A recent article in the Atlantic has once again brought up the question as to whether the euro can survive (and generated a fair bit of discussion in the comment section). This is a debate that is on-going, of course. In fact, I was in the markets back when the single currency was launched and can say that even then there were a lot of people who didn’t expect it to last for any length of time (certainly not as long as it has done so far). That pessimism was part of what saw EUR/USD dive to near 0.8200 …Continue Reading
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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It is only a matter of weeks since European officials openly congratulated themselves on their seemingly successful efforts to bring the prolonged eurozone crisis to an end. The backslapping subsequently proved premature, as the botched rescue package – designed to help an ailing Cyprus raise part of its emergency funding needs internally and ultimately secure external support of some €10 billion – put policymakers’ incompetence on show for the entire world to see.
The initial proposals are difficult to fathom, given that policymakers’ had months – and not days – to devise a credible plan. The lack of time pressure …Continue Reading
Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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Good news, social media people! The Securities and Exchange Commission has declared that social media are widely used and available, and therefore suitable venues for releasing official corporate information. Over at the New York Times DealBook blog, Michael De La Merced notes that the SEC has reversed direction on their intepretation of the Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) rule. That rule says that public companies must make important information available to all investors at the same time, so none have any advantage in acting on the news. The SEC now recognizes that a disclosure via social media meets this …Continue Reading
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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The Chinese property market is back in the spotlight, following the central government’s decision just days ago, to harden its three-year effort to put house prices in an affordable range for ordinary citizens. The latest measures include higher down-payments and interest rates for buyers of second homes in cities with excessive price gains, and perhaps more importantly, a twenty per cent capital gains tax on homeowner profits on sale, as against one to two per cent on sales price previously.
The impact of the latest clampdown on property speculation was immediate, as publicly-quoted real estate developers endured a decline of …Continue Reading
Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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It should come as no surprise that the uber-bulls have found their voice, and forced their way back into the media spotlight. After all, the major stock market averages continue their assault on the all-time nominal highs registered just as the financial crisis gathered momentum during the autumn of 2007.
Caution is now perceived as a dirty word and stock market bears have gone into hibernation, as bullish opinion is in vogue and virtually certain to capture the public’s imagination – and a sizable share of their hard-earned savings. However, savers need to be aware that the positive commentary is …Continue Reading
Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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It is a low-return world, and even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, recently admitted that he, “takes very seriously…the possibility that very low interest rates” could prompt “portfolio managers dissatisfied with low returns” to “reach for yield.” Unfortunately, such concern is already reality, as ultra-accommodative monetary policy has helped push the yields available on both ‘risk’ and ‘safe’ assets to levels that virtually assure lacklustre returns for a traditional 60:40 equity/bond policy mix over long horizons of ten years or more.
The less-than-inspiring outlook for long-term investment returns is a matter of simple arithmetic, yet much of …Continue Reading
Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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I think it’s worth taking a look at gold once more. The precious metal has been trending lower since about the middle of the third quarter last year, having stalled out once more in the 1800 area (front month futures). This comes as little surprise in that the moves in gold have largely followed those in the dollar, which was weakened by the move toward Quantitative Easing expansion by the Federal Reserve last year, and since has fared well as other currencies have come under pressure while talk in the US has begun to revolve around the Fed ending …Continue Reading
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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Broadly speaking, the more someone trades, the worse they do. Did you know that?
A pair of academics named Barber and Odean published a paper in the Journal of Finance back in 2000 with the blunt title Trading is Hazardous to your Wealth. The focus was on individual stock traders. The authors concluded that the most active traders demonstrated the worst performance on a relative basis. Basically, these stock trades couldn’t overcome their transaction costs.
As part of my on-going PhD research I replicated the Barber & Odean study looking at retail forex traders. I’ve written previously about how retail forex …Continue Reading
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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I’m a sucker for a good venn diagram, so when I saw one on the New York Times Bucks blog featuring the intersection of “Rich Smart People” “Super Secret Formulas” and “Costs You a Lot of Money” I had to learn more. What’s in the intersection of Carl Richards diagram? Hedge Funds, that’s what. The post’s title? “The Appeal of Investments That Cost More and Return Less”
I’m not here to dump on hedge funds – I’m sure there are plenty of folks out there who can do that – but what is this weird attraction to opacity? Why …Continue Reading
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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Stocks are trending higher and the dollar is doing the same. That’s not something we’ve seen much of over the years. We can see from the chart below comparing the S&P 500 to the USD Index how unusual it is for the two to move in the same direction. No doubt the recent positive correlation has thrown a number of algos for a loop.
Of course the whole risk-on, risk-off pattern of the markets holding forth during long periods since the Financial Crisis played a major part in defining a negative correlation between stocks and the US dollar. Traders and …Continue Reading
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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