Forex Forum Archive for 01/20/2008

UK Alex 23:57 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
PAR 19:16 GMT January 20, 2008
I thought Branson was accompanying the delegation to China to open a new Virgin Balloon Flying School. ;-)

lkwd jj 23:02 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Va Raven 21:16 GMT January 20, 2008
Stop and target?

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stop under lows of last week. trgt 20dma. any chance of boj cut?

US SW 22:43 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
I think the AUD/NZD is going to 117

Malaysia puteraku73 22:40 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Any news on eur/jpy?

austin mw 22:02 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
USA Zeus 05:48 GMT January 20, 2008
Crow about Romney in political forum please..

Syd 21:40 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
RBA Governor Glenn Stevens speech in London Friday places focus clearly on Wednesday's CPI data as make or break for interest rate hike in February. Stevens says in Q&A post-speech he has no concerns over strength of AUD, adding stronger currency helping contain inflation. Notes much flagged budget savings by newly elected Labor government, but says "We have not been on the edge of our seats" over governments planned savings. Says budget is "one among many factors" in battle against inflation. Speech maintains hawkish outlook, shrugging off fears for global economy. 4Q CPI due Wednesday 0030 GMT. dowjones

Va Raven 21:16 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Stop and target?

lkwd jj 21:13 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
what about long $Y here?

Va Raven 21:07 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Still holding the trades, jj.
Wanted to see a fresh view of any when one didn't have a position.
You know your view is biased when you have a position.

lkwd jj 20:57 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
raven what a question? are you flat after being short ? what did you see that you are flat, if you are? or was it just the w/e?

Toronto jw 20:01 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Anyone knows if the market is open on Monday? tks

Va Raven 19:34 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Idea, sorry.

Va Raven 19:33 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Any practical trade ideal on eur/usd this week?

Cbj Jake 19:26 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
hk ab(4:12) - I agree with you ab. It is really hard to lose in pms - especially the shares where routine drops can be 30%+. Also, they had great/profitable cycles. Few years ago, you could even buy and sell the mutual funds daily - without charge! - My mailbox was usually crammed with transactions receipts. Feds stopped that.

I had started in pms right in 2001 - not for profit per se but I saw the gradual erosion of trust in the institutions of government. Ha! I could not believe my good fortune. Some people labeled me a communist(ie, a "devil") - a la Cramer who was "pushed" to gold shouting and kicking! What a "has been" term - more a weapon of propaganda, without nuance or political sophistication.

PAR 19:16 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
A Chinese Norhtern Rock soon ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7240410

isr jweb 18:01 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
wouldnt short euro yet. not safe levels for me. below 1.43 maybe would short. now long looks still in action

Makassar Alimin 17:03 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
if i go long euro i would only worry if 1.45 taken on weekly closing basis, if it dances between 1.45-1.4650 for the time being it is ok

Dubai NH 16:42 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   


Any views on EUR$ for tomm? Will it breask the 1.4587 support?

PAR 13:55 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/18/opinion/main3728991.shtml

London SP 13:16 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Zeus, do you think that euro $ is to plung in the coming week ? I am currently holding a long position on the euro, is 145.80 a reasnable place for a stop ?
as I can see you are an active trader in the future market,
can I have your opinion on the S&P as I am still short the stock market, do you think that there is more to come, or maybe time to go long for the medium term.

many thanks for reply

Syd 07:59 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens Friday said policymakers are "not that distressed" by the strong Australian dollar.

He said that given the strength of economic growth in Australia, together with high employment and significant inflation pressures, the contractionary effect of the strong Australian dollar isn't a significant problem.

Stevens, speaking to the Australian Business Group in London, said the RBA isn't fixated with the government's fiscal plans.

"We have not been on the edge of our seats over what's been happening," with the budget, as some people think, Stevens said, adding that "it's one among many" factors.
dj

USA Zeus 06:56 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Oops- Did it again unintentionally. Please delete last posts here. They were for the political forum.

USA Zeus 06:41 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Quick example- The economy is obviously a key issue now. So CNN realizes this. They single out and credit Mitt Romney as one of the best businessmen in the world and mention his fantastic track record. Then they switch to say re: his economic plan "typical wannabe all things...morphing blah blah "(Gloria Borger who was the one that said Mitt can talk of change but McCain has a track record) ..."The guy really has a good record" (Jeffrey Toobin) re: Bain "ruthless brilliant capitalists" and twist Mitt's words etc by saying he wants to start building cars in Michigan and bring back jobs (He had earlier stated that he would fight to keep jobs- not 'start' building cars in Detroit LOL) then top it off with saying that running against Mitt is to run against George Bush economy. LOL!!!! I guess that means with all the credit they gave Mitt George Bush must thus be one of the best, most brilliant businessmen in the world? not hardly!!!

See for yourself then ask why would they single out one of the best businessmen in the world when the other candidates from both parties can't even run a lemonade stand -

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/01/19/romney.intv.cnn

USA Zeus 05:49 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Sorry- last post was intended for the political forum.

USA Zeus 05:48 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Mitt Romney wins in Nevada today. He now leads all Republican Candidates by nearly 2:1 (72 vs 38) over nearest competitor John McCain who won today in South Carolina. Funny though, CNN (Communist News Network) touts the liberal McCain saying that all the big news today is in South Carolina and mentioning Romney's victory in almost post script fashion.

Then they go and say that the big news today is in South Carolina. As if 19 delegates in South Carolina vs 18 in Nevada changes the tide. They also said that no candidate has yet to score a major back-to-back victory. However, Romney won back-to-back. First in Michigan with 24 delegates then wrapped up Nevada before polls were even closed in South Carolina. Then one of the armchair personalities decided to repeat after McCain's victory hoorah speech that he has served all of his adult life in public service and that Romney can speak of change all he wants but McCain has a history....LOL

Well I guess She doesn't know too many people at Bain Capital, Massachusetts, Salt Lake Olympics etc where Romney was the key in their complete turnaround successes, saving them from the brink of total collapse, bankruptcy, corruption, credibility etc.

After all, he is continuously attacked by other candidates and media for being so wealthy as a consequence of being a terrific business leader. Hmm, well I guess they can continue poking at his ability to spend from his coffers (sourced by a terrific 'change' from turning Bain Capital around from certain death into the thriving leader that it is today) but, unlike his competitors it is only because he knows how to make more than he spends LOL.

The real reason the media attacks him is because he is a person who has a religion. Very sad as the discrimination seems to continue in the US. Race and gender have made headway in strides but if you read how the media (namely CNN again) presents him they'll mention his faith several times in a single page. Sad to say that subliminal messages by the communists (John King, Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer of CNN etc) of intolerance continues. So much for freedom of religion. Besides, what people want is a president and not a pastor. So why do the communists endlessly and frantically mention his religion? They need to stir controversy and make issues where there are none in order to get people to second guess and doubt as they will surely wonder why, why, why it is so critical to endlessly mention it. At first it seemed that people were curious about his religion because everywhere he went they would question him about it. So, to get past it, he gave a very good speech about religion, his beliefs and the presidency. Of course that did not end anything to those who have agendas otherwise. Why don’t they say their (CNN) made to seem as a Tony Robbins rockstar-like favorite orator of puffery is the first negro (or black person if you prefer) attempting to become elected president even though the candidate that is attempting to become the first woman president leads now by a wide margin.

Race, gender and religion are all mixed in this election season but with the media being unequivocally controlled in large part by democrats and communists, religious undertones are constant in their effort to attack the man from the republican party that has the best record of positive results and change and who could take down their dreams of regaining the Whitehouse.

hk ab 04:17 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
would like to hear some views from oilman.

hk ab 04:14 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
A major break down in DOWJ will lead to a repeated story of 1998.... but this time should be in e/j.

lowest bc's expectation can be calc. as follow:

dlr/jpy 100
eur/usd 1.4

= 140 from here in a week. So, everyone take care.

hk ab 04:12 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
caba, I have switched from Fx to PMs.
I have traded for 8 years. If I tell you that I make back the loss of the past 3 years in 2 months, can u believe it?

I found that most traders need to get through a very tough lessons, SL.

Without s/l. No one can succeed.

Also, I like the speed of PMs, unlike fx which there are lot of different interested groups. Many moves were lies...

PMs are more real.

philadelphia caba 02:43 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
hk ab 01:29 GMT
lie, I'd say... .8000 next .. s/l below .7450 .. imo.

hk ab 01:29 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
another key-week reversal in kiwi.... lies or truths?....

Vienna GD 00:23 GMT January 20, 2008 Reply   
Vienna GD 00:22 GMT January 20, 2008
!!! Spread the word !!!

The Fed Fiddles While Stocks Burn and Crash
By Robert McHugh, Ph.D.
January 19th, 2008

The Dow Industrials plunged 306.95 points Thursday, closing at 12,159.21. Then the next day on Friday, they rallied at the open, only to plunge 319 points from their intraday high, closing down 59.91 to 12,099.30. NYSE volume was 122 percent of its 10 day average, with downside volume leading at 60 percent, with declining issues at 64 percent, with downside points at 63 percent. We either are at a multi-week bottom, or at the threshold of Hades. We took a small Traders Corner position on a bottom, but cannot rule out Hades. We are in an official stock market crash from October 11th, 2007, a 15 percent decline over three months. If prices do not immediately rally, it means stocks are hitting the sweet spot of the ongoing crash.

I hate to bash Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, but I'm going to for a few pages. Here's the deal. The current economic threat is screaming for an aggressive inflation solution. Inflation comes from the Fed. Forget about the inflation the Fed has caused over the past 90 years, and the doubling of the money supply to goose markets for the past eight. A lot of that was dead wrong, a theft of our children's future, coming at an unnecessary time. However, when economic crises hit, the government must inflate. Must. Aggressively, preemptively, not reactively, or else calamity will strike, deflation will result, a black hole sucking until depression hits. It is a lot easier to stop inflation during boom times than to reinflate an economy during a major bust. Japan taught us that. Ironically, this is supposed to be Bernanke's strong suit. He has written papers on the mistakes of the Fed that exacerbated the Great Depression of the 30's. The stock market is warning that we are approaching a bust.

Yet faced with an economic threat potentially larger than has ever hit mankind, Ben suddenly gets inflation-restraint religion. Who cares about inflation right now? It happened. It better continue to happen. First the threats: We know about housing and related financial institution real estate credit problems. Still coming are consumer loan problems, business working capital loan problems, derivative credit swap problems, entitlement problems, etc. Housing values have dropped 5 to 10 percent the past year. That means bank loan collateral has dropped, in many instances below loan value. There better be a reflation program put in place soon to get those collateral values higher. Otherwise, the deflationary black hole implodes. Bank examiners exacerbate a credit crunch, citing bankers for bad loans due to contracting collateral values due to bubblemania macroeconomic policy. This very act reduces demand for real estate, causing collateral values to sink further - spiraling deflation.

The Wilshire 5000 is essentially the entire U.S. stock market. Guess what? It has lost $2.6 trillion over the past 3 months, since October 2007 (which by the way was when the last Hindenburg Omen occurred). $2.6 trillion of wealth wiped out in three months, 25 percent of GDP, a 16 percent stock market collapse that looks to have much further to go. Bernanke would know this if his technical analysis staff would teach him how to read a Head & Shoulders pattern. But that isn't in the Princeton economics text. A stock market crash is a decline of 15 percent or more within several months. Well, we can now say we have seen a stock market crash over the past three months. More is coming. Yet, Bernanke continues to speak of inflation risks, and continued growth, and all other manner of delusional hogwash. He behaves as if he is in academia, in front of a classroom, quoting the textbook, that interest rates must be lowered with restraint, that inflation must be slowed. Well, an all out economic collapse would slow inflation, that is for sure. New times bring new problems that require new solutions. Sometimes a Fed Chairman has to think outside the box, act decisively, act preemptively, and not preoccupy himself with consensus building a Board of Fed Governors who behave in erudite abstract.

Bernanke is failing miserably at instilling confidence in Wall Street. When his moment arrived yesterday, Thursday, to announce convicting courageous reinflation action in the midst of a deflating economy, he took a pass, insisting Congress do something, that the fiscal side of macroeconomic policy take the lead, provide the fix, insisting that would be the most efficacious course of action. Are you kidding Ben? You are the Fed Chairman, the most powerful financial person in the world! Wall Street couldn't believe their ears, and tanked in reaction. Why? Why has the stock market crashed over the past three months? Why are we seeing the bottom that every indicator on earth suggests should be here, even if it would be a temporary bottom, a ledge to grab hold of before the next fall, to catch a breath? Because Wall Street has lost confidence in the Fed Chairman. It is becoming increasingly evident that Bernanke is an amateur inside a crisis. The cat is out of the bag. He doesn't know what he is doing.

It is about confidence, Ben. You see, this whole world economy is built on smoke and mirrors, on confidence, on a belief that it works. Come on, money is created either from a printing press at the Fed or out of thin air through the bank lending function. Earnings come from inflation, productivity gains from illegal immigration. Taxes are not to fund government projects, to fund national defense, or to build infrastructure, taxes are an income redistribution scheme. Derivatives are a pyramid scheme, the economy is one big Ponzi scheme. Come on. These are the rules of the game. You can't ignore them, cannot change them in mid-stream, unannounced, because some textbook at Princeton suggests in chapter five that if you have inflation, you must not reduce interest rates.

It is about confidence. The Fed Chairman must act preemptively, must overreact if he has to, act decisively, make people believe he sees the problems before they do, instill a feeling of well being, that someone who knows what he is doing is at the helm, even if truth be know, he doesn't have a clue.

There was a layup opportunity Friday, January 18th. Nobody was guarding Bernanke. He could have taken the shot six times before a defender showed up. He didn't even shoot the ball. He took a time out, sat on the bench, and drank an energy drink to prepare him for the next shot. Stocks opened Friday nicely, the first advance in quite a while, what looked like a plunge-stopper start to the day. Up 1.5 percent at the open. Bush had announced his pathetic $150 billion fiscal plan (more on that later), and I kept waiting for step two, a surprise announcement that the Fed was on the job, was cutting interest rates half a point, maybe even 75 basis points. It was what the market needed to hear, that the reinflation medicine was being applied before the patient dies. Never happened. Nope. There is a scheduled open market operations meeting on the 29th, and that is when he will address interest rates. By the book. I'll bet Bernanke was the sort of professor who never curved a test, never gave extra credit, never considered class participation, never dropped the lowest quiz in the final grade. Wall Street's reaction? That 1.5 percent rally was reversed and we fell sharply the rest of the day. Confidence Ben. Learn what to say, learn what to do, or give up the job and let someone else with a clue do the heavy lifting.

The Bush plan: He suggested a fiscal stimulus package to the tune of 1.5 percent of GDP, about $150 billion. That is ridiculous. A stimulus package equal to 5 percent of the $2.6 trillion wealth wipeout from the past three months, and probably far less than the eventual wealth wipeout in total when all is said and done, including job losses, depreciated real estate, defaults, declining earnings, etc. Wall Street wasn't impressed.

Are we expected to believe that if the government pays one mortgage payment later this year for every taxpayer, that is all we need to minimize the threats facing this economy? How about you? If you are struggling, are all your financial problems alleviated by one free month without a mortgage payment? Ludicrous. Risks have become threats. That is where we are. Time for creative solutions. Time to understand the Dollar must be sacrificed, either now, or later. Later will cost more.

Like in the early 90's, bank examiners must be told to let bankers lend at the very time when loans are going bad. That will kick start liquidity in the real estate industry, will boost collateral values, will increase bank earnings. The natural tendency is for bank regulators (and of course the big boy in that department is the Federal Reserve) to force a reduction in lending at the very time we need more lending. Lending is a key manufacturer of money and inflation. We need more, not less, and now.

The Fed needs to reduce interest rates dramatically and quickly, to encourage lending. Congress needs to pass regulations to put a stop to usurious 30 percent credit card interest rates, which are achieved through schemes that are scandalous, that wipe out consumer purchasing power. A massive, meaningful monetary handout needs to be sent to every household, enough to produce a serious reduction in debt, to help consumers clean up their balance sheets, which would quickly convert into significant increases in disposable income, spending, and a reinflation of the economy. This all takes courage, it all takes thinking outside the box. Confidence Ben. Replace the income tax with a national sales tax. Have money issued by the Treasury, have it backed by gold once the credit crisis is resolved, stabilizing the economy. We sit at the precipice of a financial meltdown if Bernanke, Bush and company do not get it right, and soon. Both Wall Street and Main Street have figured out the emperor is not wearing clothes. The power of suggestion is failing. Folks have smartened up. That dog don't hunt no more.