Archive for January, 2009
Citi Bank, Merrill Lynch, and the Inauguration!
By Marek W. Stupka | January 17, 2009
It’s been a busy week for stock traders. Citigroup as well as Merrill Lynch, which just merged with Bank of America, reported huge losses for the last quarter of 2008. FED agreed to inject billions of dollars in these banks to save them from catastrophy…
Merrill Lynch – owned by Bank of America – suffered a $21.5bn operating loss as the value of mortgage-backed assets plunged in the past three months of 2008. Bank of America which finalised an $18.8bn takeover of Merrill two weeks ago received a $20bn capital infusion and a backstop on $118bn of troubled assets. BoA told the US Government in December that it would not be able to close the deal without help.
The biggest US commercial bank reported a $2.4bn loss in a quarter Merrill’s disastrous performance. Its shares fell nearly 14 per cent.
Citigroup deepened the depth of problems in the US banking sector by reporting an $8.3bn net loss, its fifth consecutive quarter in the red. The troubled financial group suffered nearly $28bn in writedowns and loan loss provisions in 4Q of 2008.
Citi’s loss for the year 2008 was more than $18bn. The company came up with a Government backed plan, also called “good bank-bad bank”. The plan is to isolate some $800bn worth of unwanted assets and businesses into a separate unit called Citi Holdings. This unit will be fully backed by the Government. Citi’s key businesses of commercial, investment and retail banking will be housed in a unit called Citicorp managing about $1.1 bn. By doing this, the bank returned to its original name from about 10 years ago to cover its healthy assets and continue in its daily business.
According to Wall Street stock traders, last week’s only highlight for them was the prospect fo the inauguration of Mr. Obama who will become the first US Afro-American president. With Mr. Obama taking the office, many expect the system to perform better, at least in the mid- to long-term.
See why it pays choosing your traded instrument wisely? If you are a stock trader and last week you have experienced another one of those fierce setbacks, I strongly recommend you to quit the unpredictable world of stock trading and join our FX trading community. You are warmly welcome to apply for the 1-on-1 FOREX Training, described by many as one of the best educational interfaces on trading on the net, and learn how to trade this predictable, fascinating market with consistent profits.
Topics: News From Wall Street | No Comments »
FOREX - Where Is the MONEY in 2009??
By Marek W. Stupka | January 3, 2009
The new year 2009 is here. After the celebrations, we want to get right down to business. What the year holds for us traders? Most importantly, what exactly should we look at to find another set of profits..? Read on to find answers to these and other questions.
The opinions of experts on the future course of the EURUSD, the referential FX currency pair, vary. Some fund managers predict the dollar to rise based on “flying back to safety” - the same pattern of behaviour we observed in the markets during the late 2008 crisis. Others prophecy for the dollar to decline, pointing to the fact that stocks are already showing signs of strengthening and the dollar market moves simply post a reversed correlation to the stock price moves.
As far as my prospect for the EURUSD is concerned, at the moment I do not prefer to open a long-term position for this pair. As you can see in my last technical post, the 1Week and 1Day charts for EURUSD do not show any clear long-term pattern (for a bit more detailed technical analysis read my previous post).
The best performer of the year 2008, JPY, also seems to post no long-term technical signal to traders in the beginning of the new year.
For the sake of maximizing the profit-to-risk ratio already many times discussed in this blog I strongly advise every one out of the growing number of my students as well as the general trading audience to only take technically 100% justified, mid-term trades in the beginning of 2009. These have attached the lowest risk obtainable in this market.
The technical justification means that you should only take trades in direction of a recognized trend. You should ALWAYS deploy strict trading discipline. You should avoid trading as your mood strikes you, but have a clearly written trading plan instead, and follow a proven, thoroughly back-tested trading system. As all of my 1-on-1 students are well aware of, we at Gepard Investments, Inc. use THE CONFIRMATOR system to confirm every single one of our mid-term trades. The system has been back-tested and perfected over the years of use in real market environment, and now produces healthy profits for its every practitioner (only my paying 1-on-1 students have access to the system’s full definition, along with 2 other systems - short- and long-term as well as the rest of the FOREX trading education). Some of my trainees even mastered the system so well that they are now able to trade with results better than I do !!
Topics: Miscellanous | 5 Comments »
What’s Rising in 2009: The Euro or the Dollar??
By Marek W. Stupka | January 3, 2009
With the arrival of 2009, many currency traders wonder what the next 12 months are going to look like for the two most traded currencies in the world. Is the dollar going to strengthen, as it did over the last couple of months of 2008? Or is the euro going to prevail, as had been the case in the long months before the 2008 crisis?
Since the New Year’s Eve, I have been asked this same question over and over again. My answer is: DO NOT TRY TO INVEST IN ANY LONG-TERM FX POSITION THIS YEAR !! After the emotion-driven market behavior in the late 2008, the markets are simply best set for short- to mid-term trades. Just look at the simplified technical analysis of the 1W and 1d EURUSD charts above and below, and observe their volatile character. TRUE MONEY in this market is to be made by following a proven, back-tested short- to mid-term trading system. No long-term market prophecy would make sense.
Strictly and with no exceptions, we at Gepard Investments, Inc. use The CANAAL for signaling openings of our short-term trading positions, and The CONFIRMATOR for signaling openings of our mid-term trading positions. For a better understanding of the basics on how these two systems work, perform a search for the systems’ names in the Search Box in the right navigation pane above…
Topics: FOREX Trading Analysis | No Comments »