'' McMahon and colleagues said. Net assets invested in the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index rose to almost $70 billion in 2006 from $15 billion in 2003, they said. ``The bubble is bound to burst.''
McMahon, 36, joined Bernstein from McKinsey & Co, in 2003. He previously spent three years in geology at BP Plc and BG Group Plc.
``You've got a lot of money coming into commodities from people who want to diversify from bonds and equities,'' Bernstein analyst Ben Dell said by phone today from New York. ``To some extent the bubble has burst. Making money on commodities is not as easy as it was.''
Bernstein has been looking at the problem of passive investment since June 2006, after the market curve changed into contango in Oct. 2005, according to Dell.
Rising and Losing
``After four years of fund flow into commodity futures, investors in oil are now struggling with how to generate a return with the curve in contango and a negative roll yield,'' he said. Investors can lose money even as oil rises when funds sell expiring contracts and then pay more for future contracts.
Bernstein said Oct. 16 that oil will probably fall to an average $50 a barrel in 2007 as inventories remain high and non- OPEC production rises. Crude has averaged $55.76 so far this year.
Among analysts predicting an increase in oil prices, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says New York futures may rise to $71.50 a barrel this year because producer investment is ``significantly'' short of requirements.
The price of West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark U.S. crude, may average $69 this year, Goldman economist James Gutman said Feb. 8. The fuel reached a record $78.40 a barrel in New York on July 14.
Goldman Bullish
Goldman said in December 2005 that oil prices may go as high as $105 a barrel in a ``super spike'' period that may last until 2009, as production lags growing world demand.
Royal Bank of Scotland Plc agrees with Bernstein that oil will fall. Prices may drop to $45 a barrel by 2011 because ``the risk of severe supply disruption has receded'' and demand growth is slowing, RBS analyst Thorsten Fischer said Jan. 28. Production investment over the last few years will boost supply, he said.
Crude oil prices may plunge below $50 a barrel this quarter for the first time since May 2005 as rebounds become ``progressively shallower,'' chart analysts at Barclays Capital said last month.
Deutsche Bank, Europe's biggest securities company, last month cut its first-quarter crude oil estimate by 6 percent to $61 a barrel. The bank left its 2007 forecast unchanged at $62, citing production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
``Even if Saudi Arabia cuts production, it is effectively creating underground storage, exacerbating the problem by encouraging further oversupply and making any future correction even worse,'' the Bernstein analysts said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Larkin in London at nlarkin1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 14, 2007 13:24 EST
Canada December Trade Surplus Widens Unexpectedly (Update1)
By Alexandre Deslongchamps
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Canada's trade surplus widened unexpectedly in December to the largest since February, as exports of cars and energy products gained.
The surplus widened for a second-straight month to C$4.98 billion ($4.24 billion), from a revised C$4.72 billion in November, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. Exports rose 3.8 percent to C$40.4 billion, and imports gained 3.6 percent to C$35.4 billion.
The wider trade surplus, combined with January employment data that showed almost seven times more new jobs than economists had forecast, suggest Canada's economy rebounded after slowing in the second and third quarters. The country's currency has fallen since touching a 28-year high in May, helping factory exports abroad and reducing the need for the Bank of Canada to lower interest rates.
Economists forecast the December trade surplus to come in at C$4.7 billion, according to the median of 23 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.
The Canadian dollar rose to 85.46 U.S. cents at 8:51 a.m. in Toronto. The currency gained the most in seven months on Feb. 9 after the employment report, reaching 85.30 U.S. cents.
The U.S. trade deficit widened more than expected in December, rising 5.3 percent to $61.2 billion on higher prices for crude oil imports, the Commerce Department said today in Washington.
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada predicted last month the economy would expand 2.4 percent in the first quarter and 2.6 percent in the second quarter, after slowing to a 1.5 percent annualized rate in the fourth quarter. Should that scenario bear out, the central bank won't need to cut interest rates to boost demand, Bank of Canada Deputy Governor David Longworth said Feb. 6.
A majority of 12 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News between Jan. 31 and Feb. 8 see the bank's forecast as too optimistic and predict a fourth-quarter rate cut.
For 2006, the size of the trade surplus shrank C$11.2 billion to C$53.6 billion, the smallest annual surplus since 1999, the statistics agency said.
Canadian employers added 88,900 jobs in January, Statistics Canada said Feb. 9.
The trade surplus with the U.S., which buys about 75 percent of Canada's exports, widened to C$7.92 billion, from November's C$7.48 billion, the statistics agency said today.
Autos, Energy
Carmakers' sales abroad rose 8.4 percent to C$7.54 billion, the third-straight gain, the statistics agency said.
Canadian energy exports increased 5.8 percent to C$7.28 billion during the month, led by natural gas. Canada sits on the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East and is the world's No. 2 exporter of natural gas.
Exports of machinery and equipment rose 2 percent to C$8.75 billion and those of consumer goods other than cars surged 9.2 percent to C$1.79 billion. Exporters have benefited as the Canadian dollar fell almost 7 percent since touching 91.44 U.S. cents on May 31.
Cars and energy products such as crude oil and heating and diesel fuel led the imports' gain. Energy imports advanced 7.9 percent increase to C$2.95 billion and cars imports rose 6.5 percent to C$7.13 billion.
Excluding the effects of price changes, exports rose 2.5 percent during the month, and imports gained 2.1 percent, the statistics agency said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alexandre Deslongchamps in Ottawa at adeslongcham@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: February 13, 2007 08:52 EST
2006 census results delayed amid problems
This is frackin sad! Statistics Canada also compiles economic data that is used for trading. I feel like a I am playing penny stocks all over again.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/02/12/census-delayed.html
Statistics Canada has postponed the release of its population census results by one month after facing a number of problems during the data collection.
The government, which conducts a census once every five years to paint a statistical picture of the country and its citizens, was supposed to release the results of its May 2006 census on Tuesday. But it now won't publish the information until March 13.
One issue Statistics Canada encountered was finding enough enumerators to work when other industry jobs paid more.
Jerry Page, director of Statistics Canada's Prairie regional office, said his unit, which was responsible for the census collection in Western Canada, had a hard time recruiting staff.
His census budget ballooned to $46 million from $30 million after the booming economy made it difficult to hire people to collect forms for $12 an hour.
"We were significantly over budget," he said.
The government faced other challenges, too. Only 18 per cent of Canadians completed the census online with the remainder sending the answers in the mail. The postal service was so slow that many people were asked to fill out a second form when the first ones didn't arrive.
E-mails obtained by CBC News under an Access to Information request showed the anger felt by Statistics Canada employees. "We are on the verge of creating a major public relations backlash," one e-mail stated.
Other messages complained about unpaid staff. "This is getting out of hand," one said, while another one said, "Bottom line: the pay system is a dog."
Sharon Newton, an enumerator in Chilliwack, B.C., said she didn't get paid for five months and that her managers became so desperate to finish the census that they told her to just count heads and forget the names.
"At the end, they just said, 'We really don't care. As long as you can find out if there [are] three people that live in that house, put down Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck on it. We don't care about a name.'"
Statistics Canada said it's not about the names, but the numbers. And its numbers are accurate, it said, adding that it got 97 per cent of the census forms back from Canadians.
The final count is expected to show there are about 32.5 million Canadians.
I gave up catching up on all the unread messages also. I am still in the USD/CAD long. Still in is because of the negative MACD divergence on the 4hr and 1 hr chart. Wish me luck!
USD/CAD modestly extended its Friday losses to 1.1708/10
before drifting back up to retest its broken uptrend during the North American
afternoon at 1.1760. A big slide in oil prices helped temper the euphoria
surrounding the Loonie after Friday"s astoundingly strong Canadian employment
report. Crude tumbled more than $2 in the wake of comments from the Saudi oil
minister suggesting the oil market is in balance and no further production cuts
are needed. Traders came to regard the comments as a signal that oil is destined
to trade in a Saudi-approved $50-60 range and rushed to take profits on longs.
Trade figures from both sides of the border will be the highlight of tomorrow"s
session. As dealers seek to work out which is wrong, the strong employment or
soggy GDP figures, they will scour the Canadian data for signs of latent
economic strength. The US trade deficit is expected to hold below $60 in
December as the weaker USD and strong global growth boost US exports. Moderate
oil prices should help as well. US fiscal deficits continue to fall amid record
government tax revenues, a sign of strong economic growth.
I have a strong feeling the Canadian Trade data is gonna be shit tomorrow. The Canadians are creating new jobs out of nowhere but the economy is NOT following. I am strongly betting on the job data being wrong.
Even if the job data is right, the PRODUCTIVITY is way down because the newly hired people are MARGINALLY contributing.
I am long USD/CAD ... lets see what happens tomorrow.
Good call Glance. Can you go any further in the future? lol!
1.26? I do not see that happening for now. There is tremendous support at 1.28 ish .. it will range just like the USD/CHF is ranging until there is a clear fundamental event(s) to take it either way.
Price of oil.
Not too long ago (2002) crude oil prices were under 20 bucks. When prices are so high people will find other ways of doing what they need to do without using as much oil. I see the price of crude going down in the next few years .... if not 1-2 years. Up here in Canada there is growing awareness of the environment and if Stephane Dion of the Liberals gets elected then say goodbye to future oil development in Fort McMurray. (tarsands)
The amount of pollution that is caused in this project is crazy.
Even Bush is only now starting to introduce programs. The bastard should have done this MUCH SOONER. He will not be remembered for attacking iraq but fracking up the environment!
I should be good in my USD/CAD long trade right? LOL!
Enjoy the charts.
UP
Some really cool articles:
http://www.forextradersworld.com/modules.php?name=Top
I especially like this article:
Want to do it like the professionals and profit from the stock market? Here are the secrets of the world's legendary investors.
1. Benjamin Graham – Markets always over-react
Ben Graham was the father of investment analysis. While working in Wall Street in the 1930s and 1940s he invented many of the rules of thumb which are still widely applied today, and backtested them on historical stock market data.
He was the real pioneer of value (as opposed to growth) investing, producing accurate ways of measuring when stocks are cheap and therefore worth buying. His techniques pre-dated the days of computer stock screeners, but being purely quantitative they work beautifully with them.
However, one of his most appealing ideas was imaginative rather than scientifically rigorous. It concerned a fictitious stock market partnership that every individual investor is in, with a moody but persuasive lunatic called Mr Market.
This individual would arise each day in either a crazily optimistic mood, during which he would offer to buy out all your shares, or a black depression, in which he wanted to dump his shareholdings on you. Graham’s contention was that rather than being tainted by these moods and being miserable or happy with him, you should eventually yield to his suggestions.
So that means selling your shares when the market is full of optimism, and buying when the market is miserable. Graham showed that this contrarian position is the best way of exploiting market over-reaction.
2. Warren Buffett – Don’t buy what you don’t understand
There is no investor more frequently quoted than Warren Buffett, and it would be pretty easy to fill dozens of articles with his pithy sayings. However, it is what he has done rather than said that is the most amazing.
Buffett, a down-to-earth septuagenarian from provincial Omaha, Nebraska turned an original stock market investment of $100 in 1954 into $20 billion by 2002. He has followed many of the precepts of Benjamin Graham, but developed plenty of his own. Perhaps the most astounding of these is his ability to stand aside from a booming market, forgoing considerable profits, just because he didn’t understand what was driving prices.
In 1969 he did just that, winding up his partnership after 13 years of 30% compound growth. According to John Train’s book, The Midas Touch, Buffett told his partners: "I am out of step with present conditions…I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand… in order to embrace an approach which I don’t understand..."
Three years later, in 1972, the market ran into the steepest collapse since the depression. Buffett was out, and in cash. The same thing happened during the late 1990s high technology boom. Buffett freely admitted he didn’t understand technology shares (an admission that should also have been made by the majority of investors who bought them.)
Though Buffett’s firm Berkshire Hathaway underperformed for a few years in those times, it emerged unscathed as the technology bubble deflated.
3. Peter Lynch – running winners
Peter Lynch ran Fidelity’s US-based Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990, during which time its value soared 2,700%. During those bull market times he learned again and again that running winners was the key to outperforming the market.
He noticed that you would only need a few stocks that increased ten fold to give you massive out-performance. At the other end of the scale you need to get rid of the losers pretty quickly. The alternative apporach, practised by many investors, was to take profits at about 30 per cent but hang on to the losers, which he likened to watering the weeds and cutting the flowers.
The Magellan Fund had thousands of stocks, and Lynch was quick to admit that hardly any of them ever rose ten fold, but those winners he did have he wasn’t about to let go of quickly.
4. Anthony Gray – You don’t need to be immersed in the market
Tony Gray actually outperformed Peter Lynch for 12 years, when Gray was running a fund for SunTrust Bank in Orlando, Florida. In those years from 1981-1993, the fund increased on average 21.5% a year.
In three decades of investing, Gray said that he had only been to visit the New York Stock Exchange once. In his autobiography, appropriately enough called A thousand miles from Wall Street, Gray said that he felt no disadvantage being such a distance from the centre of trading. He also takes holidays, doesn’t call in to the office when he’s away, and doesn’t take stacks of work home in the evening.
The point is, if you have confidence in the stocks you are picking, and know their businesses well enough, you don’t need to be constantly fretting about details.
Perhaps Gray’s secret in this regard was that he picked companies which make products anyone can understand, from razors to toilet cleaner, from soups to soaps. Applying a value analysis and trading frequently, he was able to exploit small mis-pricings in the market.
5. George Soros – Trust your animal instinct <== Ataglace
When George Soros retired in 2001, he took with him one of the most impressive investment records ever, and one of the most controversial.
The record speaks for itself. If you had put $1000 into Soros’s Quantum fund in 1969, it would have been worth $4m by 2000, a cumulative annual return of 32 per cent. However, Soros became notorious through his pioneering of hedge funds and the use of going ‘short’, which is to sell something you don’t own in the hope of buying it back more cheaply.
Soros proved that one wealthy individual can be as powerful as a major economy. In September 1992, Britain was teetering on the edge of being forced out of the Europe’s Exchange Rate Mechanism. The ERM kept fixed currency bands within which the pound was supposed to trade. Even with double-digit interest rates to attract international deposits, the currency was struggling, having entered the mechanism at too high a rate.
Soros saw the position was unsustainable and sold $10bn worth of sterling ‘short’, making a $1bn profit overnight as Chancellor Norman Lamont acknowledged defeat and allow the currency to crashed through the lower band.
Soros believes markets are chaotic, and the twists and turns of prices result from market moods. He always tried to spot those turning points, as he did the day he made a killing from the pound, but relied more on animal instinct than on analysis.
Strangely enough, according to biographer Michael Kaufman, Soros suffered from backache, and reckoned that the onset of a severe twinge was a sure sign that something was wrong with his market (rather than seating) position.
6. Jim Slater – The PEG ratio
Jim Slater first came to the UK public eye as chairman of the controversial secondary bank Slater Walker Securities. In the eight years to 1973 he turned £2,000 of savings into a financial conglomerate worth £200 million, but which then collapsed in a sea of debts a year later.
Nevertheless, Jim Slater is an able stockpicker, who pioneered the use of the price earnings to growth ratio, known as PEG. This formula compares the prospective price earnings ratio, i.e. the price of a company’s share divided by the expected earnings per share, with the company’s expected rate of earnings growth.
The PEG rule is that a company’s shares may be good value if its rate of earnings growth exceeds its forecast P/E ratio. So if a company with a forward P/E of 10 is consistently increasing its earnings by 15 per cent, then it is worth closer examination.
This handy tool, first outlined in Slater’s book the Zulu principle, works best for consistent increases in earnings. The main drawback is that for much of the market cycle, all the best growth shares are actually poor value under a PEG analysis, yet still keep edging up in price.
7. Anthony Bolton – Look for business franchise strength
Britain’s answer to Peter Lynch, Anthony Bolton has consistently outperformed the market during the last five tumultous years, during which the Fidelity Special Situations fund he runs has doubled in value. With a team of 50 analysts working for him, he isn’t short of number-crunching clout. But what is he looking for?
In a question and answer session with independent financial advisers in December, Bolton said that he looked for business franchises with enduring strength and strong cash generation, which in the UK tended to steer him towards service businesses and away from manufacturing.
He tends to take an 18-month view on a stock, but can be patient for longer than that on some occasions.
As for the future, Bolton reckons that the new bull market will keep going for a while yet. After nine months of the rebound he is impressed by the technical strength of price rises, and believes that, given the duration of bear market we have recently come through, he would be surprised to the bull market end so soon.
Note: About the Author:
By Nick Louth, MSN Money special correspondent.
LOL! I found this frackin HILARIOUS!
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=16813
Is this only trading for personal account.. or does time trading for a bank count?
There must be a few of us who remembers/traded pre-Euro?
The intro of the Euro wiped out an extra 11 ccys and their crosses.
USD/DEM (thats the Deutschmark for you "youngsters" ) was THE main pair, and the DEM was also fairly heavily traded against the JPY and other European ccys; ITL, ESP, FRF, NLG, etc.
GBP/DEM was also a good one.... especially quoting it with 15/20 pip spreads lol
As for that week in October 98 on the USD/JPY....that was fun!
5 Oct:
Open.. 135.98
High... 135.99
Low... 133.71
Close... 134.01.......High/Low range 228 pips(this was the quiet start to the week!)
6 Oct:
Open: 134.02
High... 134.21
Low... 129.11
Close..129.76.......High/Low range 510 pips
7 Oct
Open..129.71
High...130.71
Low...118.66
Close..121.71........High/Low range 1205 pips
8 Oct
Open...121.75
High....123.46
Low... 111.64
Close...118.41........High/Low range 1182 pips
9 Oct
Open...118.31
High...118.71
Low... 115.31
Close... 116.62.........High/Low range 340 pips
I remember quoting 100 pip wide spreads... getting dealt and while still "confirming" that deal, the same counterparty would be asking for a fresh price to take a 100+ pip profit or loss!.. and believe me, some of my best trades that week were 100pip losses
And Yes..there were Technical Analysts coming up with garbage like
".. Well, the projected Fib 38.2 retracement of this downmove is....".or.."we have strong support on the 4hrly chart which should support....."
"Forget it Pal... Its just dropped another 400 pips while youre drawing a line on your f'ing chart!!"....Technical Analysis..what a load of ...
Oh yeah.. and what caused this move?
Correct.. The unwinding of JPY Carry Trades
So...those newbs who think youve found an easy way to make money...beware... your couple of a pips a day wont save your account if/when history repeats(which it always does...right?)...Just like any market.. when "Joe Public" thinks its a great idea......Its time to GET OUT !
Strong Canada jobs growth raises data questions
Fri Feb 9, 2007 2:57 PM EST
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=uri:2007-02-09T19565...
By Cameron French
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's blockbuster January job growth has deepened confusion about the state of the domestic economy, where a booming jobs market contrasts vividly with a fourth-quarter economy that has apparently slowed to a crawl.
After four months of strong jobs growth at the end of 2006, many economists had expected January data to show a flat labor market, or perhaps a decline in jobs, bringing the trend into line with the weakening economy.
But Statistics Canada reported an expectation-busting gain of 88,900 jobs in January, the biggest rise since May 2006.
Now, analysts have to decide if the dichotomy points to an even steeper drop in Canadian productivity or to past errors in economic data, a possibility under the spotlight since Statscan said last week it would reexamine its growth figures.
"It's hard to believe that given the kind of GDP growth numbers we're monitoring ... why firms would be hiring to the extent that they are," said Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at Bank of Montreal
"Something doesn't seem to be squaring properly."
Ferley said fourth-quarter growth forecasts range between one and two percent -- the Bank of Canada expects 1.5 percent. But the strong labor market would suggest growth of 3.5 to 4 percent, given historical labor productivity trends.
Taken at face value, the divergence between jobs and growth data suggests that productivity continues to weaken -- an alarming prospect as it reduces the rate at which Canada's economy can growth without generating inflation.
But some analysts now suggest that Statscan may have underestimated the economy's strength.
"It would actually be my guess now that what we're going to end up getting is a revision upwards to GDP," said Scotia Capital economist Carolyn Kwan.
Analysts agree it is hard to calculate output in Canada's resource sector, where companies may hire workers for projects that may not produce for years, as well as in the growing services sector, where output is gauged by hours worked.
STRONGER GROWTH?
Statscan senior economist Phillip Cross played down the significance of the strong jobs figures, noting that growth data for December and January are not yet out, and other indicators, such as January housing starts, point to a resurgent economy in early 2007.
"It could just be an indicator that GDP itself could be quite strong in December (and) in January when we get around to compiling it," he said.
Statscan releases December and fourth quarter GDP figures on March 2.
The strong January jobs growth propelled the Canadian dollar to its highest level in nearly three weeks, and sent bond prices lower, as it seemed to quash talk that the Bank of Canada might cut interest rates this year.
Signs that output has been stronger than expected could also signal a further shift in the rate outlook, some say.
"The expectation now is that if the GDP numbers were indeed underestimated, then there's absolutely no need for the bank to cut rates," said Kwan.
"If anything, perhaps there should be even at least some discussion of the possibility of rate hikes."
This is my take on what is going on in the world right now. Everybody please chime in.
If the statistcs are out of whack here in Canada then I can only imagine what is going on in the US! Ladies and gentlemen ... you heard it here first ... The North American rates will go up sooner than you think. That means EUR/USD and GBP/USD down. I am progressively averaging up and shorting GBP/USD .... sell the spikes is my strategy. What do you guys think? The Canadian economy is more nimblle than the US economy. If the Canadian job market is doing well the then US will do well too. Or god forbid, the statistics are all wrong and we are being taken for a penny stock ride.
Glance, I found a new pair for you to trade! GBP/NZD
This really bad bad boy moves 400 pips a day on a routine basis. Can you say 200 pip stop loss?
It will not only rip your arm off but also one of your legs if you are not careful lol!
The pip value depends on the price of NZD/USD. If NZD/USD is at .6800 then it is .68 cents a mini lot.
I guess if you do the following calculation :
400 * .6800 = 272 pips equivalent value for GBP/USD!!
At 272 it still kicks GBP/USD's ass. and it even kicks GBP/JPY's ass at 150 pips.
GBP/JPY
Here is a very interesting thread for this pair. THis bad boy is the next one I will learn how to trade and the statements below have really convinced me.
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=16691&page=3
OK I being trading GBPJPY from past couple of years.
Here are some tips.
1. Trade only Tokyo and London times. 90% of the time the trend from Asia continues through Europe unless you have some big news on GBP.
rarely the trend reverses like his elder bro GBPUSD, who loves to flirt all day and eat our balences away by the time we reach US time.
2. GBPJPY have a habit of turning back upto 40-50-60 PIPS, considering it has a spread of 8-9, its normal, BUT if you are newbie..you will be scared and will never come back to trading GBPJPY, so always set your stop loss above 100 PIPS AND trade with the money you would be prepared to loose.
The 40-50-60 PIPS turning back you see is not reversal of trend..just relax..probably some big guys unloading the trades etc..again 90 percent of the time..the trend will follow up.
3. Play with the pyramids..if the pip goes 50 to 60 PIPS know that it will hold the position..so built on a nice pyramid to make up the lost PIPS.
4. EXIT by US afternoon as most the trade will be slow till the market open for a new day in Tokyo.
5 Be a day trader, I would at the most if i see a big trend hold for 2-3 days..I have carry trade in other accounts.
6. If you play intraday..you will make 10 to 15 K PIPS..If you go carry trade you would make 3 to 4 K per annum..both are nice. depends on how much you got.
Probably the biggest thing in trading is confidence, which you get with experience ..so keep your arse grinding untill you say..ohh yeah..i can do it
Thanks Plugger! Do you think these bill/bonds sales affect the dollar in any important tradeable way? Have you observed anything concrete?
There are huge US treasury debt sales coming (came) this week and this month. This might boost the dollar. Can someone please point me to the right place to find the schedule?
Like super quick please?
Like Mister Lava does, I need to study more about the bond market
I haven't been doing this forex thing for too long but I know enough to understand that it is all about interest rates. All about yeild! The rest of the data (CPI, GDP, PPI etc ...) is noise that leads us to the question : ARE THEY GONNA RAISE OR NOT?
I need the bond market info dudes! thanks!!!
Also today ... the fall in the GBP:
The sell-off in the GBP/USD was exacerbated by a report from the Wall Street Journal that UK based HSBC was forced to set aside 20 percent more capital (most likely in US dollars) to cover the delinquencies in the US sub prime mortgage market. The fear that HSBC will struggle to recover from this has sent the company’s shares down to an 8 month low. However the blowup in the sub prime market has even greater significance. We are sure that HSBC, who is the world’s third largest bank, is not the only ones to suffer from the growing delinquencies in the US sub-prime lending market. If this problem exacerbates, it may be the first sign that the US economy is in trouble. The UK trade balance is due for release tomorrow and the strong level of the pound could push the deficit higher.
LOL! I DO see a lot of head and shoulders patterns eh? LOL! You crack me up dude!
No way man ... you are in this for life. When I see my digital speedometer while driving I think of all the pips profit while accelerating on the highway and taking a long position. Wait till I tell you about my dreams at night .. on second though I will tell nobody cause I do not want to cause harm to others.
I AM ADDICTED FOR LIFE!
GBPUSD Trend Could Lead To Strong Rebound, Or Significant Breakdown
Thursday, 08 February 2007 13:26:11 GMT
Written by John Kicklighter, Currency Analyst
Following a monetary policy decision that clearly disappointed the currency market, GBPUSD extended a drop that began in earnest hours before. All together, the slide was worth 160 points. In the short-term, such a steep move will likely lead to a profit taking rebound at the least. However, moving out to a higher frequency, the daily chart is providing better argument for significant support. A trendline that begins at the 10/16 low and rises clearly on swing lowers, has recently been tagged with today's low. With today's touch, there is an 8-point confirmation for the trend (which could call into question its ability to withstand future selling momentum). Should the pair begin to rebound, a move to 1.9750 would be an aggressive target as it represents the 61.8% fib of the 1.9918-1.9481 bear wave and has shown significance as resistance a number of times in the past. Conversely, should a daily bar make a respectable close below the big trendline, a first target would be slightly above 1.95, with bigger support seen around 30/40 points below 1.93.
Do you guys see a big inverse head and shoulders on the daily?
Look at the weekly line. Uncanny eh? Do you guys think it will go above it?
Glad to hear from you! I am a newb too ... Started in April of last year. Reading and studying everything I can get my hands on.
The cat is Ataglance2 of course lol! He "advised" me to go short GBP/USD last night. I look back now and it is so logical. The traders were expecting a second rate hike in a row and when they did not get what they wanted they dumped today. So logical and so easy to profit from it.
I was not sure that they would not hike today but since the last vote was like 5-4 the PROBABILITyY that they would hike was low.
Cheers!
Last night a cat saved my life and made me alot of money too!
They are in the mail LOL! I am STILL dying of laughter! you rock man! I love this board! Just like my crazy disfunctional family!
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for a great explanation Cap. You are a true poet!
We are supposed to be attracting people to the board ya crazy cat. Not scaring them off!
I just looked at my post. Sorry about that! I should never post from work .. I do not make sense! I meant to say of course it is technical analysis.
Have fun!
I do not know what all the fuss is about? Trendline breaks, supply and demand lines and support and resistance can be used to trade without ANY INDICATORS.
The questions is : what IS TECHNICAL ANALYSIS?
If I whip out an RSI, Stochastic, MACD am I trading technically? YUP!
If I draw a price support line and wait till it breaks it to go short am I trading technically?
I don't think so.
It is all up to interpretation. I know one thing for sure!
Price action is king.
Live long and prosper!
Ultimatepick
Thank you for sharing. Very much appreciated.
Wow you pulled a fast one on me lol!
The date is right 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Oil_Bourse
In March 2006, the Petroleum Minister of Iran, Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh, announced that due to "technical glitches", the Bourse launch was postponed, with no new date set.
I have been looking into this extensively .. does not take much to get me going and study it to death.
Many countries want to open their own oil bourse:
Petroruble
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroruble
I say Canada should accept ONLY canadian dollars for their oil LOL!
.... and an opposing view ...
Why Iran's oil bourse can't break the buck
By F William Engdahl
A number of writings have recently appeared with the thesis that the announced plans of the Iranian government to institute a Tehran oil bourse, perhaps as early as this month, is the real hidden reason behind the evident march to war on Iran by the Anglo-American powers. The thesis is simply wrong for many reasons, not least that war on Iran has been in planning since the 1990s as an integral part of the United States' Greater Middle East strategy.
More significant, the oil-bourse argument is a red herring that diverts attention from the real geopolitical grounds behind the
march toward war that have been detailed on this website, including in my piece, A high-risk game of nuclear chicken, which appeared in Asia Times Online on January 31.
In 1996, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, two neo-conservatives later to play an important role in formulation of Bush administration's Pentagon policy in the Middle East, authored a paper for then newly elected Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That advisory paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", called on Netanyahu to make a "clean break from the peace process". Perle and Feith also called on Netanyahu to strengthen Israel's defenses against Syria and Iraq, and to go after Iran as the prop of Syria.
More than a year before President George W Bush declared his "shock and awe" operation against Iraq, he made his now-infamous January 2002 State of the Union address to Congress in which he labeled Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as a member of the "axis of evil" trio. This was well before anyone in Tehran was even considering establishing an oil bourse to trade oil in various currencies.
The argument by those who believe the Tehran oil bourse would be the casus belli, the trigger pushing Washington down the road to potential thermonuclear annihilation of Iran, seems to rest on the claim that by openly trading oil to other nations or buyers in euros, Tehran would set into motion a chain of events in which nation after nation, buyer after buyer, would line up to buy oil no longer in US dollars but in euros. That, in turn, goes the argument, would lead to a panic selling of dollars on world foreign-exchange markets and a collapse of the role of the dollar as reserve currency, one of the "pillars of Empire". Basta! There goes the American Century down the tubes with the onset of the Tehran oil bourse.
Some background considerations
That argument fails to convince for a number of reasons. First, in the case of at least one of the oil-bourse theorists, the argument is based on a misunderstanding of the process I described in my book, A Century of War, regarding the creation in 1974 of "petrodollar recycling", a process with which then-US secretary of state Henry Kissinger was deeply involved, in the wake of the 400% oil-price hike orchestrated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The US dollar then did not become a "petrodollar", although Kissinger spoke about the process of "recycling petrodollars". What he was referring to was the initiation of a new phase of US global hegemony in which the petrodollar export earnings of OPEC oil lands would be recycled into the hands of the major New York and London banks and re-lent in the form of US dollar loans to oil-deficit countries such as Brazil and Argentina, creating what soon came to be known as the Latin American debt crisis.
The dollar at that time had been a fiat currency since August 1971 when president Richard Nixon first abrogated the Bretton Woods Treaty and refused to redeem US dollars held by foreign central banks for gold bullion. The dollar floated against other major currencies, falling more or less until it was revived by the 1973-74 oil-price shock.
What the oil shock achieved for the sagging dollar was a sudden injection of global demand from nations confronted with 400% higher oil-import bills. At that time, by postwar convention and convenience, as the dollar was the only reserve currency held around the world other than gold, oil was priced by all OPEC members in dollars as a practical exigency.
With the 400% price rise, nations such as France, Germany and Japan suddenly found reason to try to buy their oil directly in their own currencies - French francs, Deutschmarks or Japanese yen - to lessen the pressure on their rapidly declining reserves of trade dollars. The US Treasury and the Pentagon made certain that did not happen, partly with some secret diplomacy by Kissinger, bullying threats, and a whopping-big US military agreement with the key OPEC producer, Saudi Arabia. At that time it helped that the shah of Iran was seen in Washington to be a vassal of Kissinger.
The point was not that the US dollar became a "petro" currency. The point was that the reserve status of the dollar, now a paper currency, was bolstered by the 400% increase in world demand for dollars to buy oil. But that was only a part of the dollar story. In 1979, after the accession to power of the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran, oil prices shot through the roof for the second time in six years. Yet, paradoxically, later that year the dollar began a precipitous free-fall, not a rise. It was no "petrodollar".
Foreign dollar-holders began dumping their dollars as a protest against the foreign policies of the administration of US president Jimmy Carter. It was to deal with that dollar crisis that Carter was forced to bring in Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve in 1979. In October 1979 Volcker gave the dollar another turbocharge by allowing interest rates in the US to rise some 300% in weeks, to well over 20%. That in turn forced global interest rates through the roof, triggered a global recession, mass unemployment and misery. It also "saved" the dollar as sole reserve currency. The dollar was not a "petrodollar". It was the currency of issue of the greatest superpower, a superpower determined to do what it needed to keep it that way.
The F-16 dollar backing
Since 1979 the US power establishment, from Wall Street to Washington, has maintained the status of the dollar as unchallenged global reserve currency. That role, however, is not a purely economic one. Reserve-currency status is an adjunct of global power, of the US determination to dominate other nations and the global economic process. The United States didn't get reserve-currency status by a democratic vote of world central banks, nor did the British Empire in the 19th century. They fought wars for it.
For that reason, the status of the dollar as reserve currency depends on the status of the United States as the world's unchallenged military superpower. In a sense, since August 1971 the dollar is no longer backed by gold. Instead, it is backed by F-16s and Abrams battle tanks, operating in some 130 US bases around the world, defending liberty and the dollar.
A euro challenge?
For the euro to begin to challenge the reserve role of the US dollar, a virtual revolution in policy would have to take place in Euroland. First the European Central Bank (ECB), the institutionalized, undemocratic institution created by the Maastricht Treaty to maintain the power of creditor banks in collecting their debts, would have to surrender power to elected legislators. It would then have to turn on the printing presses and print euros like there was no tomorrow. That is because the size of the publicly traded Euroland government-bond market is still tiny in comparison with the huge US Treasury market.
As Michael Hudson explains in his brilliant and too-little-studied work Super Imperialism, the perverse genius of the US global dollar hegemony was the realization, in the months after August 1971, that US power under a fiat dollar system was directly tied to the creation of dollar debt. The US debt and the trade deficit were not the "problem", they realized. They were the "solution".
The US could print endless quantities of dollars to pay for foreign imports of Toyotas, Hondas, BMWs or other goods in a system in which the trading partners of the United States, holding paper dollars for their exports, feared a dollar collapse enough to continue to support the dollar by buying US Treasury bonds and bills. In fact in the 30 years since abandoning gold exchange for paper dollars, the US dollars in reserve have risen by a whopping 2,500%, and the amount grows at double-digit rates today.
This system continued into the 1980s and 1990s unchallenged. US policy was one of crisis management coupled with skillful and coordinated projection of US military power. Japan in the 1980s, fearful of antagonizing its US nuclear-umbrella provider, bought endless volumes of US Treasury debt even though it lost a king's ransom in the process. It was a political, not an investment, decision.
The only potential challenge to the reserve role of the dollar came in the late 1990s with the European Union decision to create a single currency, the euro, to be administered by single central bank, the ECB. Europe appeared to be emerging as a unified, independent policy voice of what French President Jacques Chirac then called a multipolar world. Those multipolar illusions vanished with the unpublicized decision of the ECB and national central banks not to pool their gold reserves as backing for the new euro. That decision not to use gold as backing came amid a heated controversy over Nazi gold and alleged wartime abuses by Germany, Switzerland, France and other European countries.
Since the shocks of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing declaration of a US "global war on terror", including a unilateral decision to ignore the United Nations and the community of nations and go to war against a defenseless Iraq, few countries have even dared to challenge dollar hegemony. The combined defense spending of all nations of the EU today pales by comparison with the total of current US budgeted and unbudgeted military spending. US defense outlays will reach an official, staggering level of US$663 billion in the 2007 fiscal year. The combined annual EU spending amounts to a mere $75 billion, and is tending to decline, in part because of ECB Maastricht deficit pressures on its governments.
So today, at least for the present, there are no signs of Japanese, EU or other dollar holders engaging in dollar-asset liquidation. Even China, unhappy as it is with Washington's bully politics, seems reluctant to rouse the American dragon to fury.
The origins of the oil bourse
The idea of creating a new trading platform in Iran to trade oil and to create a new crude-oil benchmark apparently originated with the former director of the London International Petroleum Exchange, Chris Cook. In a January 21 article in Asia Times Online (What the Iran 'nuclear issue' is really about), Cook explained the background. Describing a letter he had written in 2001 to the governor of the Iranian Central Bank, Dr Mohsen Nourbakhsh, Cook explained what he advised then:
In this letter I pointed out that the structure of global oil markets massively favors intermediary traders and particularly investment banks, and that both consumers and producers such as Iran are adversely affected by this. I recommended that Iran consider as a matter of urgency the creation of a Middle Eastern energy exchange, and particularly a new Persian Gulf benchmark oil price.
It is therefore with wry amusement that I have seen a myth being widely propagated on the Internet that the genesis of this "Iran bourse" project is a wish to subvert the US dollar by denominating oil pricing in euros.
As anyone familiar with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will know, the denomination of oil sales in currencies other than the dollar is not a new subject, and as anyone familiar with economics will tell you, the denomination of oil sales is merely a transactional issue: what matters is in what assets (or, in the case of the United States, liabilities ) these proceeds are then invested.
A full challenge to the domination of the US dollar as the world central-bank reserve currency entails a de facto declaration of war on the "full-spectrum dominance" of the United States today. The mighty members of the European Central Bank Council well know this. The heads of state of every EU country know this. The Chinese leadership as well as the Japanese and Indians know this. So does Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Until some combination of those Eurasian powers congeal in a cohesive challenge to the unbridled domination of the United States as sole superpower, there will be no euro or yen or even Chinese yuan challenging the role of the dollar. The issue is of enormous importance, as it is vital to understand the true dynamics bringing the world to the brink of possible nuclear catastrophe today.
As a small ending note, a good friend in Oslo recently forwarded me an article from the Norwegian press. At the end of December, Sven Arild Andersen, director of the Oslo bourse, announced he was fed up with depending on the London oil bourse trading oil in dollars. Norway, a major oil producer, selling most of its oil into euro countries in the EU, he said, should set up its own oil bourse and trade its oil in euros. Will Norway - a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - become the next target for the wrath of the Pentagon?
F William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press). He can be reached through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC10Ak01.html