Monday, October 31, 2011

MF Global near collapse - IB most likely suitor


MF Global Holdings Ltd., the futures broker run by Jon Corzine, was suspended from conducting new business with the New York Federal Reserve today after posting a record loss.
The firm’s board met through the weekend in New York to consider options including a sale to avert failure, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. It was stopped from doing new business with the New York Fed until it shows it’s able to fulfill its responsibilities as a primary dealer, according to a statement on the regulator’s website. Trading in MF Global’s stock was also halted.
Pressure is mounting on Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey and U.S. senator, after MF Global declined 67 percent last week and its bonds started trading at distressed levels amid its disclosures of bets on European sovereign-debt. MF Global was in discussions with five potential buyers for all or parts of the company, including banks, private-equity firms and brokers, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
“While the pieces are attractive, figuring out potential buyers is a lot harder,” Robert Rutschow, an analyst with CLSA Credit Agricole Securities in New York, said in an Oct. 28 note to clients. “In the current environment, banks can’t even go to the bathroom without permission from their regulator, let alone buy a brokerage firm that was looking to grow proprietary trading and expand risk-taking activities.”

Interactive Brokers

The most attractive part of the New York-based firm is its retail futures brokerage, which could fetch $500 million to $600 million, he said. MF Global hired Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP for a London affiliate, a person said. The law firm currently represents Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which in 2008 filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
MF Global may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as today and sell assets to Interactive Brokers Group Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported on its website, citing a person familiar with the matter it did not identify. Interactive Brokers would likely make an initial bid of about $1 billion during a court-supervised auction after the company files for Chapter 11, the newspaper cited the person as saying.

Yen Falls Versus Dollar Amid Speculation Japan Intervened in Markets


The yen plunged against the dollar and euro amid speculation Japan intervened in markets to weaken its currency.
The yen sank 3.2 percent to 78.30 per dollar as of 10:34 a.m. in Tokyo. It lost 2.8 percent to 110.38 per euro.
Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said earlier today he’s ready to take “determined” steps in the currency market if needed after the yen rose to a fresh post-World War II high against the dollar.
He told reporters in Tokyo today that speculative activity is strong in the currency market, adding that the yen’s moves don’t reflect Japan’s economic fundamentals.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-31/yen-falls-versus-dollar-amid-speculation-japan-intervened-in-markets.html

Friday, October 28, 2011

Hedge funds a super gamble


Philip Falcone grew up in the mining town of Chisholm, Minnesota, population 4976. The youngest of nine children who lived in a three-bedroom house, Falcone excelled at ice hockey and played for Harvard.

After college, a burgeoning career as a professional hockey player was cut short by injury and he then cut his teeth in the markets as a trader at Barclays Capital.

Now, Falcone is best-known as a "billionaire New York hedge fund manager". Geared to the gills like most hedge funds, his Harbinger Capital Partners made a poultice in the bull market; in Australia, too. Falcone's most notable play being a 16 per cent stake in Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals which reaped him hundreds of millions in profit when he sold down two years ago.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/hedge-funds-a-super-gamble-20111014-1lp2n.html#ixzz1c6PM4n4s



Hedge Funds

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Greeks move €228billion into Swiss banks


Greece in flames over cuts (while fat-cats secretly shift €228billion into Swiss banks accounts)

  • Wealthy are moving euros through foreign subsidiaries in Cyprus
  • 50,000 people descend on Athens as 48-hour general strike begins
  • Hundreds of flights and ferries cancelled as workers walk out
  • Greek parliament will vote on fresh austerity measures tomorrow

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050895/Greek-fat-cats-secretly-shifted-200bn-euros-Swiss-bank-accounts.html

Greek protesters clashed with police in central Athens after Prime Minister George Papandreou vowed to push through a further round of austerity and appealed to Europe to cut Greece’s debt load at an Oct. 23 summit.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/papandreou-presses-austerity-as-strikes-hold-greece-hostage-.html

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Multiple Time Frames or Pairs in an Expert Advisor

Many strategies incorporate multi-timeframe analysis in their decision making process. Consider the example of a moving average cross strategy. The most basic version says to buy when a fast moving average crosses above a slow moving average. Multi-timeframe analysis involves jumping to a chart of a longer period to consider the setup there, as well.

Example:
The 20 period SMA (fast) crosses above the 50 period SMA (slow) on the M15 chart.
Now jump to the H1 chart. Is the fast SMA greater than the slow SMA on that chart, too? If so, then the trade is allowed. If not, the EA skips the signal and waits for another one.

The technique has the potential to work if your strategy offers some type of statistical advantage. Moving averages sometimes work when applied using a trader's discretion of general market volatility. If you leave an MA cross strategy on a chart unattended, however, my expectation is that you would have no better chance than trading at random. Adding another layer of analysis will not change the fact that the basic premise offers no advantage.

MetaTrader does not restrict Expert Advisors to reading information from the applied chart. When you program an EA to trade on EURGBP M5 chart, you may also read price information from the EURGBP M1, EURGBP H1 or any other chart available. You can even read information on multiple pairs.

Some traders like to watch correlated currency pairs. EUR/USD and USD/CHF typically share a -90% correlation. When EURUSD goes up, USDCHF typically goes down. Exceptions do occur, and those traders tend to look for exceptions on the expectation of them ironing themselves out. Expert Advisors make this fairly simple to handle. You just program the question, "What's the last closed price of EUR/USD M5 and USD/CHF M5?" The code gives you the answer, then the EA can make decisions with it.

EES Hybrid Trading Model (video)

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Violence necessary to achieve protesters goals: journalist


Occupy L.A. Speaker: Violence will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals

Citizen journalist Ringo captured this speaker at the Occupy Los Angeles camp a few days ago letting the cat out of the bag: After dismissing nonviolence as a dead end, he admits that for the Occupiers to achieve their goals, violence and bloodshed will be necessary:

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

How to Flush your Windows DNS Cache

Click start and run, type command.
Then type: ipconfig /flushdns


http://www.whatsmydns.net/flush-dns.html

Computer Deal of the Day


Thursday, October 6, 2011

Wall St. Protests continue

Senate to Vote on China Currency Manipulation Bill

While China has purposely devalued it’s currency, hurting the value of the U.S. dollar over the last decade, neither the Obama or G.W. Bush administrations have actually taken the step to formally designate China as a currency manipulator in any annual reports in the past decade. Failure to designate China as a currency manipulator prevents the U. S. government from being able to apply tariffs on Chinese imports or start investigations into currency manipulation. Senate Democrats will now introduce a bill on Monday that will try to push the issue of China’s currency manipulation, and supposedly open the door for U.S. companies to seek tariffs against Chinese imports if they are found to be artificially keeping their products cheap through keeping it’s currency devalued. Considering our current recession, provoking a trade war with China is a very dangerous thing according to many political insiders, including Jon Huntsman, the former ambassador to China and current presidential candidate who told Fox news, " You take action against China, you can expect them to rebut that action with commensurate tariffs," he said. "During a recession, you don’t want a trade war." 


http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/10/senate-to-vote-on-china-currency-manipulation-bill-monday/

China expressed strong objections on Tuesday to a bill in the United States Senate that would threaten higher tariffs on some Chinese goods in response to what the bill’s sponsors call China’s policy of keeping its currency artificially depressed to give its exports a price advantage.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/world/asia/china-criticizes-senates-currency-manipulation-bill.html