Saturday, May 1, 2010

Month-end needs overshadow Greece and china

http://forexblog.oanda.com/20100430/month-end-needs-overshadow-greece-and-china/ Simply put, today is month-end. Traders all week have been consumed with the peripheral market noise. The Fed, Greece, China, all important, but when it comes to 'lemming' revaluation of portfolios for month-end requirements, logic tends to be thrown out the window with the bath water. Banks models suggest that USD will have to be sold today. With a long week-end in the UK and strong a 'percentage' chance that a Greek bailout could finally be formulated has us asking the question will market participants want to trim their record short EUR positions. The percentage play says yes. Technically, already we have taken out the 1.3280 and the 1.3310 resistance this morning and there is a plethora of individuals wanting to sell EUR's at higher levels making this move drag-on. Their ideal entry level is around the 1.3400 print. The intraday month-end move can be somewhat justified by what portfolio managers have been doing in April. They have been meticulously selling EUR denominated assets' requiring them to repurchase EUR's to re-hedge themselves. Will the SNB allow us to re-enter at better levels?

Friday, April 30, 2010

This oil spill ‘the bad one’

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hbgtrta7DHpLDmgwkFF6w67kkwpQD9FDKT781
WASHINGTON — What makes an oil spill really bad? Most of the ingredients for it are now blending in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts tick off the essentials: A relentless flow of oil from under the sea; a type of crude that mixes easily with water; a resultant gooey mixture that is hard to burn and even harder to clean; water that's home to vulnerable spawning grounds for new life; and a coastline with difficult-to-scrub marshlands.

Gulf Coast experts have always talked about "the potential for a bad one," said Wes Tunnell, coastal ecology and oil spill expert at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

"And this is the bad one. This is just a biggie that finally happened."

Thursday, April 29, 2010

US considers criminal charges for Goldman Sachs

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-considers-goldman-sachs-criminal-charges-wsj-2010-04-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- U.S. federal prosecutors are looking into whether to charge Goldman Sachs Group Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!gs/quotes/nls/gs (GS
156.10, -4.14, -2.58%) or its employees with criminal securities fraud, according to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday, citing unnamed sources. Goldman Sachs already faces a civil fraud suit from the Securities & Exchange Commission, but the report said the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating whether to pursue criminal charges as well, dealing with the firm's previous mortgage trades. The report said which particular Goldman deals are being scrutinized is still unknown

Elite Expert Trader added to My FX Book EA reviews

http://www.myfxbook.com/reviews/expert-advisors/elite-expert-trader/29804,1 Anyone with experience using EET please post your honest comments

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Goldman grilled by Senate

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ac1dIgMyS_sE&pos=3 April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executives were grilled by U.S. lawmakers who compared the bank's mortgage bankers to bookies as Senator Carl Levin asked why they sold securities the company itself called "shitty."

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Goldman Frankenindex revealed in emails

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aDgzfxGflUMg April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive director facing a fraud lawsuit in the sale of a mortgage-linked investment, said an index that facilitated derivatives trading in the market was "like Frankenstein."

The so-called ABX index is "the type of thing which you invent telling yourself: 'Well, what if we created a 'thing,' which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price?'" Tourre said in a Jan. 29, 2007, e-mail released yesterday by Goldman Sachs. Watching the index fall is "a little like Frankenstein turning against his own inventor."

Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, released more than 70 pages of e-mail and other documents yesterday ahead of a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on the firm's actions throughout the mortgage meltdown. The firm disputes the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's claim that Goldman Sachs and Tourre, now 31, misled investors in a 2007 collateralized debt obligation about the role played by hedge fund Paulson & Co., which bet the CDO would collapse.

JPM builds massive short silver position in COMEX

http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/gold_gata_cftc_042220102
THERE IS GOOD REASON to question J.P.Morgan's concentrated short position in Comex silver futures, and to investigate allegations that JPM used it to manipulate the silver market, writes Erik Townsend, a private investors currently based in Hong Kong, at FinancialSense.

But the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) has handled this matter poorly by focusing its attention on baseless, unproven conspiracy allegations pertaining to the London gold market (outside CFTC's jurisdiction). GATA should instead focus on the compelling evidence that is directly material to the still-pending CFTC investigation.

What's more, Jeffrey Christian's testimony at the CFTC Hearing has been taken completely out of context, and allegations that it reveals a scandal or revelation are baseless. Despite the best efforts of some responsible journalists including Jim Puplava, others including Tyler Durden (ZeroHedge) and Eric King (King World News) have contributed to the misinformation campaign by promulgating GATA's baseless allegations.

Yes, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the ratio of "paper gold" to real gold, but they are not the reasons GATA has made so much undue fuss about. They also have nothing to do with leverage. Investors should focus on understanding the inherent risks and limitations of the precious metals investment vehicles. The most popular are reviewed and contrasted below.