Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Occupy Movement

The Occupy movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality. The first Occupy protest to receive wide coverage was Occupy Wall Street in New York City, which began on September 17, 2011. By October 9, Occupy protests had taken place or were ongoing in over 95 cities across 82 countries, and over 600 communities in the United States. As of December 10 the Meetup page "Occupy Together" listed 2,720 Occupy communities worldwide.
The movement was initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters, and partly inspired by the Arab Spring, especially Cairo's Tahrir Square protests, and the Spanish Indignants. The movement commonly uses the slogan We are the 99%, the Occupy hashtag format, and organizes through websites such as "Occupy Together". According to the Washington Post, the movement, which has been described as a "democratic awakening" by Cornel West, is difficult to distill to a few demands.
Just after midnight on November 9 in London, Ontario, police evicted protesters from the city's Victoria Park, becoming the first forced evictions in Canada. On the afternoon of November 11 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and later on the night of November 14, authorities forcefully closed down camps around the world in cities such as New York, Oakland and Zurich. Occupy protestors immediately regrouped and vowed to continue their protests, often returning to the cleared sites. On November 24, Edinburgh City Council became the first governmental body in the world to grant the Occupy movement official recognition.[

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

How far can the dollar go down?

How far can the dollar go down?

Theoretically, the US Dollar can go to zero. While unlikely, it should be remembered that nearly every currency that has ever existed throughout history, eventually has a crash that destroys 90% of absolute value, or more.

Won't foreign Central Banks support the dollar?

Why should they? If you are hungry, and your 600 lb. neighbor (who is now so fat he can't even walk anymore he needs to use one of those little carts) missed a few meals, which happen to be 5x expensive as yours, would you finance his dessert? Of course not. You are thinking many things, but supporting his habit of overeating isn't one of them. The US consumes over 25% of the world's resources but produces less than 10%. Economists may not care for such a crude analogy, but the situation with the US Dollar is very, very simple, and should not be overcomplicated. The USD has been a reserve currency for the post WW2 world, but since Nixon abandon gold standard, the USD is backed by only the belief and faith in US Government. We are seeing a commodity boom, not because of a bubble in commodity asset prices, but because of a decline in the USD, the world's reserve currency in which many commodities (especially Oil and Gold) are priced. In any event, it's not likely that foreign central banks will bail out the dollar, because that would in effect make them eat a realized loss in their current account. Moderately wealthy nations cannot afford to take the loss of the US, the largest and wealthiest economy in the world. The US has been a financial big brother who have bailed out other failing economies  but the US has no big brother to lean on, except maybe Russia, although that wouldn't go over too well in Washington. So if the US Defaults, who can come to the rescue?

Gold is cheap

Adjusted for inflation, Gold should be above 1500  without considering any boom. Many are wondering if commodities can continue to increase, without considering how depressed commodity prices were in the late 90's. An economy can live without services, or money, but people cannot decide not to eat or use Oil. Gold is money, the high price in Gold is reflective of investors concern about the value of money  any money. The US Dollar is a reserve currency so when USD goes down, so do many other currencies. The majority of USD holders are foreigners, but that is changing (in the past 10 years foreign USD holders have decreased from 77% to 62%).

What to do?

An argument of this nature should end in a that's next or that you should do. Unfortunately, this is a complex situation with no magic bullet solution. On a basic personal finances level, one should sell your mortgage at any price and become debt free with low cost of living. Don't bet on any economic upturn that will save your finances, things will only get worse. Second, do what you do well  no matter what the value of the dollar or the state of the economy, there will always be demand for goods and services (unless you happen to be in real-estate business, in which case you could start looking into farms.) The good news is that in any time of chaos, uncertainty, and reorganization, there are always massive opportunities. Taking advantage of them may not require huge amounts of capital. Knowledge of the situation can cause one to be in the right place at the right time or at least not in the wrong place at the wrong time for example it would not be smart to be in south Florida amidst economic suffering which could lead to crime, rioting, overall fraud, and a depressed local economy.

Property surrounding small country towns has been doubling in 1 year! Farmland has increased by as much as 500% in some areas over the last few years. There are plentiful opportunities in this market, but they may not be the traditional opportunities that investors are accustomed to.

It's 2008

There is a new market thinking, accept it or not. We don't live in the 1970's, it's not 1970 it's 2008. In 1970 Russia was communist, now there are more billionaires in Moscow than in New York. In 1970 Oil had not yet peaked, there was no Internet, financial markets were not deregulated to the extent that they are now, there were no derivatives, no climate change, and no Oil hungry China. In 1970 Europe was scarcely organized, only 25 years of reconstruction post ww2, and there was no Euro.

Thinking Different

Therefore, the only way to survive in the New Investment Paradigm is to be nimble and stay ahead of the information curve. In any field, applied intelligence can earn a solid position and even great profits. Safe havens are no longer safe as they were, the bond market is getting destroyed by inflation, TIPS (inflation protected bonds) are trading negative for the first time ever, meaning you are betting inflation will be worse than the small loss you will take on the bonds.

A trader named Paulson made a record Wall Street profit on single trade, shorting SubPrime loans. Gold investors are happily sitting on 300%+ returns since 2002. Those holding US Dollar short positions have doubled their money in several years. CTA programs have achieved 70% - 150% in 2007, trading currencies, commodities, and futures. Anyone long Oil or Gasoline futures in the past months would have been very profitable.

Clearly, there are hundreds of opportunities but no clear magic bullet solution that could be recommended, compared to 5 years ago when a US Dollar short or Long Gold portfolio could have been safely recommended. It is for this reason Elite E Services is launching a Global Opportunities Hedge Fund, which should be ready by late spring. If you are trading for yourself, take quick profits and don't hold any positions for the long term, and seek new opportunities. Keep in mind the opportunities may be biased toward the Short side than the long side, as DOW and NASDAQ components will be hit by a sinking dollar, sinking US Economy, and credit problems.

Are Traditional Banks Better Than Internet Banking?

With the ubiquitous internet as it is today, you have the convenience of doing a variety of banking transactions online from the comfort of your home, in your office or while traveling. This extraordinary technological creation has so made life easier for a lot of people including professionals, the business community, housewives and scholars even for banking purposes. Notwithstanding, this new communication phenomenon people have not stopped patronizing the usual off line banks . The orthodox banks will always be there for those people who still choose to interact in an real bank in where they see staff and call them by name.

The banks that have gone online and their offline counterpart have their advantages and disadvantages. It's up to you to consider and decide whether to transact your financial affairs with either an online bank or an off line one . What really count s is that you should know your financial demands so as to be able to actually be on the look out for the latest tendency in the banking industry and understudy them to see how it favors you. Even if you are loyal to your usual offline bank, you may also have the need to sometimes use the online banking service for an urgent transaction or when you are where the bank is not near by.

Accomplished banks continue to use pen and paper for organizing financial transactions off line while in their online virtual offices computer and internet and keyboard are the instruments for banking transactions . The fact is that a lot of people are now online with financial products that are internet-only services meant to compete with the normal off line banks . Though these conservative banks cater mainly to their old customers, people who should know are advising them to also open online offices to serve the internet-savvy young people and by so doing attract more customers

Security and person to person interactions are the main reasons people maintain the use of traditional banks. A lot of people feel that human contact is a necessity in any bank transaction; they want to hand their hard earned cash over to real teller.

Banking online is quite the same as when you do the same thing in an offline bank. The significant dissimilarity is that your computer replaces paper or phone for accessing your account information for payments and statements reconciliations . You don't really have to worry about going to your local bank branch when you can do all the things necessary to effect a bank transaction in the comfort of your home with a desktop computer or laptop and internet connection.

A principal advantage that internet banking offers people who go for online banking is cost effectiveness. Certain banks are known to charge their customers lower fees if the bank online banking services.

Forex Indicators For Better Trading Accuracy

For some traders, they prefer to use the forex indicators to make some trading decisions. They spend hours in front of the computers to observe the movements of the indicators to make sure that they have already made the perfect decision. For them, they accuracy on examining the indicators is the life of their trading sessions. Once they made mistake, it would be a bit hard to recover.

Some traders are using the forex indicators to see the forex signal. The signal gives them some hints to make a decision. Most of the traders prefer to combines some forex indicators. These forex indicators would give them some forex signals combination. They need to determine the direction of the market to make some decision. Are they going to buy, or they want to get the sell position? The decision could be made after they see and examine the forex indicators.

Those traders realized that not all the time those signal forex combinations are correct. They might make misjudge of a movement of the market that surely might impact the whole trading process. To avoid this situation, those traders should really understand about the forex indicators. This is the best way to eliminate some mistakes that might be done.

Growing Popularity of Forex Trading

Today it is very hard to ignore the fact that forex market is the world's biggest financial market. Over the past few years, it has become the most popular market with trades amounting to more than USD 3 trillion every day. Generally referred as currency trading market, it always involves the combination of two currencies. For example- either you can buy Euro or sell US dollars, or you can buy and sale any other combination of globally accepted currencies.

In recent times, fx trading has gained huge popularity and turned out to be a very profitable money making option. If we look at the present scenario, it can be recognized as one of the most potentially rewarding types of investments available in the global market. Though this form of trading involves great risks but the potential to earn profits are enormous relative to initial capital investments. The major reason of growing recognition is its very low dealing costs, high leverage margin, 24 hours trading a day and high liquidity market. For example, with a $5000 account, you can make about $5000 per month.
Obviously it decidedly depends on the manner that you trade and the strategy you follow but good and experienced traders can double their money every month.

The key positive sign of fx currency trading that can help you consider it as a money-making affair can be its size. Its wide yet easily accessible size prevents almost all attempts by others to influence the market for their own gain. Consequently, when you invest in foreign currency market, you can be certain that the deal you are making has the same opportunity for profit as other investors do throughout the world.

So, if you are looking to get involve in this type of currency trading, it is always better to enjoy trading with the help of a forex broker. A forex broker can be the key person who can guide you to earn more profits from market, as a result it is always better to carefully select a right forex broker for right deal. Apart from all this, the next major fact about this form of currency trading is- in this form of trading there is no centralized location of foreign currency trading. With the help of various online platforms you can trade currency from any parts of the world. With the help of internet connection and active forex trading account you can easily trade in foreign currencies.

Today it can be considered as one of the few trading markets in the world that always provides you with opportunities to trade because of currencies strengthening or weakening. The supply and demand are the factors that determine the price in any market. Now when there are too many buyers and sellers, similar to the current situation in forex market, the price volatility can be much higher, market may be more dynamic and chances to make money can be even more. The price may go up and down more frequently and this dynamic nature helps in making decent money. Consequently, if you are looking to choose Forex as your business, its better you do not get worried about competition but must make sure you develop a proper strategy to earn money and enjoy good success in fx trading.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Forex Rates Today !

FOREX RATES
Pakistan Open Market Forex Rates
Updated at : 7/12/2009 3:48 PM (PST)

Currency
Buying
Selling
Australian Dollar
75.30
76.30
Canadian Dollar
77.90
78.90
China Yuan
11.90
13.40
Euro
123.30
125.30
Japanese Yen
0.9100
0.9200
Saudi Riyal
21.12
21.92
U.A.E Dirham
22.48
22.68
UK Pound Sterling
136.30
137.30
US Dollar
83.40
83.70