Sunday, June 13, 2010

Gulf Oil Doomsday



Monday, June 7, 2010

EUR/USD vs ES & HU 10- Yr Yield Sprds vs DE Flows - Now its Hungary!!

EUR/USD vs ES & HU 10- Yr Yield Sprds vs DE Flows - Now its Hungary!!

Monday, June 07, 2010 7:57:00 AM

* 07 Jun 10: 11:57 GMT (LDN) - FX NOW! EUR/USD vs ES & HU 10- Yr Yield Sprds vs DE Flows - Now its Hungary!!

EUR/USD's dive that built momentum on Friday and breached the psychologically key 1.2000 level was fuelled by the ongoing concerns about the international debt markets. Uncertainty in the debt markets has undermined the equity markets and the knock on for the FX market is that USD and JPY outperform the rest of the market. EUR/USD's fall through the 1.2000 was dealer led, but they did not take the initiative until equities had fallen over. Now, the news from Hungary, as well as a few other names, has undermined equities and FX once again. The story just keeps going.... M.B.

* 07 Jun 10: 11:08 GMT (LDN) - FX NOW! EUR/USD vs S&P Futures Flows - Asians extend Friday's trends, eurozone takes profits

It is a new week, but the story has not really changed for markets in general. Debt problems continue to dominate the headlines, with Hungary being featured as a potential flash point. Politics is also playing its part. G20 coverage has unearthed differences of view/focus between US Treasury Sec Geitner and ECB's Trichet. Asians did what Asians do in reaction to the news and sent equities spinning along with EUR. USD and JPY came out on top overnight. Eurozone traders did not share the same misgivings and seem happy to cover shorts in advance of the N. American open. S&P futures have bounced off lows of 1052 and climbed to 1069+. That equity bounce has had the usual impact on the FX market dragging EUR up off its lows and giving AUD and CAD a big boost. Once profits are booked and positions are manageable, it will be the N. Americans that set the tone and direction for the remainder of what is likely to be an order driven session. M.B.

* 07 Jun 10: 10:04 GMT (LDN) - FX NOW! EUR/USD, EUR/JPY Flows - EUR higher prior to strong German Factory Orders release

German factory orders for April were up 2.8% m/m, not at the 5 m/m pace seen in March, but well above market estimates in the 0.4% m/m area. EUR has not reacted in any significant way to the April report. In advance of the better than anticipated data, EUR was working its way higher after setting of stops in EUR/USD at 1.1960 and working its way more methodically higher vs JPY. Technically, the next levels to watch include 1.2020 for EUR/USD and 110.00 for EUR/JPY. M.B.

Friday, June 4, 2010

MT4 build 226 fix: recompile EAs

http://eesfx.com/portal/17-ees-customer-support-requests/92-mt4-build-226-crashing.html

Any and all EA's or custom indicators will need to be compiled, (via the MetaEditor) to build 226.

Typically, this occurs when programs written in build 225 are not updated to build 226 for used by compiling them to the updated build in the Editor.

This is a known issue by MetaQuotes and eventually occurs for any mismatching build/programmed EA.

EES / PFG Webinar Archived online

https://pfgbest.webex.com/ec0600l/eventcenter/recording/recordAction.do?siteurl=pfgbest&theAction=archive

Topic:  Automated Forex Systems for Spot FX-20100603 1904-1 Recording date:  Thursday, June 3, 2010 3:00 pm   Central Daylight Time (GMT -05:00, Chicago) Panelist Information:  Elite E Services Duration:  58 mins Description: 

Overview: This presentation will explain how to use automated Forex systems in spot FX using the MT4 trading platform and the advantages of using a system vs. not using a system. We will cover an actual trading system, the DRS system; offered by Elite E Services FX; a registered CTA. This system, after explanation, will be available for lease or purchase to anyone interested.

Friday, May 28, 2010

EES Automated Forex Systems for Spot FX Webinar hosted by PFG

Automated Forex Systems for Spot FX


Overview:

This presentation will explain how to use automated Forex systems in spot FX using the MT4 trading platform and the advantages of using a system vs. not using a system. We will cover an actual trading system, the DRS system; offered by Elite E Services FX; a registered CTA. This system, after explanation, will be available for lease or purchase to anyone interested.

Covered Topics:

  • Using fully automated systems in spot FX
  • Risk management
  • Trading results - wishes vs. realistic expectations
  • Meta Trader 4

Speaker bio:

Elite E Services FX is a registered CTA, which develops quantitative models for the foreign exchange market. www.eliteeservices.net for more info. www.eesfx.com (Customer Trading Portal) EES has been featured in Futures Magazine, and was ranked by Barclay Hedge as one of the top CTAs in the world in 2007.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. Trading futures and options is not suitable for everyone. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading futures and options.

http://pfgbest.com/webinar/eventSummary.asp?skey=334218976

Monday, May 24, 2010

Oanda fxTrade Infocenter

http://fxtradeinfocenter.oanda.com/

FXTrade InfoCenter

A compendium of free forex trading news, tools, and information

Discover how economic indicators affect foreign currency movement. Find out about crude oil crack spreads and other timely topics of interest. Or access OANDA's open order books to see how client price expectations may be affecting the currency markets.

From glossaries to blogs, from currency fundamentals to advanced analysis, from open books to wikis, the OANDA FXTrade InfoCenter is your one-stop site for free currency commentary, news, analysis, and graphical tools to understand the forex market.

http://fxtradeinfocenter.oanda.com/

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Cloud Computing Pyramid



http://pyramid.gogrid.com/

What is the Cloud Computing Pyramid?

The main premise behind the choice of a pyramid is to think about building a structure, where each layer is built upon the next, potentially, creating a larger whole. While each layer can be somewhat dependent upon each other and directly related, they do not require interdependence. In fact, each layer can, and does exist on its own. You can, for example, build a Cloud Application on top of a Cloud Platform or Cloud Infrastructure, but the building process primarily works from the ground up. The inverse is not possible (e.g., building a Cloud Platform on top of a Cloud Application). There are other ways to describe this hierarchy as simple layers or interconnecting circles, but those don’t necessarily convey the strength of the structure, or “infrastructure” in this case. We believe that the Cloud Pyramid encompasses this idea in a simple visual representation.


Saturday, May 22, 2010

MT4 live update to Build 226

http://forum.mql4.com/30807
New Version: MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal Build 226

Fixed displaying of pending orders for symbols with 3 decimal places. At 100 points before the execution price orders are highlighted red.

The live update will be available through the LiveUpdate system.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Euro breakup concerns grow – Greece may take legal steps against US banks

Greece May Take Legal Steps Against U.S. Banks...
Euro Breakup Concerns Grow...
Falls to 4-year low...
Germans lose faith...
Merkel: Rescue package 'just buys time'...

Kregel/Parenteau: No Sidestepping the Eurozone Implosion?

Links 5/17/10

"Making Friends With Evil": A Fable for Our Times Chris Floyd

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment Peter Beinhart, New York Review of Books

US says BP move to curb oil leak 'no solution' BBC. Note the contrast with US headlines: Oil-Spill Fight Shows Progress Wall Street Journal and BP Reports Some Success in Capturing Leaking Oil New York Times. Probably the best explanation here: Feds: BP's mile-long oil tube 'not a solution to the problem' Raw Story

Judge H. Lee Sarokin: Why Should There Be Any Liability Limitation for Oil Spills? Huffington Post

How Will They Spin This? Paul Krugman

Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns Guardian

Class Warfare: Hundreds Protest Outside Bankers' Houses In DC Huffington Post. I'm not keen about this sort of thing, but not surprised to see it happening.

America's Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists Alternet (hat tip reader John L)

Dimon Tries, Fails to Pacify Syracuse Protester With Phone Call Bloomberg (hat tip reader John L). Blankfein is getting his wish, he is not alone in the hot seat.

Support for Spanish government falls sharply Financial Times

Early Easter hits retail sales as April figures show nationwide drop Independent

Going to Extreme Paul Krugman. We pointed to the article he cites over the weekend.

Forget the wolf pack – the ongoing euro crisis was caused by EMU Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph

Kregel/Parenteau: No Sidestepping the Eurozone Implosion?


 

By Jan Kregel, former professor of economics at Università degli Studi di Bologna and Johns Hopkins,m and currently a senior scholar at The Levy Economics Institute and Rob Parenteau, CFA, sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge, editor of The Richebacher Letter, and a research associate of The Levy Economics Institute

A week ago eurocrats launched their campaign of overwhelming force designed to shock and awe the "wolf pack" of professional speculators and institutional investors (hedge funds and pension fund managers) into a more docile, subservient position. In the currency market, the shock and awe wore off after the first 48 hours, while by the end of the week, it also appeared to be wearing off from the equity markets.

Some of this is undoubtedly just the innate brazenness of the wolf pack being expressed. As a general rule, they do not take kindly to being cowed or constrained in any fashion. It is simply is not in their genetic make up. Consequently, they have no choice but to follow their instincts to call the bluff of the eurocrats, and that is part of the reason we are seeing, for example, the wolf pack dragging the euro exchange rate down to the ground in recent trading sessions.

But this is about more than just testosterone counts. Some wing of the professional investing world is beginning to see the design flaws built into the eurozone from day one. And once the spy these flaws, they begin to realize the nature of the solution is something utterly different than what they are witnessing being rolled out before their very eyes. In the following 11 points, we highlight some of the key aspects of the eurozone predicament using the financial balance approach developed by the late Wynne Godley which we have explored in previous blog submissions, papers, and book chapters. Until more investors and policy makers can understand the true nature of the various predicaments facing the eurozone, and the inherent design flaws exhibited in the European Monetary Union and the (In)Stability and (Lack of) Growth Pact, odds are precious time will simply be wasted trying to make believe the shock and awe fix is already in.

1. Underlying the eurozone predicament is a missing adjustment mechanism. There is neither a price nor a policy mechanism that encourages the current account surplus nations to recycle their surpluses in a win/win, pro-growth fashion. Keynes tried to design such a mechanism into the Bretton Woods agreement, but the American negotiators scotched it. This same pro-growth adjustment mechanism is missing at the global level with regard to China (although they did report a trade deficit in March).

2. An ostensibly moral stance advocating balanced government budgets is revealing a profound ignorance of the simple accounting of sector financial balances. Those preferring to impose a "fiscally correct" policy on the peripheral nations should best recognize these accounting realities, and soon. If we are correct that domestic income deflation will be the end result of fiscal retrenchment colliding with private sector attempts to net save, then surely more desperate citizens will turn to even more desperate acts. Rather perversely, the combined effects of fiscal retrenchment, private income deflation, and rising private debt distress are likely to make moral considerations a second or third order concern for many eurozone citizens.

3. Ultimately, current account surpluses need to be recycled into chronic deficit nations in a sustainable fashion. Such a mechanism could be set up under the auspices of the European Investment Bank very quickly. Effective incentives to recycle current account surpluses via foreign direct investment or equity flows should be crafted at once.

4. Such an approach is likely to prove superior to funneling financial assistance through the IMF or other multinational arrangements. The IMF will undoubtedly insure that fiscal retrenchment gets imposed across the region. Any fiscal assistance is likely to be imposed with conditionality – a conditionality that fails to recognize sector financial balances are interlinked, both within and between nations. IMF conditionality is bound to set off the twin contagion vectors of falling trade surpluses and rising bank loan losses in the core nations. Surely this is not what Dutch and German policymakers intended, nor is it any way to hold the eurozone together.

5. Rapidly cutting fiscal deficits without considering the impact of such moves on private sector financial balances is a shortsighted, if not dangerous policy direction. Sector financial balances – the difference between saving and investment, or income and expenditures – are interconnected, and cannot be treated in isolation.

6. Hiking taxes and slashing government expenditures will suck cash flow out of the private sectors of the peripheral eurozone nations. These private sectors have been rebuilding their net saving positions in the wake of sharp and prolonged recessions. Companies have been conserving cash by slicing investment spending, inventories, and employment. Households have already drastically reduced home purchases and consumer spending.

7. It is an elementary fact of accounting that the private sector as a whole can only spend less than it earns if some other sector spends more than it earns. That sector has tended to be the government, usually as automatic stabilizers kicked in while recessions deepened. Indeed, most of the dramatic widening of government deficits is due to a collapse in tax revenues, not to discretionary stimulus. Pursuing fiscal retrenchment in order to reduce government debt default risk will merely raise the odds of private sector debt defaults. Cash flow will be taken from households and firms attempting to rebuild their net saving positions, and private debt servicing will falter.

8. The only way to avoid this outcome is if the nations undertaking fiscal retrenchment can swing their trade deficits around in a fully offsetting fashion. Otherwise, domestic income deflation is the likely result, Indeed, this is the madness behind the method of "internal devaluation" so evident in Latvia's economic implosion. There is no guarantee that trade swings will be large enough to overcome fiscal drag. A return to debt deflation dynamics like those engaged after the Lehman debacle is not out of the question.

9. Furthermore, since the current account surplus of the eurozone has remained between +1 and -1 percent of GDP for quite some time, there is every reason to believe that attempts by the periphery to achieve trade surpluses will undermine the export led growth of Germany and the Netherlands.

10. It would therefore appear that fiscal retrenchment is about to set off two related contagion effects. First, the loans on the books of German, Dutch and French banks are likely to sour as private sector cash flows are squeezed in the periphery. Bank holdings of government debt issued by the periphery may not default, but the mortgages and corporate loans these banks have outstanding to the periphery will experience rising loan losses.

11. Second, the export sales of German and Dutch companies will fade with the falling import demand of the periphery. As their domestic incomes fall, they will import less. In other words, the fiscal retrenchment the core nations are insisting upon is highly likely to boomerang right back on them.

As it stands, investors have started to recognize that bank in the region are at risk. CDS for Spanish and Portuguese debt have started to widen more dramatically over the past two weeks, although investors still appear overly focused on government debt CDS. Policy makers have also begun to realize Greece is unlikely to be the last country requiring a bail out, while they at the same time sign on for rapid fiscal "consolidation" (read retrenchment) in order to ostensibly avoid becoming the next Greece.

Yet we continue to find many of the points detailed above are not yet recognized by professional investors or policy decision makers. Absent this coherent framework, it will indeed prove very difficult to sidestep an economic and financial implosion in the eurozone, following on the heels of an already historically deep recession, and burst property bubbles in a number of eurozone nations. May wiser heads prevail.

More on this topic (What's this?)

The Ramifications of Bailouts in Europe (Trends I'm Watching, 5/16/10)

What the Greek Bailout Means for the Eurozone… And How You Can Play It (Investment U, 5/4/10)

Eurozone slowdown coming; can the Euro survive? (Credit Writedowns, 5/12/10)