Info Forex

SCAMMED!!!!

2006-08-19T20:17:00.000+07:00

Unfortunately there is no way to assure that you won't lose money when you join a HYIP. Basically don't expect to get back your money, but you can definitely take your revenge by labeling the HYIP owner as a scammer and making an online (free) suit against him. You can also warn other innocent investors to be aware of that particular HYIP. If you find a HYIP site and wish to invest in, then you may follow the following steps-

Use Whois Lookup sites to find out the Web Owner details information such as IP address, Web hosting company name& address, name& registered address of the HYIP website or country of origin,etc. After you find these , save the information for future use.

When you make payments to this HYIP then it is very important that you keep all confirmation emails containing information about amount of money deposited , to whom you paid & on what date you paid. This is very important testimonial required whenever you want to file a case.

If you got deceived then The first things that you should do is to report about it throughout the internet. You may report it in sites such as HYIPnews.com ,etc. Also make forum postings in as many forums as you can. Make sure you make a post in large forums like talkgold.com, HYIPdiscussion.com, moneymakergroup.com,etc. Be bold in your statements and give the actual details. I am sure people who read your report will definitely thank for your help.

Then report to egold authorities. Although they wont give back your money but still they may freeze the scammer's egold account so that he cannot make any more transactions. Send complains to the web hosting company of the HYIP asking them strongly to suspend the hosting of that HYIP on charges of scamming. Try to give all your testimonials to convince the fact.

Finally make a fraud complaint to legal authorities. You can file a complaint at www.ifccfbi.gov the official website of the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, administered by the US National Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center.Any body can file a complaint(nationality is not a bar) and its absolutely free of cost.Once they receive your complaint then they will immediately start investigations and take any necessary action as required.

Simultaneously also make complaints to other similar authorities such as www.web-police.org, www.scamwatch.com, www.fraud.org.

By following the above steps you may not get back money but ofcourse you will feel satisfied by taking revenge and prevent others from falling into their scam hands!

HYIPs Forum

2006-08-19T20:02:00.000+07:00

In every decission making on investing in HYIPs you have to take help of a lot of tools.I think the most important among them is the use of forums.Its the most useful and the most updated source to HYIP information.They have almost all the necessary data that you need to analyse before making any investment in that particular HYIP.And forums are also very easy to use.
Now let me explain why forums are important.Firstly they are the meeting places of investors like you and me.Its an online community of like-minded people who share their thoughts and experiences.You got to learn a lot of things from them for FREE.Thus every investor should necessarily devote some time to forums so that you can know the present trends going on in the HYIP world.And you can even ask for help in making your decissions,because there are a lot of experienced investors who will be more than happy to help you!
Another good thing about forums is that they are updated most recently.The most active forums have the lates news(almost within a few couple of hours)!So this is especially beneficial in scam warnings.
Hyip forums have different topics under which discussions are carried out.These topics range from technical support to personal experience talks.Once you learn forum posting you will get addicted to it.Thus its both fun with learning.
Forums should be a routine follow-up before and after making an investment.Before investment forums help you in determining the present status of the HYIP that you want to invest in.Just search through different threads on any particular HYIP and make an analysis about its worth.If not many people complain about that HYIp & it has many favourable comments then that makes a positive point in favour for that HYIP.However if most of the posts make complaints against,then thats a negative point.People should give a little more weightage to negative comments than positive ones because after all your money is at risk & you should not get it being scammed away!
Some of the good forums are like Gold-Horizons, Web Life e-Business Forum,etc.Neverthless to mention talkgold.com is the most popular and heavy traffic drawing forum which is almost a must for all investors.Many other forums may be found in HYIP monitoring websites.Forums are also a feature of many HYIPs itself but most of them are like customer support forums,so it is better advised not to believe/waste too much time in such forums.
But the negative part of forums is that many HYIP owner deploy fraud posters who are paid to post false positive feedback in order to promote their HYIP.Also there are HYIPs who employ people to post false negative comments against their rival counterpart HYIPs.So how do you believe which posts are authentic?Well the general rule is that if in a particular HYIP thread there are much more negative comments than positive ones then your decission should go against that HYIP.And you must also look into several other forums about that particular HYIP before coming to a conclusion.Another thing to notice is that any positive feedback should not be over-exaggerated.That would most probably be a fraud response!
Finally a thing to be noted is that If you are using any forum to get knowledge then please make your knowledge and experience also posted to help others.Be prompt in giving feedbacks because that may help save somebody's money!

Basics of security and privacy in high yield investing

2006-07-29T18:29:00.000+07:00

So far we have covered the risk of being scammed and steps you can take to minimize the risk. We have also covered the risk of bad trading results and how to identify the likelihood of them happening for programs in general. But what about the basics security & privacy? Don't worry, I am not going to bore you with an article about firewalls, anti-virus etc etc, there's plenty of that elsewhere. But I remembered something that happened to me a few months ago.

The program I was looking into was MCAJ, which is now closed to new investors. I had never invested in the program because the returns were, well, really not that good, but I was considering it for diversification purposes. What finally put me off however were not the poor returns, but security issues. I discovered them through trial-and-error.

As it happened to be, I registered utilitizing yet another randomly generated password by my trusty KeePass, 25 characters in length. Somehow the textbox did not have a maximum number of characters, but the system truncated the password to 15 characters. Obviously this meant that I could no longer login, but it was not immediately clear to me why, which is how I ended up contacting customer support.

Customer support was helpful, unfortunately a bit too much. They reset my password and notified me with the new password by e-mail, not the safest practise in the world. So I threw another randomly generated password at it and ended up with the same problem. But this time I spotted the problem. The customer support representative was able to confirm the truncated bit of my password. Does that ring a bell? It should.

Most poorly programmed websites will at least put some effort into securing member information and especially account username & password. One has to wonder though what the point is of putting in a lot of effort into encryption and other security measures at the website, while at the same time confirming the new password by e-mail...in MCAJ, not only did they e-mail you your password, clearly the support representative had access to the password, meaning it was not saved with any encryption at all on the server either. Basically a hacker would only need to hack the database password and once through, he would instantly be able to login to every account and do whatever he liked.

I have a background in web development, so I threw in a few pieces of advise and gave helpful tips on how to improve security and why it was necessary. The once so friendly representative ignored all forms of communication from that point forward. I had simultaneously reached the conclusion that this was just not worth it for me and dropped the program from my list.

What I got from this was a new trick up my sleeve. I now suffer from amnesia the moment I have made the decision to join a program and sign up... I feel it is important not only to test customer support, but also to get an idea on security measures in place. Some programs really don't have a clue on security, which can compromise your personal details and thus your privacy. Not to mention your investments.

Which brings me to another point: the dreaded secret questions. Even the websites you'd consider to be pretty tight in security can't help themselves and offer you the secret question. Twenty years ago, there was just one secret question: "What's your mother's maiden name?" Today, there are more: "What street did you grow up on?" "What's the name of your first pet?" "What's your favorite color?" And so on.

The point of all these questions is the same: a backup password. If you forget your password, the secret question can verify your identity so you can choose another password or have the site e-mail your current password to you. It's a great idea from a customer support perspective -- a user is less likely to forget his first pet's name than some random password -- but terrible for security. The answer to the secret question is much easier to guess than a good password, and the information is much more public. Security goes out the window and we fall back to the illusion of security. Much worse than no security at all.

Here's a few (hopefully) helpful tips:

- You'd hate to pass up a great opportunity, but consider the security measures put in place to protect your personal information and not to mention your account with full access to your investments. Does the website use SSL, a secured connection? If not, this is not immediately a disaster but definitely a starting point for more checking. Does the program e-mail you your password after creating your account and can you have yours e-mailed to you with a click on 'I forgot my password'? Is there a secret question mechanism? Pretend you are an idiot and contact customer support, get them to tell you your password, check how hard it is. All this will help you make up your mind whether or not the program has a clue about security.

- Obviously you use a hard to guess and long password, preferably one randomly generated for you. When asked for a secret question, hit your keyboard a few dozen times and fill both the question and answer with utter rubbish. You can never use this method to gain access to your account again... but neither can anyone else!

- Just because they ask for your personal details, doesn't mean that you have to give them. In most cases a working e-mail address and payment processor information will do the trick. No one is going to check your address or ring you. If you feel uncomfortable, then add your real name. You can always make up an excuse right?

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2006-07-28T11:46:00.000+07:00

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The 12 Scams Most Likely To Arrive Via Bulk Email

2006-07-27T23:35:00.000+07:00

As all long-time subscribers of Internet ScamBusters know, we are very strongly opposed to using bulk email ("spam") for any reason whatsoever. We've also warned subscribers not to buy or take action on any bulk email offer. For information on why, see Internet ScamBusters issues:

UCE: Unsolicited Commercial Email
Spam Mail
12 Spamming Issues

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is offering the same advice. The FTC had asked people to forward bulk email to the agency so they could take an inside look at the kind of offers that arrive via bulk email.

"FTC staff found that more often than not, bulk email offers appeared to be fraudulent, and if pursued, could have ripped off unsuspecting consumers to the tune of billions of dollars."

Last month, the FTC identified its "Dirty Dozen," the twelve scams most likely to arrive via bulk email in consumers' email boxes.

Here is the "dirty dozen" and a brief explanation of why each is a scam:

1. Business opportunities scams: These offers make it sound like it is very easy to start a business that will earn piles of money without much work, selling or cash. Many of these "opportunities" are actually illegal pyramid schemes that are masquerading as legitimate opportunities to earn money.

2. Make money by sending bulk email. These solicitations offer to sell you bulk email lists (consisting of millions of email addresses), spam software (usually very poor in quality), or services to send spam on your behalf. Don't do this.

3. Chain letters. No list of scams would be complete without this old "favorite" - email style. Here you're asked to send a small amount of money (or some item) to each of four or five names at the top of the list, and then forward the message including your name at the bottom, via bulk email. Many of these letters claim they are legal - they are not. Further, nearly everyone who participates in these chain letters loses money. Even if there is a "product" such as a report on how to make money, it does not make these schemes legal.

4. Work-at-home-schemes. The most common work-at-home scam promises that you'll earn money for stuffing envelopes. For example, you're promised you'll earn $2.00 for every envelope you stuff. In fact, there never is any real envelope stuffing employment available. Instead, you pay to register and then you're instructed to send the same envelope-stuffing ad via bulk email to others. The only money you can earn would come from others who fall for the scam and pay to register. Finally, if you did actually do work for one of these outfits (for example, some promise to pay you for craft work), they'd refuse to pay you and say your work didn't measure up to their "quality standards."

5. Health and diet scams. These are similar to the miracle cures offered off-line: ways to lose weight without eating less or exercising, "scientific breakthroughs," "secret formulas" which provide cures for hair loss, and herbal formulas that liquify fat cells so that they are absorbed by your body. These scams often include testimonials from "famous" medical experts you haven't heard of. Of course, these gimmicks don't work.

6. Effortless income. The newest version offers get-rich-quick schemes to make unlimited profits exchanging money on the world currency markets. There are lots of variants, but they all promise vast riches with no work. Beware of these scams.

7. Free goods. These offers promise expensive items such as computers... for free. They ask you to pay a fee to join, and then you have to bring in a certain number of other members. Many of these scams are just disguised pyramid schemes.

8. Investment opportunities. These scams promise outrageously high returns... and of course, there is "no risk." Many of these scams are illegal Ponzi schemes, in which early investors are paid with the money from later investors. This gives the early investors the illusion that the system works and they are then encouraged to invest more money (which they eventually lose). The sales pitches for these offers include claims of high-level financial connections, that the promoters are privy to inside information, or promises that they'll guarantee the investment. The promoters are long gone if you try to take advantage of their "guarantees."

9. Cable descrambler kits. These scams offer kits or information on how to receive cable transmissions without paying any subscription fees. There are two problems with these offers: 1) the kits and information don't work; and 2) even if they did work, it is illegal to steal service from cable television companies. Further, many cable companies have aggressively been prosecuting cable service theft.

10. Guaranteed loans or credit, or easy terms scams. There are lots of variants of this scam: home equity loans that don't require any equity in your home, loans regardless of your credit history, offshore bank loans, credit cards regardless of your credit history, etc. Sometimes these offers are combined with pyramid schemes that offer to pay you for attracting other participants to the scheme. However, they are scams - the loans don't come through, you are turned down unless you meet stringent requirements, or the credit cards simply don't arrive.

11. Credit repair scams. These scams promise to erase accurate negative information from your credit file so that you can now qualify for loans, mortgages, or credit cards. The promoters of these scams cannot deliver. Further, if you follow their advice and lie on a loan or credit application, misrepresent your Social Security number, or get an Employer Identification number from the Internal Revenue Service under false pretenses, you will be committing fraud and violating federal laws. Don't fall for this scam.

12. Vacation prize promotions. Last, but not least, is a scam in which you receive electronic verification congratulating you because you've "won" a fabulous vacation, or you've been "specially selected" for this opportunity. The "deluxe cruise ship" may well be more like a tugboat, upgrades can be very expensive, and hotel accommodations are likely to be very shabby.

More about the FTC's Dirty Dozen can be found at:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/doznalrt.htm

The punch line (which you've heard from us many times before): If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Further, don't buy anything via bulk email (spam). Your chances of being scammed are astronomical. And follow the advice from other past issues of Internet ScamBusters when buying items... both on and off the Net.

Resell Web Hosting in Five Easy Steps

2006-07-20T22:32:00.000+07:00

If you've ever wanted to resell web hosting, but weren't exactly certain how to get started - this article is for you! We'll outline the five basic steps necessary to create a web hosting business through reselling accounts that are provisioned in a reseller web hosting data center. While there are many details that are required to be successful in any business, these five steps should get you started, and with some diligence and persistence - you may become a sizable web hosting venture.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 1: Get an Exceptional Domain Name. It may be obvious to you, but having the proper domain for your web hosting venture is critical to your success. Why? There are two basic reasons: branding (recall) and search engine optimization. In order to sell web hosting to your prospects, they first have to be able to find you. That is, they have to know that you offer web hosting accounts for sale.

The most common form of online research is the ubiquitous search engine. There are really only 2 that matter: Google and Yahoo! In order to come up on the first few pages of any relevant search for web hosting related keywords, it is imperative that your domain name contain some form of that keyword phrase. You can prove this to yourself by conducting a search for the keyword, 'hosting' at www.google.com. You will notice that many of the top results contain the word 'host' or 'hosting' in the domain name. It simply gives you an advantage in search rankings.

So where to get such a name? You can go to a good domain search site like, www.whois.sc (use the domain explorer tab) and see if there is a name that has not yet been registered. The chances of a great, short, memorable name being available is low (but not zero) - so you can increase the odds of getting a great name in two ways: get a domain that is expiring or buy a name from the current owner.

There are many great names that are expiring each day - that is, the current owner has not renewed the domain by paying the yearly registration fees. In fact, around 20,000 expired domains come back into circulation each day. Sometimes the owner forgets, sometimes they lose interest - in any event, you can snag a great name if you are willing to do some research. For instance, click here to see a free list of daily expiring domain names.

Alternatively you can simply buy a domain name from the current owner. Sites such as www.sedo.com can assist you in finding eager sellers for a wide variety of domain names. Okay - now you've got a great domain name - let's move to step 2.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 2: Finding and Setting up a Great Web Hosting Reseller Account. Unless you want to set up your own domain registration process, get connectivity from major bandwidth providers, and have a warehouse full of high end computers - you'll want to get a reseller account from an established supplier. A good reseller account will offer tools (control panel) to manage multiple domains and accounts from one central location. That way, you can log in once and check the billing and provisioning status of all of your customer accounts. Click here to view and compare web hosting reseller providers.

According to Brent Oxley, founder of web hosting reseller HostGator.com,
here's what to look for in your reseller account. ''The most important thing to look for is a provider that provides an uptime
guarantee and a proven track record of upholding that guarantee. If the provider
you go with has frequent downtime you are destined to fail before getting
started. Do not let the resources in the plan or the price cloud your judgment
when looking for a stable provider to launch your new company.''

Mr. Oxley added, ''Here are a couple of very useful add-ons many reseller companies include for free:

Domain Reseller Account - You are selling hosting which means many people will also want to purchase domain names from you.

Billing Manager - A billing manager allows you to offer automated account creation, keep track of payments, as well as all of your clients' account information. Just because you're purchasing a reseller account do not assume it comes with a billing manager. The majority of reseller hosting companies use the control panel called, "cpanel/whm." This control panel does not come with a billing manager so depending on the reseller company you go with they may or may not include a billing manager.

Multi-language Control Panel Support - If you speak more than one language it would make sense for your customer's control panel to support the languages you will be marketing to.

Fantastico - Is a tool that has over 50 scripts that can be installed with a click of the mouse. This would empower your customers to create blogs, forums, shopping carts, portals, and much more without any scripting knowledge. This is a huge marketing seller.''

Now that you've gotten a reseller account set up, it's time for step 3.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 3: Set up a Great Website and Order Form. You have to look professional in order to convince customers to sign up with you as a web host. That means a website designed by a professional. You can either hire a designer (expensive) or use a template (inexpensive) like those found at: www.templatemonster.com. The benefits of hiring a designer is that you get a unique website that looks exactly the way you want. It may cost you quite a bit, though. In contrast, a template will be somewhat cookie-cutter, but will look professional and help you save some money during your startup process.

Whichever way you decide to go, make sure that you pay close attention to the sign up process. Make the order form as simple and easy to fill out as possible. If you can have something default checked to save time, by all means do so. Be sure to include a summary page of the order so that your customers can review their order before purchase.

Now it's on to Step 4.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 4: Driving Qualified Traffic to Your Website. You can't get customers with out having some traffic to your new website. There are complete textbooks written on how to market and gain website traffic. I will focus you on only one possible traffic-driving solution, but one which has proven to work for many small online businesses - Google's AdWords advertising.

You can see a complete and detailed step-by-step tutorial on using google AdWords here: www.sitepoint.com/article/adwords-select-parts-1-4.

Below is a quick-start guide to getting your Google traffic flowing in a few hours:

Setting Up a Google AdWords Account Step-by-Step

Okay, take a deep breath. Settle into the chair in front of your computer and get ready to go. Follow these steps exactly:

1. Navigate your browser to: https://adwords.google.com/select and click on the 'Sign Up Now' area.

2. Select the appropriate language and geographical targeting – 'Regions and cities' if you are a local business, 'Global or nationwide' if you serve all regions (we'll use this setting for our example). Click the 'Save and Continue' button.

3. Next you choose your countries. If you are a North American business, I highly recommend selecting 'United States' only. To do this - go to the right hand box entitled 'Selected Countries' and highlight 'All Countries' with your mouse. Then click the 'Remove' button. The 'Selected Countries' box will now be empty. Go to the left column and highlight 'United States' - then click the 'Add' button. Click the 'Save and Continue' button.

4. Now you name your ad group and create your first online ad. Don't worry - you can always go back and edit your ad at anytime. Just have fun with it for now! To get started, think up a name that you want to call your first group of ads. Type this name into the box labeled: 'Name this Ad Group'.

Now go to section A: 'Create Ads' just below. You simply fill in the boxes and Google does this cool 'automatic update' that shows you what your ad will look like as you are filling in the boxes. When you have an ad that you like - click the 'Save and Continue' button.

5. Choose the keywords that will trigger your ad. If you sell 'Unix Web Hosting' then start with that keyword. If you sell ASP.NET Hosting' then start with that. Once you have typed in a search term, you can always use the 'Keyword Suggestion Tool' link on the same page to expand your list. Google will automatically suggest words that may expand your traffic. Be sure to do a reality check against this list - it's automated and some terms may not be appropriate for your business. Once you have a list of keywords, click the 'Save Keywords' button to continue.

6. Choose your maximum bid. I always set this to $.05 (five cents) to start. This is Google's minimum bid amount. You can always change it later if you need more traffic. Type in .05 and click the 'Calculate Estimates' button. Ignore the resulting estimates - they are almost always wrong. Simply click the 'Save and Continue' button. At this step Google will ask if you want to create another ad group - simply bypass this step by clicking the 'Continue to Step 3' button.

7. Now you specify you daily budget. I suggest being conservative here as well. You can always increase this later. For now - figure out how much you can spend each month for traffic and divide by 30. Put in an amount that is this number or even lower. I usually start with $5 per day as a maximum. When you've decided, simply click the 'Save and Continue' button.

8. Entering your contact information and password. This step requires you to give Google a valid email address that you can check - in order to send you to the final confirmation and billing step. Fill in your email and pick a password that you can remember - preferably one that has at least 1 numeral and is difficult to duplicate easily.

When you've filled in your information, click the 'I agree - Create my AdWords account' button.

At this point you should see the following message: ''Thank you for signing up with AdWords. Please check your email (you@youremail.com) for a message from Google containing a link to our verification program.'' Follow the link in that message to confirm that we have your correct email address.

9. Check your email and finish setting up your account. Go to your email and retrieve the Google email. Follow the link inside - this will verify that your email is valid. Then simply login to your AdWords account using the email address and password that you supplied in the last step.

10. Once you log in you will see the following message: ''Note: Your account hasn't been activated. Payment information is required in order to run your ads. Please provide your payment information on the Billing Preferences page in the "My Account" section. Typically, your ads will begin running almost immediately after you submit this information.'' Simply follow the 'Billing Preferences' link and enter your credit card information. When complete click the 'Save Changes' button.

11. Your AdWords account is now live! You will see traffic from your ads coming to your site almost immediately if you have selected popular keywords.

Then entire process described above can easily be completed in less than 2 hours. I did it myself in less than an hour. Good luck and remember if you ever have any problems with the account running through too much cash - you can simply 'pause' the account giving you time to reduce your bids, or delete keywords. While you won't become an AdWords expert from this start up guide, you will begin to see highly targeted web traffic come to your site in less than one day!

Okay - traffic is now coming to your site - time for the final step.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 5: Differentiate Your Offering! You can't expect to sell your web hosting to anyone of you adopt a 'me-to' attitude. Make certain that you are different in some significant way from other web hosting offerings out there. You can differentiate by creating a unique special offer, by having an exceptional promotion or giveaway, or by bundling services that other companies don't offer together - it doesn't matter exactly what is different about your web hosting offer - just make sure it's different.

One last thing - remember to give a high level of customer service, or your new found customers will flee to a more attentive competitor.

Good luck in reselling web hosting. If you follow the five steps outlined above, you'll be on your way to a great new business venture!

Read more at http://www.hostingforum.ca

Hosting Your Company On A Shared Web Hosting Platform

2006-07-20T22:18:00.000+07:00

If you're seeking to promote your business through the Internet, one of the most crucial decisions you will make is your choice of a website host.

For the majority of small businesses and webmasters a paid-for, shared web hosting program makes the most sense, rather than free hosting or a dedicated server. Most free hosting platforms are flexible enough to allow the kind of ''brochureware' site that straightforward promotions require, but the chances are you would have to put up with external advertising on your site - which is hardly going to do your brand a lot of good. At the high end of the price range, a dedicated server for a small promotional site would be needlessly extravagant.

So a shared service - in which your website sits on a server along with the sites of dozen or hundreds of other enterprises - is usually the most cost-effective compromise. It can have its drawbacks, the classic case being when a problem with a single site crashes the whole server. But for most website owners who simply wish to promote an offline business - or even run small to medium scale ecommerce operation - shared hosting remains the most efficient and economical option.

So what should you look for in a shared host? Most companies that offer shared hosting plans have to make delicate trade-offs between security and flexibility. You should look for one that seems to have the two in balance and also offers a good price - these days 'good' usually means just a few dollars a month for 50-100Mb of space.

The first thing about a shared hosting provider you should check out is the level of access they offer to your server space. This boils down to whether or not you will be permitted to install your own ‘backend’ programs like databases and shopping carts. If they offer you unrestricted remote access to tinker around with what you want, that’s excellent from a flexibility point of view - you or your web designer can upload files and processes easily - but this is less desirable from the point of view of security.

Why? Because it means other businesses who are sharing your server could install unstable, badly-written software or, even worse, viruses or spyware. This is where the trade-off comes: you want the flexibility to install programs on the server - or even if you don’t right now, you may wish to expand into ecommerce in the future. But you don’t want your site hosted on a shared server where access is a complete free-for-all.

That's why most shared hosts offer 'packages' - add-ons to your site that range from simple mail forms to fully-featured shopping carts. The shared host’s staff installs these, or at the very least carefully supervises and checks their installation. Many shared hosts allow you to shop for features. For example, if you want a simple brochureware site you only buy the website space. If you want surfers to be able to check out your products, you can add a database. If you want them to be able to actually buy online, you can add a shopping cart.

This flexible approach, combined with great-value pricing, is the sign of a good shared host. It allows you the flexibility to develop your site according to the needs of your business, while offering peace of mind that the chances of major downtime will be greatly reduced.

read more

What Does It Take to Make Money Online?

2006-07-16T13:37:00.000+07:00

What a loaded question! Let's narrow that down a bit and take it from the perspective of someone who wants to work from home and make money online in a home business. That will make it an easier question to answer. Let's assume you've never had a website, don't know how to get a merchant account, don't know html, and are pretty much stuck with being an expert on sending and receiving email.

What's there for you to do online to make money? Lots, in fact! These days are not at all like a couple of years ago or even six months ago. If I only had all the opportunities to make money online when I started marketing!

Here is a list of things you can do with just a website and a hosting account today:

Sell affiliate products (products like reports, ebooks, hard goods of every conceivable make, model, size, shape and function, and much, much more). Sell services (do you know how big a business being a Virtual Assistant is these days? It's quite amazing what you can do for people without ever meeting them face-to-face, anywhere in the world!) Online auctions (Ebay has made thousands and thousands of people full-time incomes from auctioning collectibles, antiques, and even brand new equipment and gadgets of all imaginable types. You name it, it has been sold on Ebay!) Membership sites: Know of any groups of people that would love to get insider information on virtually any topic? You could make money online with a membership site!

The list is a long one and one I am not prepared to detail here. You have found your way onto the net and if you have been surfing for very long at all you know it is a gigantic super shopping mall. Who to you think is making the most money online? Aside from big corporations, most of the web is made up of sites put up by little businesses people work from home.

I sell information and I love it. Most of the products I sell are other merchants' products. I just drive traffic to my site, provide information, and point to relevant products related to the information I provide people looking for a way to make money online. I love helping people make their first few sales.

After that, they are always hooked and cannot do enough to learn everything there is to know about how to make money online. Many people I have worked with now have a couple to several websites selling everything from reports to hard goods that can be shipped direct to their customers. Most people start out to make money online as affiliates of certain products or authors. This is a great way to get your feet wet and learn what making money online is all about. People then either work to create their own products (which they get 100% of the profits from) or expand their website into other related niches.

Learn Trading: Basics of Fundamental Analysis

2006-07-15T01:20:00.000+07:00

PPI (PRODUCER PRICE INDEX)

The Producer Price Index (PPI) is a measure of price changes in the manufacturing sector. It measures average changes in selling prices received by domestic producers in the manufacturing, mining, agriculture, and electric utility industries for their output.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures prices of goods at the wholesale level. There are three broad subcategories within PPI: crude, intermediate, and finished. The market tracks the finished goods index most closely, as it represents prices for goods that are ready for sale to the end user. Goods prices at the crude and intermediate stages of production often provide an indication of incoming inflationary pressures.

The PPI is often used as a leading indicator of consumer inflation in the future, as additional costs of producing goods are often passed on to the consumer in due course. The consumer price index (CPI) is a related index, but differs in that the CPI measures the price paid by the end users. Other price indexes are sometimes used, for example a labor price index.

The PPI measures price changes in the manufacturing sector. Inflation
at this production level often gets passed through to the consumer price index (CPI). By tracking price pressures in the pipeline, investors can anticipate inflationary consequences in coming months. Investors need tomonitor inflation closely. Just knowing what inflation is and how it influences the markets can put an individual investor head and shoulders above the crowd.

As the rate of inflation changes and as expectations on inflation
change, the markets adjust interest rates accordingly. By tracking the trends in inflation, whether high or low, rising or falling, investors can anticipate how different types of investments will perform.

CPI (CONSUMER PRICE INDEX)

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the rate of inflation experienced by consumers. The reading represents the monthly change in the average price of a fixed basket of goods and services purchased by consumers. Higher inflation generally leads to higher interest rates,
which tend to strengthen the country's currency.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average price level paid by urban consumers (80% of population) for a fixed basket of goods and services; it also measures the rate of inflation experienced by consumers. CPI reports price changes in over 200 categories and also includes various user fees and taxes directly associated with the
prices of specific goods and services.

The CPI is a fixed quantity price index and a sort of cost-of-living index. It has been criticized for overstating inflation, because it does not adjust for substitution effects and because the fixed basket does not reflect price changes in new technology goods which are often declining in price.
Despite these criticisms, it remains the main inflation index.

CPI EXCLUDING FOOD AND ENERGY

"Core rate" of inflation representing movement in volatile food and energy prices have been introduced. It represents CPI excluding food and energy, however including some other volatile components as apparel, tobacco, airfares, and new cars. User fees (such as water and sewer service) and sales and excise taxes paid by the consumer are also included; income taxes and investment items (like stocks, bonds, life insurance, and homes) are not included.

By tracking the trends in inflation, whether high or low, rising or falling,investors can anticipate how different types of investments will perform.

LEADING INDICATORS

The Leading Indicators report is a composite index of ten economic indicators that typically lead overall economic activity: - Average workweek of production workers in manufacturing. -Average weekly claims for state unemployment. - New orders for consumer goods and
materials - Vendor performance (companies receiving slower deliveries from suppliers) - Contracts and orders for plant and equipment - New building permits issued - Change in manufacturers unfilled orders, durable goods - Change in sensitive materials prices - Index of stock prices - Money supply - Index of consumer expectations.

The leading indicators series was previously published by The Commerce Department, however, the collection and publishing of these data is from 1996 done by the non-profit Conference Board, which also produces the Consumer Confidence Index. That increased usefulness of the leading index. Conference Board researchers quickly scrapped two of the old
components - the change in sensitive materials prices and unfilled orders
for durable goods - and added the interest-rate spread that appears in our
list above.

The index of Leading Indicators is designed to predict turning points in the economy such as recessions and recoveries. Of course, even a strong trend like that does not guarantee that a recession will not form over the coming six to nine months. But we can get additional help from looking at the leading index with the coincident index, which is also published by The Conference Board, and alongside a couple of other leading indices.

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE

Like the index of Leading Indicator, Consumer Confidence is a survey conducted by The Conference Board in five thousand households across the country. It pictures consumer attitudes; concerning both the present situation as well as expectations regarding economic conditions. The level of consumer confidence is directly related to the strength of consumer
spending.

The index consists of two sub indices - consumers' appraisal of current conditions and their expectations for the future. Expectations make up 60% of the total index, with current conditions accounting for the other 40%. The expectations index is typically seen as having better leading indicator qualities than the current conditions index.

Google Adsense And Blogs

2006-07-11T01:31:00.000+07:00

If you have a blog, or are thinking about starting a blog, then you are definitely going to want to read this article. It's all about how to line your pockets with money that's just waiting to be made without working much harder than you already are.

No only are blogs the hottest thing on the 'net right now, but they are custom-made for Google's AdSense program. Why? It's simple. Blogs represent constantly changing and fresh content to Google's search engine spiders. Feeding fresh content to those little spiders is just like tossing raw meat to a tiger. They just gobble it up. The more pages of your blog that get indexed, the more traffic you get. And the more traffic you get, the more exposure your AdSense ads get. Are you beginning to see where I'm heading here?

It's not just Google that loves new content, all of the major engines do. In fact, some web-savvy bloggers are testing Google ads on one page and Overture ads on the other. It doesn't take too long to see which ads are doing the best when you have nearly side-by-side comparison statistics to look at. Just don't make the mistake of putting Google and Overture ads on the same page together. While they won't kill each other like a pair of Siamese fighting fish in the same bowel will, you will be violating both sites' Terms of Service, and it isn't worth killing the goose (geese) that laid the golden egg.

It's a snap to set up Google AdSense ads on your blog. Everything you need to know is right inside of the Google control panel. What's not so easy is figuring out what ads are going to appear on each page. Since Google targets your key words, and your blog articles could possible wander towards any subject, you never know what you’re going to get.

Well, "never' is a strong word because there actually IS a way to pre-test your blog's ads before you post your newest edition. Here’s what you do:

- Write your blog article like you normally would

-Plug in your AdSense code and then post your newest page to a sub directory that's not part of your blog.

-Click refresh a few times until Google wakes up and starts sending ads.

-If you don't like what you see then fine-tune the article until you see the types of ads that you're looking for.

With some ads paying as much as $5 per click or more, I'd certainly spend an extra 30 minutes or so tweaking my blog. That's for sure.

If you're working hard to get your blog in front of visiting eyeballs, then it doesn't make any sense at NOT to be using Google AdSense to draw every penny out of your site that's possible. OK, that's the end of the article. Now get busy tweaking your blog and checking your ads. You've got money waiting to be made!

Source: http://www.isnare.com

Google Adsense

2006-07-11T00:39:00.000+07:00

AdSense is an ad serving program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, more recently, video advertisements on their sites. These ads are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis. Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted ad system may sign up through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the ads are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the ads is often relevant to the website.

It currently uses JavaScript code to incorporate the advertisements into a participating site. If it is included on a site which has not yet been crawled by the Mediabot, it will temporarily display advertisements for charitable causes known as public service announcements (PSAs). (Note that the Mediabot is a separate crawler from the Googlebot that maintains Google's search index.)

10 Great Things Not To Do With Google Adsense

There is no question that you can make some good money with Google AdSense, but you're setting yourself up for disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes!

1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google AdSense account.

Google says that's a no-no and they will cut your account off and keep all the money you may have earned. Besides, trying to hide your true identity can cause serious problems with the I.R.S. or whoever your tax authority is.

2. Do not hack or modify Google AdSense code other than to change the parameters that Google authorizes you to change.

Any attempt to bypass Google's built-in algorithms not only poses a danger to the integrity of the network, but it threatens the financial modle that Google operates under. You're not dealing with some Mom-and-Pop company here, and Google has the legal muscle and deep enough pockets to drag you through every court in the land if you damage their business
with your hacking antics.

3. Keep AdSense ads off of your registration, confirmation, and all "thank you" pages.

Don't ask me why you can't put your ads there. It makes sense to me that those would be wonderful locations. Google thinks otherwise, however, and doing so is a hanging offense according to their Terms of Service.

4. Do not display AdSense ads and a competitor's ads (like Overture's) on the same page at the same time.

That just makes plain good sense. Google doesn't demand 100% SITE loyalty from you, but they do insist that their own ads not be cluttered up by offerings from their competitors.

5. Don't "beg for clicks" or provide any incentive for clicking on your Google AdSense ads.

This is a biggie and you see this rule violated all the time. Any of the "get paid to do stuff" sites that put Google ads in the member's control panels are walking the plank and they don't even realize it. Even those sites with the polite little messages asking you to "help keep my site running by clicking on our sponsor's ads" are asking to be cut off if those happen to be Google ads.

6. Never click on the ads running on your own site, even if you are genuinely interested in the product or service and are thinking of buying it!

Nothing screams FRAUD louder than a webmaster running up his or her own click counts by happily clicking on ads fromtheir own site. The Google Gods can track this activity and it won't be long until you find yourself getting a goodbye note from their fraud team.

7. No misleading labeling

Google is very specific about what text can be placed around their ads. Their Terms of Service state:"Publishers may not label the ads with text other than 'sponsored links' or 'advertisements.' This includes any text directly above our ads that could be confused with, or attempt to be associated with Google ads."

This is to keep visitors from becoming confused and barking up Google's tree when they clicked on an ad that led to a porn site instead of the recipe site they were expecting to visit.

8. Avoid keyword spamming and other divisive tricks

You may be tempted to buy one of those "generates thousands of key-word rich pages in seconds" programs that are so popular these days but I'l tell you this: Their days are numbered.
Google is wise to such shenanigans and they will be hot on your
trail. Other prohibited gimmicks include:

"Sneaky"page redirects that send a visitor off to a
different site then they were expecting to visit.

Multiple sites, domains, pages, etc. which have substantially
duplicate content.

Hidden text or links of any type.

Excessive outbound links on any page. Google recommends no
more than 100. I'd keep it way below that.

And here is a nugget of wisdom straight from Google's mouth:
"Do not participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your website may be affected adversely by those links.

9. Don't advertise anything on Google's prohibited items list.

It's a lot shorter lists than PayPal's or eBay's, but it includes a lot of the same stuff like hacking/cracking content, porn, illegal drugs, gambling sites, beer or hard alcohol (I guess wine is OK), weapons, and the other usual stuff.

10. And the 10th dumbest thing NOT to do with Google AdSense is to let the other nine thingsstop you from running an honest site that's designed to make the most out of this very
profitable opportunity that Google offers!

Source: http://www.isnare.com
http://www.wikipedia.org

Due Dilligent

2006-07-09T22:42:00.000+07:00

Due diligence (also known as due care) is the effort made by an ordinarily prudent or reasonable party to avoid harm to another party. Failure to make this effort is considered negligence. Quite often a contract will specify that a party is required to provide due diligence.

A (US) example of a "due diligence report" is a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA), which is performed to determine potential environmental conditions that may cause harm to the surrounding environment.

In finance, due diligence may refer to the process of research and analysis that takes place in advance of an investment, takeover, or business partnership. The potential investor generally uses in-house resources or hires a consulting firm that specializes in due diligence and corporate investigations to investigate the background of the company and principals of the target company.

A due diligence assignment generally includes reviewing press and SEC filings, checking for regulatory and licensing problems, identifying liens and judgments, and uncovering civil and criminal litigation matters. Sophisticated investigators will also search for conflicts of interest, insider trading and press and public records that identify problems that may have occurred under the principal's "watch."

The investigative results may be prepared in a "due diligence report" that the investor uses to understand risks involved in the investment. For example, if negative information is uncovered on a principal of the target company, the investor may put pressure on the target firm to replace that individual.

In addition to identifying risks and implications of an investment, due diligence may include data on a company's solvency and assets.

Due diligence can also refer to the ongoing activities of pension or investment fund managers in keeping track of the operations, solvency, and trustworthiness of the managers of a [corporation] in which their fund is invested, or those of the managers of an acquiring corporation toward a target corporation.

In lay terms, due diligence is the responsibility you have to investigate and identify issues, and due care is doing something about the findings from due diligence.

Duves.net investigating or DD some program to help investor make the decision. The dimension are :

Reliability : Delivering on promises
Of the five dimension, reliability has been consistently shown to be the most important determinant of perception of service quality among customers. Reliability is defines as the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. DD on Reliablity in this case is paying history and history of trading performance

Responsiveness : Being Willing to Help
Responsiveness is the willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service. This dimension emphasizes attentiveness and promptness in dealing with customer request, question, complains and problems. DD on Responsiveness areThe present of customer support and speed on customer question.

Assurance : Inspiring Trust and Confidence
Assurance is defined as employee's knowledge and courtesy and the ability of the firm and its employees to inspire trust and confodence. This dimension is likely to be particularly important for services that the customer perceives as involving high risk and/or about which they feel uncertain about their ability to evaluate outcomes. DD on Assurance are the present of key employee, the ability of administrator to perform and trader performance, secure site, and domain registration (whois checking)

Empathy : Treating Customers as Individual
Empathy is defined as the caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers. The essence of empathy is conveying, through personalized or customized serviced, that customer are unique and special. DD on Empathy are the services of the program, and uniqueness of customer services/support

Tangibles : Representing the service physically
Tangible are defined as the appearance of facilities. DD on Tangibility are appearance of the website

Kohn Says Central Bank Can Cut Odds of Disruptive Current-Account Change

2006-07-08T01:15:00.000+07:00

Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said the central bank must keep inflation expectations contained to help reduce the chance of a disruptive narrowing in the U.S. current-account deficit.

"As long as inflation expectations remain contained, relatively faster growth of the prices of imported goods for a time would be associated with only a temporary bulge in inflation and would result in a needed change in relative prices," Kohn said in the text of a speech in London.

Kohn didn't comment on the near-term outlook for the U.S. economy or interest rates in his prepared remarks, instead focusing on longer-term issues. The deficit, the broadest measure of trade, shrank in the first quarter to $208.7 billion from a record $223.1 billion in the previous three months. The U.S. needs to attract about $2.3 billion a day to fund the gap, and any shortfall would undermine the value of the dollar.

"Although private and government demands for dollar assets have allowed the U.S. current account deficit and foreign surpluses to persist, these imbalances are not sustainable indefinitely," Kohn said in his first public remarks since he was sworn in last month as vice chairman, succeeding Roger Ferguson, who resigned in April after more than six years in the position.

"The transition to a more sustainable configuration is not likely to be disruptive," Kohn said." "But we cannot be sure," he said. "The world economy is in uncharted territory with regard to the size of the imbalances."

Kohn said Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will discuss the "immediate outlook for activity and prices in the United States and the global economy more generally, and the recent conduct of monetary policy," when Bernanke testifies before Congress on July 19 and 20.

Last week, the Fed raised the benchmark U.S. interest rate to 5.25 percent, the 17th straight increase, to counter rising inflation. The central bank said further increases depend on future information about the prospects for growth and inflation.

President George W. Bush named Kohn, 63, who has worked in the Fed system since 1970, as a Fed governor in 2002. He had served as the Fed's chief monetary strategist from 1987 to 2001, advising then-chairman Alan Greenspan. Bush nominated Kohn as vice chairman in May.

Last month, Kohn said in a speech that globalization has helped restrain price increases in the U.S. through lower import prices and some "dampening" of unit labor prices as the supply of low-skilled labor becomes more abundant.

read more at www.bloomberg.com

FAQ on HYIP

2006-06-22T00:09:00.000+07:00

Can you explain what is HYIP ?
HYIP is an abbreviation of High Yield Income Program. What it means is that investing in a HYIP will bring great returns on your investment.Most of these investments focus primarily on FOREX markets. These types of investments yield much higher returns on your money than the standard investment (such as mutual fund, savings account, stocks and bonds, ect.) but also come with a much higher risk of losing your money. HYIP's have been around for decades but up until recently, were only available to the ultra rich, mainly because of the high minimums required to invest.(Most starting at 2 mil.) There are a few pooled funds that are legitimate opportunities for the average investor. However, be aware that most High yield investments are ponzis and scams.

Are HYIP's scams?
Yes and no. There are HYIP's that are legitimate but over 99% of the HYIP's you will encounter online will be out and out scams. However, even with the scam sites, there is a potential to earn although this should be considered a game rather than investment. The key is learning how to work it and to not let your greed become a decisive factor in your decisions.

How Do I Know They Are Not Scams?
Simple and straight answer: You don't. You can take advice from people in the industry, read forum posts. The decision to join should be entirely your own, and you should understand the risks involv

Are HYIP Legal?
The real HYIP's are legal, they are a form of investing, but they are only legal if you declare your earnings from them on your tax form (similarly, you can put your losses on them aswell). However, Ponzi's are not legal, anywhere or in any country under any circumstances. It's your choice alone to invest in them and take the risks.

What should I look for to determine whether an HYIP is real or fake?
Due Diligence is a word you will become very familiar with when you become involved with "fringe" investments. This is simply the process of determining whether the website is actually trading or doing what it claims to do. There are many steps to this and most of the time, you will not get all the information to be assured that the prospective investment is, in fact, real. However, this process will allow you to judge exactly how much you should trust them and how much risk there will be when you are investing. Most HYIP's are largely unregulated by government entitlies making DueDiligence even harder. To see what you should look for in a real HYIP

Can I earn a living by investing in HYIP's?
Again, yes and no. The biggest problem with investing with HYIP's is understanding the level of risk. While in most traditional investments, you will likely earn up to 15%/year max, with HYIP's the earning potential can easily double this in a year and in some, even pay back 200%+/year. These numbers are for the legitimate HYIP's. In the "scams", the earning potential is much higher, some as much as 200% in a month but the volatility is too great to invest a large sum of money.

How Much Can I Make?
It depends entirely on how much you invest (obviously the more you invest, the more you make), and the daily percentage of the program (higher daily percentage = more money daily).

How Much Can I Lose?
Again, you can lose as much as you invest. Therefore remember the golden rule of HYIP: ONLY INVEST WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE.

If 99% of HYIP's online are scams, why should I even bother to invest?
While it is true that 99%of HYIP's are scams, a frugal person can make money, even with HYIP scams. Some HYIP sites will last 3-10 months even when they are paying 2-3% daily. If you were to invest $100 into one of these sites, you would have the potential to earn 272% to 440% even after you have pulled your original investment out. However, this is a gamble, very much like going to the casino. You can never be sure exactly when an HYIP scam site will decide to pull the plug and disappear with your money. The legitimate HYIP's are another story altogether. The only way that you can lose with the legitimate HYIP's is if they do poorly on their trades.

How Much Can I Invest?
Depends on the company. Some companies allow you to invest from $1, and most have no upper limit. Check the specific company for more details.

How Do I Invest?
You invest your e-Gold into the companies. Actually making the transaction is simple, enter the amount you wish to invest, and away you go.

I have heard that you can make money by playing the scams. Is this true?
Yes, it is true. You can make money but consider this to be a form of gambling and understand that you will lose at times and win at times. There are many who play the ponzis exclusively, focusing on the short term high percentage sites. They do this by recognizing these types of HYIP's early on and use a "get in get out" strategy. This comes with an ultra high risk as many of these types of HYIP's never pay out in the first place. Personally, I stay away from this type of gamble most of the time.

What is a Ponzi?
When someone says that an HYIP is a ponzi, they are basically saying that the HYIP is paying older investors with newly invested money. A ponzi can sustain only as long as the "new" money coming in is more than the "old" money going out

Forex Glossary Part 3

2006-06-20T16:40:00.000+07:00

Open Position
Any deal which has not been settled by physical payment or reversed by an equal and opposite deal for the same value date. It can be termed as a high risk, high return proposition.

Option
A contract conferring the right but not the obligation to buy (call) or to sell (put) a specified amount of an instrument at a specified price within a predetermined time period.

Over The Counter (OTC)
A market conducted directly between dealers and principals via a telephone and computer network rather than a regulated exchange trading floor. These markets have not been very popular because of the risks both the parties face in case the other party fails to honor the contract. They were never part of the Stock Exchange since they were seen as "unofficial".

Par
(1) The nominal value of a security or instrument. (2) The official value of a currency.

Parity
(1) Foreign exchange dealer's slang for your price is the correct market price. (2) Official rates in terms of SDR or other pegging currency.

Point
(1) 100th part of a per cent, normally 10,000 of any spot rate. Movement of exchange rates are usually in terms of points. (2) One percent on an interest rate, e.g. from 8-9%. (3) Minimum fluctuation or smallest increment of price movement.

Premium
(1) The amount by which a forward rate exceeds a spot rate. (2) The amount by which the market price of a bond exceeds its par value. (3) Options, the price a put or call buyer must pay to a put or call seller for an option contract. (4) The margin paid above the normal price level.

Principal
A dealer who buys or sells stock for his/her own account.

Profit Taking
The unwinding of a position to realize profits.

Put Option
A put option confers the right but not the obligation to sell currencies, instruments or futures at the option exercise price within a predetermined time period.

Quote
An indicative price. The price quoted for information purposes but not to deal.

Rally
A recovery in price after a period of decline. *

Range
The difference between the highest and lowest price of a future recorded during a given trading session.

Rate
The price of one currency in terms of another. It has the same meaning as the term parities.

Reserves
Funds held against future contingencies, normally a combination of convertible foreign currency, gold, and SDRs. Official reserves are to ensure that a government can meet near term obligations. They are an asset in the balance of payments.

Risk management
The identification and acceptance or offsetting of the risks threatening the profitability or existence of an organization. With respect to foreign exchange involves among others consideration of market, sovereign, country, transfer, delivery, credit, and counterparty risk.

Rollover
An overnight swap, specifically the next business day against the following business day (also called Tomorrow Next, abbreviated to Tom-Next). *

Short
A market position where the client has sold a currency he does not already own. Usually expressed in base currency terms.

Spot
(1) The most common foreign exchange transaction. (2) Spot refers to the buying and selling of the currency where the settlement date is two business days forward.

Square
Purchase and sales are in balance and thus the dealer has no open position.

Stagflation
Recession or low growth (stagnation) in conjunction with high inflation rates.

Standard and Poor’s (S&P)
A US firm engaged in assessing the financial health of borrowers. The firm also has generated certain stock indices i.e. S&P 500.

Stop Loss Order
Order given to ensure that, should a currency weaken by a certain percentage, a short position will be covered even though this involves taking a loss. Realize profit orders are less common.

Support Levels
A price level at which the buying is expected to take place. When an exchange rate depreciates or appreciates to a level where (1) Technical analysis techniques suggest that the currency will rebound, or not go below; (2) The monetary authorities intervene to stop any further downward movement. See Resistance Point.

Swap
The simultaneous purchase and sale of the same amount of a given currency for two different dates, against the sale and purchase of another. A swap can be a swap against a forward. In essence, swapping is somewhat similar to borrowing one currency and lending another for the same period. However, any rate of return or cost of funds is expressed in the price differential between the two sides of the transaction.

Technical Analysis
The study of the price that reflects the supply and demand factors of a currency. Common methods are flags, trend-lines spikes, bottoms, tops, pennants, patterns and gaps

Tomorrow Next (Tom next)
Simultaneous buying and selling of a currency for delivery the following day and selling for the next day or vice versa.

Volatility
A measure of the amount by which an asset price is expected to fluctuate over a given period. Normally measured by the annual standard deviation of daily price changes (historic). Can be implied from futures pricing, implied volatility.

Yard
Slang for milliard, one thousand million (1 European milliard = 1 US billion = 1,000 million).

Forex Glossary Part 2

2006-06-20T15:20:00.000+07:00

Fed
The United States Federal Reserve. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Membership is compulsory for Federal Reserve members. The corporation had deep involvement in the Savings and Loans crisis of the late 80s.

Fixed Exchange Rate
Official rate set by monetary authorities for one or more currencies. In practice, even fixed exchange rates are allowed to fluctuate between definite upper and lower bands, leading to intervention by the central bank.

Flat/Square
Where a client has not traded in that currency or where an earlier deal is reversed thereby creating a neutral (flat) position. example: you bought $500,000 then sold $500,000 = FLAT

Floating Exchange Rate
When the value of a currency is decided by the market forces dictating the demand and supply of that particular currency.

FOMC
Federal Open Market Committee, the committee that sets money supply targets in the US which tend to be implemented through Fed Fund interest rates etc.

Foreign Exchange
The purchase or sale of a currency against sale or purchase of another.

Forex
An abbreviation of foreign exchange.

Forward Contract
Sometimes used as synonym for "forward deal" or "future". More specifically for arrangements with the same effect as a forward deal between a bank and a customer.

Forward Deal
A deal with a value date greater than the spot value date.

Forward Points
The interest rate differential between two currencies expressed in exchange rate points. The forward points are added to or subtracted from the spot rate to give the forward or outright rate depending on whether the currency is at a forward premium or discount.

Forward Rate
The rate at which a foreign exchange contract is struck today for settlement at a specified future date which is decided at the time of entering into the contract. The decision to subtract or add points is determined by the differential between the deposit rates for both currencies concerned in the transaction. The base currency with the higher interest rate is said to be at a discount to the lower interest rate quoted currency in the forward market. Therefore the forward points are subtracted from the spot rate. Similarly, the lower interest rate base currency is said to be at a premium, and the forward points are added to the spot rate to obtain the forward rate.

Fundamental Analysis
Analysis based on economic and political factors.

FX
Foreign Exchange.

G5, G7, G10
[G5] The Group of Five. The five leading industrial countries, being US, Germany, Japan, France, UK; [G7] The seven leading industrial countries, being US , Germany, Japan, France, UK, Canada, Italy;[G10] G7 plus Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden, a group associated with IMF discussions. Switzerland is sometimes peripherally involved.

Good Until Canceled (GTC)
An instruction to a broker that unlike normal practice the order does not expire at the end of the trading day, although normally terminates at the end of the trading month. *

Head and Shoulders
A pattern in price trends which chartist consider indicates a price trend reversal. The price has risen for some time, at the peak of the left shoulder, profit taking has caused the price to drop or level. The price then rises steeply again to the head before more profit taking causes the price to drop to around the same level as the shoulder. A further modest rise or level will indicate that a further major fall is imminent. The breach of the neckline is the indication to sell.

Hedging
A hedging transaction is one whose main aim is to protect an asset or liability against a fluctuation in the foreign exchange rate rather than profit from the exchange rate fluctuations.

Initial Margin
The deposit required by the Broker before a client can trade/transact a deal to have some cushion in the event of default by the party.

Interbank Rates
The Forex rates large international banks quote to other large international banks. Normally the public and other businesses do not have access to these rates.

Intrinsic Value
The amount by which an option is In-the-money. The intrinsic value is the difference between the exercise/strike price and the price of the underlying security.

Kiwi
Slang for the New Zealand dollar.

Leading Indicators
Statistic that are considered to precede changes in economic growth rates and total business activity, e.g. factory orders.

Leverage
In options terminology, this expresses the disproportionately large change in the premium in terms of the relative price movement of the underlying instrument. *

LIBOR (London Inter Bank Offer Rate)
British Bankers' Association average of interbank offered rates for dollar deposits in the London market based on quotations at 16 major banks. Effective rate for contracts entered into two days from date appearing.

Limit Order – Reserved Day Trading Deal
An order to perform a Day-Trading deal at a rate pre-defined by the customer, when and if such rate comes up in real market time. The Limit rate is superior to the existing rate at the time of reservation. The reservation order lasts for a period defined by the customer, and is associated by the necessary collaterals to facilitate the potential Day*Trading deal, when and if activated, under the pre-defined terms.

Liquidity
The ability of a market to accept large transactions without having any major impact on the interest rates.

Long
A market position where the Client has bought a currency he previously did not own. For example: long Dollars.

M0; M1; M2; M3; M4
[M0} Cash in circulation . Only used by the UK; [M1] Cash in circulation plus demand deposits at commercial banks. There are variations between the precise definitions used by national financial authorities; [M2] Includes demand deposits time deposits and money market mutual funds excluding large CDs; [M3] In the UK it is M1 plus public and private sector time deposits and sight deposits held by the public sector.; [M4] In the US it is M2 plus negotiable CDs.

Maintenance Margin
The minimum margin which an investor must keep on deposit in a margin account at all times in respect of each open contract. *

Margin
(1) Difference between the buying and selling rates, also used to indicate the discount or premium between spot or forward. (2) For options the sum required as collateral from the writer of an option. (3) For futures a deposit made to the clearing house on establishing a futures position account. (4) The percentage reserve required by the US Federal Reserve to make an initial credit transaction.

Margin Call
A demand for additional funds to cover positions. A demand for additional funds to be deposited in a margin account to meet margin requirements because of adverse future price movements. *

Market Maker
A market maker is a person or firm authorized to create and maintain a market in an instrument. *

Market Value
Market value of a Forex position at any time is the amount of the domestic currency that could be purchased at the then market rate in exchange for the amount of foreign currency to be delivered under the Forex Contract.

Mid-Price or Middle Rate
The price half-way between the two prices, or the average of both buying and selling prices offered by the market makers.

Mio
Million.

Moving Average
A way of smoothing a set of data, widely used in price time series.

Nickel
US term for five basis points.

Old Lady
Old lady of Threadneedle Street, a term for the Bank of England.

One Cancels Other Order
Where the execution of one order automatically cancels a previous order also referred to as OCO or 'One cancels the other'.

Forex Glossary Part 1

2006-06-20T15:11:00.000+07:00

Ask Price
The price at which the currency or instrument is offered. *Ask is the lowest price acceptable to the buyer.

American Option
An option which may be exercised at any valid business date throughout the life of the option. Compared with a European option that can only be exercised on a specific date.

Arbitrage
A risk-free type of trading where the same instrument is bought and sold simultaneously in two different markets in order to cash in on the difference in these markets.

Around
Used in quoting forward "premium / discount".

At Best
An instruction given to a dealer to buy or sell at the best rate that is currently available in the market.

At or Better
An order to deal at a specific rate or better.

At the Price Stop-Loss Order
A stop-loss order that must be executed at the requested level regardless of market conditions.

Average Rate Option
A contract where the exercise price is based on the difference between the strike price and the average spot rate over the contract period. Sometimes called an "Asian option".

Back to Back
(1) Transaction where all the obligations and liabilities in one transaction are mirrored in a second transaction. (2) Transaction where a loan is made in one currency in one country against a loan in another country in another currency.

Base Currency
The currency in which the operating results of the bank or institution are reported.

Base Rate
A term used in the UK for the rate used by banks to calculate the interest rate to borrowers. Top quality borrowers will pay a small amount over base.

Basis
The difference between the cash price and futures price.

Basis Point
One per cent of one per cent.

Bear
An investor who believes that prices are going to fall. *

Bear Market
A market in which prices decline sharply against a background of widespread pessimism (opposite of Bull Market).

Bid Price
The price at which a buyer has offered to purchase the currency or instrument. Bid is the highest price that the seller is offering for the particular currency at the moment; the difference between the ask and the bid price is the spread. Together, the two prices constitute a quotation; the difference between the two is the spread. The bid-ask spread is stated as a percentage cost of transacting in the foreign.

Binary Options
A binary "call" (or "step up") is like a standard European call option except that the pay off at expiry is fixed at one unit of the counter currency, if the call expires in the money.

Black-Scholes Model
An option pricing formula initially derived by Fisher Black and Myron Scholes for securities options and later refined by Black for options on futures. It is widely used in the currency markets.

Bretton-Woods
The site of the conference which in 1944 led to the establishment of the post war foreign exchange system that remained intact until the early 1970s. The conference resulted in the formation of the IMF. The system fixed currencies in a fixed exchange rate system with 1% fluctuations of the currency to gold or the dollar.

Broker
An agent, who executes orders to buy and sell currencies and related instruments either for a commission or on a spread. Brokers are agents working on commission and not principals or agents acting on their own account. In the foreign exchange market brokers tend to act as intermediaries between banks bringing buyers and sellers together for a commission paid by the initiator or by both parties. There are four or five major global brokers operating through subsidiaries affiliates and partners in many countries.

Bull
A person who believes that prices will rise.

Bull Market
A market characterized by rising prices.

Buyer/Taker
The purchaser of an option, whether a call or put option. The buyer may also be referred to as the option holder. Option buyers receive the right, but not the obligation, to enter a futures/securities market position. *

Cable
A term used in the foreign exchange market for the US Dollar/British Pound rate.

Call
An option that gives the holder the right to buy the underlying instrument at a specified price during a fixed period.

Call Option
A call option confers the right but not the obligation to buy stock, shares or futures at a specified price.

CBOE
Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Central Bank
A central bank provides financial and banking services for a country's government and commercial banks. It implements the government's monetary policy, as well, by changing interest rates. It is normally the issuing bank and controls bank licensing, and any foreign exchange control regime.

CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the US Federal regulatory agency for futures traded on commodity markets, including financial futures.

Closed Position
A transaction which leaves the trade with a zero net commitment to the market with respect to a particular currency.

Commission
The fee that a broker may charge clients for dealing on their behalf.

Contract
An agreement to buy or sell a specified amount of a particular currency or option for a specified month in the future (See Futures contract).

Cross Rate
An exchange rate between two currencies, usually constructed from the individual exchange rates of the two currencies, as most currencies are quoted against the dollar.

Currency
The type of money that a country uses. It can be traded for other currencies on the foreign exchange market, so each currency has a value relative to another.

Day Trading
A Day-Trading deal is a currency exchange deal which renew automatically every night at 22:00 (GMT time) starting the day the deal was made and until it ends. The deal ends in one of the following events: 1. Termination initiated by you. 2. The day trading rate has reached the Stop-Loss rate (or Take-Profit rate) you predefined. 3. The deal end date. As long as the deal is open, it is charged a renewal fee every night at 22:00 (GMT time).

Deal Date
The date on which a transaction is agreed upon.

Dealer
An individual or firm acting as a principal, rather than as an agent, in the purchase and/or sale of securities. Dealers trade for their own account and risk in contrast to the brokers who do trade only on behalf of their clients.

European Option
An option that can be exercised only on its expiration date rather than before that date. *

Exotic
A less broadly traded currency.

US Asset Inflows Weaken in April

2006-06-19T21:40:00.000+07:00

The dollar slipped against the euro on Thursday after a report showed April capital flows into the United States, which dropped sharply, were not enough to cover the trade deficit.

A mixed bag of U.S. economic data left traders with no clear direction and most said orders to buy dollars were being met with just as many to sell. However, against a basket of major currencies, the dollar remained within striking distance of seven-week highs reached on Tuesday.

Foreign investment in U.S. assets in April, particularly from private investors, was the lowest in more than a year and unable to offset that month's trade deficit for the first time since December 2005.

"To the extent the private sector suddenly decided they didn't want U.S. securities that meant there were more dollars available on the foreign exchange market and that meant downward pressure on the dollar," Chris Probyn, chief economist with State Street Global Advisors in Boston, said.

By 1:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), the euro was at $1.2615, up 0.1 percent from Wednesday but off session highs of $1.2658 . On Tuesday the euro hit a 1-1/2 month low of $1.2528.

The dollar held steady at 115.06 yen , within sight of seven-week highs of 115.44 yen touched on Tuesday.

Weakness in the dollar for the second consecutive session was striking especially since the futures market reflected increased chances of two more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve later this month and in August.

WEEKLY MARKET RECAP, WEEK AHEAD, AND SCHEDULE

2006-06-12T14:33:00.000+07:00

Euro
The euro depreciated vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar last week as the single currency tested bids around the $1.2595 level and was capped around the$1.2980 level. The pair lost about 285 pips last week. Fed officials continued to manage inflation expectations with more hawkish talk. Atlanta Fed's Guynn noted the Fed would 'not let its guard down;" St. Louis's Poole said the current economic slowdown may not stymie inflation; Kohn testified that inflation is elevated; Bies said the Fed can't say it's done hiking; and Bernanke reiterated the Fed needs to remain "vigilant." Traders bought dollars on the premise the FOMC will move again by +25bps at the end of June. Data saw the May services ISM fall to 60.1 from 63.0 while weekly initial jobless claims pulled back to 302,000. The April trade deficit narrowed slightly and the May import price index came in a hotter-than-expected +1.6%.

In eurozone news, the ECB lifted its headline rate by
a modest +25bps to 2.75% with Trichet not overly hawkish in his remarks. Many traders expected a +50bps move. EMU-12 April retail sales were up 1.4% m/m and 2.8% y/y and the EMU-12 May services PMI up at 58.7. Ecofin ministers tried to talk the euro down with Austria's Grasser, Luxembourg's Juncker, and France's Breton noting $1.30 is at the high end of the its comfort zone. G8 officials meeting in St. Petersburg could shake things up in the FX world, especially if they again talk about normalization of Asian exchange rates. Papademos, Tumpell-Gugerell, and Gonzalez-Paramo talked up the EMU-12 economy and downplayed the euro's role in policymaking. The ECB kept its 2006 GDP growth forecast intact at +2.1%.

Yen/ CNY

The yen weakened vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar last week as the greenback tested offers around the 114.30 level and was supported around the 111.40 level. The pair gained about 230 pips last week. The Nikkei 225 stock index closed the week at14,750.84. BoJ's Iwata echoed Fukui's recent comments, saying policymakers have no idea when interest rates will be lifted from near zero per cent. May bank lending was up 1.2% y/y, the fastest climb in more than ten years and speculation mounted the government may lift its January - March GDP estimate. The Nikkei reported the government will emphasize deflation is receding in its June monthly report. April machinery orders rose 10.8% m/m.

The Chinese yuan rallied vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar last week as the greenback closed at CNY 8.0112 in the over-the-counter market and at CNY 8.0115 in the exchange-traded market. A Chinese government research body called on the government to widen the yuan's trading band and PBOC's Zhou indicated the central bank has no plans to tighten policy further at this time. May PPI was up 19.5% y/y.

GBP
The British pound depreciated vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar last week as cable tested bids around the US$ 1.8365 level and was capped around the $1.8880 level. The pair lost about 375 pips last week. BoE's MPC kept rates unchanged at 4.50% for the tenth consecutive month. Data was on the soft side with April manufacturing output off 0.2% m/m, May BRC retail sales off, and the May services PMI survey off at 59.2. Halifax and CML reported continued strength in house prices and May Nationwide May consumer confidence improved. The April trade in goods deficit printed at -GBP5.8 billion while NIESR sees U.K. GDP at 0.6% in the three months to May.

CHF

The Swiss franc depreicated vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar last week as the greenback tested offers around the CHF 1.2365 figure and was supported around the CHF 1.2015 level. The pair gained about 250 pips last week. Data released in Switzerland saw the May unemployment rate recede to 3.3% from 3.5% in April.

CAD

The Canadian dollar depreciated vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar last week as the greenback tested offers around the US$ 1.1230 level and was supported around the US$ 1.0975 level. The pair gained about 60 pips last week. The May unemployment rare fell 0.3% to 6.1%, its lowest level since December 1974.

AUD

The Australian dollar came off vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar last week as the Aussie tested bids around the US$ 0.7390 level and was capped around the US$ 0.7545 level. The pair lost about 25 pips last week. RBA kept its official cash rate unchanged at 5.75% and the May unemployment rate printed at 4.9%, down from 5.1%. Q1 GDP was up 0.9% q/q and 3.1% y/y and the May services PMI fell to 49.3. Also, the Q1 current account deficit printed at - A$ 13.999 billion, down from - A$ 14.330 billion in Q4, and Westpac industrial activity index receded to 48.4 in June from 51.1 in March, its lowest level since June 2001.

SCHEDULE

Sunday, 11 June 2006

all times GMT

(last release in parentheses)

1700 US European Central Bank member Constancio speaks

1845 NZ Q1 import prices (0.6%)

1845 NZ Q1 export prices (-1.8%)

2245 NZ Q1 terms of trade index (-2.3% q/q)

2350 Japan Q1 GDP (0.5% q/q)

2350 Japan Q1 GDP, annualized (1.9%)

2350 Japan Q1 GDP deflator (-1.3% y/y)

2350 Japan May domestic corporate goods price index (0.5% m/m)

2350 Japan May domestic corporate goods price index (2.5% y/y)

2350 Japan May export price index (0.7% m/m)

2350 Japan May export price index (4.0% y/y)

2350 Japan May import price index (0.8% m/m)

2350 Japan May import price index (14.9% y/y)

2350 Japan April current account (¥2.395 trillion)

2350 Japan April trade balance (¥1.108 trillion)

Monday, 12 June 2006

all times GMT

(last release in parentheses)

N/A Australia Financial markets closed

0500 Japan May consumer confidence (50.2)

0600 Germany May wholesale price index (1.0% m/m)

0600 Germany May wholesale price index (3.2% y/y)

0800 Italy April industrial production (-0.1% m/m)

0800 Italy April industrial production (4.2% y/y)

0830 Eurozone European Central Bank member Quaden speaks

0830 UK May producer price index, input (2.5% m/m)

0830 UK May producer price index, input (15.7% y/y)

0830 UK May producer price index, output (0.4% m/m)

0830 UK May core producer price index, output (0.4% m/m)

0830 UK May producer price index, output (2.4% y/y)

0830 UK May core producer price index, output (2.3% y/y)

0830 UK April ODPM house prices (3.3% y/y)

0830 UK May FT house prices (3.3% y/y)

1200 NZ Q3 employment outlook

1230 Canada Q1 capacity utilization ratio (86.3%)

1315 US Cleveland Fed President Pianalto speaks

1345 Slovenia European Central Bank member Bini-Smaghi speaks

1430 US Dallas Fed President Fisher speaks

1615 US Fed Governor Olson speaks

2000 US Fed Governor Bies speaks

2245 NZ April retail sales (-1.0% m/m)

2330 US Fed Chairman Bernanke speaks

Tuesday, 13 June 2006

all times GMT

(last release in parentheses)

N/A Japan June monthly economic report

0130 Australia May National Australia business survey

0430 Japan April industrial production (1.5% m/m)

0430 Japan April industrial production (3.8% y/y)

0430 Japan April capacity utilization (104.1)

0430 Japan May machine tool orders (14.8% y/y)

0600 Germany May consumer price index (0.2% m/m)

0600 Germany May consumer price index (1.9% y/y)

0600 Germany May harmonized consumer price index (2.1% m/m)

0600 Germany May harmonized consumer price index (0.2% y/y)

0800 Italy Q1 labour cost in industry and services

0830 UK May consumer price inflation (0.6% m/m)

0830 UK May consumer price inflation (2.0% y/y)

0830 UK May core consumer price inflation (1.3% y/y)

0830 UK May retail price index (0.8% m/m)

0830 UK May retail price index (2.6% y/y)

0830 UK May RPIX (2.4% y/y)

0900 Germany June ZEW survey of economic sentiment (50.0)

0900 Germany June ZEW survey of current situation (8.7)

0900 Eurozone June ZEW survey of economic sentiment (47.7)

0900 Eurozone Q1 current account (-€15.1 billion)

1230 US May producer price index (0.9% m/m)

1230 US May producer price index, ex-food and energy (0.1% m/m)

1230 US May producer price index (4.0% y/y)

1230 US May producer price index, ex-food and energy (1.5% y/y)

1230 US May advance retail sales (0.5%)

1230 US April business inventories (0.7%)

1230 US Fed Chairman Bernanke speaks

1600 Eurozone European Central Bank member Mersch speaks

2245 NZ May food prices (-0.8% m/m)

Wednesday, 14 June 2006

all times GMT

(last release in parentheses)

N/A Japan Bank of Japan Policy Board meeting

0030 Australia June Westpac consumer confidence

0400 Japan May bankruptcies (14.9% y/y)

0400 Japan May Tokyo condominium sales (-2.5% y/y)

0600 Germany May wholesale price index (1.0% m/m)

0600 Germany May wholesale price index (3.2% y/y)

0800 Italy May consumer prices (0.3% m/m)

0800 Italy May consumer prices (2.2% y/y)

0800 France May consumer price index (0.4% m/m)

0800 France May consumer price index (2.0% y/y)

0800 France May harmonized consumer price index (0.3% m/m)

0800 France May harmonized consumer price index (2.3% y/y)

0830 UK May claimant count rate (3.0%)

0830 UK May jobless claims change (7,700)

0830 UK April average earnings (4.2%)

0830 UK April ILO unemployment rate (5.2%)

0830 UK April manufacturing unit wage cost (1.9%)

1230 US May consumer price index (0.6% m/m)

1230 US May consumer price index, ex-food and energy (0.3% m/m)

1230 US May consumer price index (3.5% y/y)

1230 US May consumer price index, ex-food and energy (2.3% y/y)

1230 Canada April manufacturing shipments (1.6% m/m)

1300 France European Central Bank President Trichet speaks

1530 US Fed Governor Bies speaks

1700 US Dallas Fed President Fisher speaks

1800 US Fed Beige Book

2300 US Boston Fed President Minehan speaks

2330 UK May RICS house price balance (15.0%)

2350 Japan April tertiary industry index (-0.6% m/m)

Thursday, 15 June 2006

all times GMT

(last release in parentheses)

N/A Japan Bank of Japan Policy Board monetary policy announcement

N/A CH Swiss National Bank interest rate announcement

N/A CH Swiss National Bank mid-year monetary policy assessment

0100 Australia June consumer inflation expectations

0130 Australia May Reserve Bank of Australia bulletin

0300 NZ May non-resident bond holdings

0500 Japan April leading economic index (50%)

0500 Japan April coincident index (77.8%)

0600 Japan Bank of Japan monthly report

0645 France Q1 non-farm payrolls (0.2% q/q)

0730 Italy European Central Bank member Tumpell-Gugerell speaks

0800 Eurozone June European Central Bank monthly report

0800 Eurozone European Central Bank member Liikanen speaks

0830 UK May retail sales (0.6% m/m)

0830 UK May retail sales (3.0% y/y)

0900 Eurozone May consumer price inflation (0.7% m/m)

0900 Eurozone May consumer price inflation (2.4% y/y)

0900 Eurozone May consumer price inflation, core (1.5% y/y)

1201 NZ May ANZ PMI (53.1)

1215 US Boston Fed President Minehan speaks

1230 US Weekly initial jobless claims (302,000)

1230 US Weekly continuing jobless claims (2.145 million)

1230 US June Empire Fed manufacturing index (12.4)

1300 US April net foreign security purchases (US$ 69.8 billion)

1315 US May industrial production (0.8%)

1315 US May capacity utilization (81.9%)

1430 UK April leading indicator index (0.6% m/m)

1430 UK April coincident index (0.2%)

1600 US June Philadelphia Fed index (14.4)

1700 US Fed Governor Kroszner speaks

1800 Us Fed Chairman Bernanke speaks

2245 NZ Q1 manufacturing activity (0.3%)

Friday, 16 June 2006

all times GMT

(last release in parentheses)

N/A CH Swiss National Bank President Roth speaks

0645 France April current account (-€1.793 billion)

0730 Korea St. Louis Fed President Poole speaks

0900 Eurozone Q1 labour costs (2.4% y/y)

0900 Eurozone April industrial production (0.4% m/m)

0900 Eurozone April industrial production (3.8% y/y)

1230 US Q1 current account balance (-US$ 224.9 billion)

1315 Italy April current account (-€1.991 billion)

1345 US June University of Michigan consumer sentiment (79.1)

1500 US Fed Governor Kohn speaks

1500 US Fed Governor Kroszner speaks

DISCLAIMER: GCI's Weekly Market Recap and Week Ahead is provided for informational purposes only. The information contained in these reports is gathered from reputable news sources and is not intended to be used as investment advice. GCI assumes no responsibility or liability from gains or losses incurred by the information

Source: www.cgtrading.com

HYIP

2006-06-06T14:52:00.000+07:00

HYIP, which stands for High Yield Investment Program is just what it sounds like, a program offering a high yield investment. HYIP's are offering probably the most profitable investments available today. Interest rates of up to 100% a monthis not uncommon. In general the interest rates are ranging anywhere between 5 - 250% a month.

HYIP's are using different investment strategies. Some invest in stocks, others in property. There are even HYIPs investing in other HYIPs. Probably there are also programs that are not investing at all. These belong to the scammers. You'll read more about unserious HYIPs further down this text.

Most HYIP's use different e-currencies as their way of accepting funds from members. E-gold is undoubtedly the most commonly used one hence the many program names containing 'Gold' or "E-gold". E-currencies makes instant and secure money transfers possible online and have very much paved the way for HYIP's.

The phenomenon of Hyips is growing bigger and bigger on the internet today. Every day new programs are being launched. Lots of people are earning fortunes investing in these programs.

Sounds too good to be true?

Well, while the statements above are not lies, they don't give you the whole picture. Many program owners are scammers. Their only will is to run with your money. There are more scams out there than serious long term programs.Over the years large amounts of people have lost their money as a result of being involved in High Yield Investment Programs.

Given the fact that the HYIP industry is a very risky one, most people are very hesitant when it comes to investing in HYIP's - which is legitimate. However, not being aware of the risks is the main reason why people are losing their money. There is a great number of cases where people have thought they've found an incredible opportunity and gladly invested their entire fortune. When the programs later went out of business, the consequences have been devastating.

Although there are unserious players in all markets, the HYIP arena seem to have more of them than many other industries. The reason for this is the big amounts of money involved and the fact that it’s pretty easy to steal money on the net.

Taking both the negative and positive aspects of High Yield Investments into consideration, the conclusion is; If done right, High Yield Investments can be extremely lucrative.

This is where we come into play. We are constantly studying and researching the market. We are also investing in a number of HYIP's to be able to analyze them and keep track of their payments.

Source: hyipinvestment.com

Technical Analysis: Introduction

2006-06-05T16:20:00.000+07:00

Technical analysis (or chartism) is the use of numerical series generated by market activity, such as price and volume, to predict future price trends. The techniques can be applied to any market with a comprehensive price history.

Primarily, but not exclusively, technical analysis is conducted by studying charts of past price movement. Many different methods and tools are used in technical analysis, but they all rely on the assumption that price patterns and trends exist in markets, and that they can be identified and exploited.

Technical analysis does not try to analyze the financial data of a company such as cashflow, dividends and projection of future dividends. That type of analysis is called fundamental analysis. Nor does it claim to be 100% accurate. It attempts to give the "most likely" outcome.

Some speculators combine elements from both technical and fundamental analysis. (A budding field known as fusion analysis explicitly advocates the combined use of fundamental and technical analysis.) Technical analysis is viewed by many of its practitioners as more art than science. Many academic studies conclude that technical analysis has little, if any, predictive power. However, the practice has a dedicated following especially among active traders and does have support among the academic community.

As an example of the debate regarding the efficacy of technical analysis, Peter Lynch, a very well-known and successful fundamental analyst, once commented, "Charts are great for predicting the past." On the other hand, the U.S. Federal Reserve once published a study saying that certain elements of technical analysis were effective in price forecasting in the intraday foreign exchange market.

History
The premises of technical analysis were derived from empirical observations of financial markets over hundreds of years. Perhaps the oldest branch of technical analysis is the use of candlestick techniques by Japanese traders at least as early as the 18th century, and still very popular today.

Dow Theory, a theory based on the collected writings of Dow Jones co-founder and editor Charles Dow, inspired the increasingly widespread use and development of technical analysis from the end of the 19th century. Modern technical analysis considers Dow Theory its cornerstone.

New tools and theories have been produced and existing tools have been enhanced at a rapid rate in recent decades, with an increasing emphasis on computer-assisted techniques.

Theory
Technical analysis is not concerned with why a price is moving (e.g. poor earnings, difficult business environment, poor management, or other fundamentals) but rather whether it is moving in a particular direction or in a particular chart pattern. Technical analysts believe that profits can be made by "trend following." In other words if a particular stock price is steadily rising (trending upward) then a technical analyst will look for opportunities to buy this stock. Until the technical analyst is convinced this uptrend has reversed or ended, all else equal, he will continue to own this security. Additionally, technical analysts look for various price patterns to form on a price chart and will take positions in anticipation of the expected move following that pattern. The various tools of technical analysis assist the technician in determining when trends have formed, ended, etc. and when particular patterns are unfolding.

Technical analysis may be at odds with fundamental analysis. Fundamental analysis maintains that markets may misprice a security and, through various methods of fundamental analysis, the "correct" price can be calculated. Profits can be made by trading the mispriced security and then waiting for the market to recognize its "mistake" and reprice the security. In contrast, a technical analyst is not interested in a security's "correct" price, only in price movement.

Two well known sayings among technical analysts are, "The trend is your friend," and "Forget the fundamentals and follow the money." An example of the different views of technical and fundamental analysis follows. Suppose a stock was trading at 124.25 pence, and that the consensus fundamental analysis view of the stock was that it was worth 120.00 pence. If the share price rose to 125.00 pence, then to 126.00 pence, and then to 127.00 pence, a technical analyst would likely be a buyer of this stock in order to profit from the perceived trend. In contrast, a fundamental analyst would possibly look to sell the stock as it is moving away from what the fundamental analyst believes is the "correct" price.

Three Beliefs of Technical Analysis

Price action in the market discounts everything
Technical analysis holds that because every possible bit of information is immediately included in the price of a security, it is not necessary to explicitly analyze the fundamental, economic, political, etc. factors that might influence that price. Because all possible information is reflected in the price, only a study of the price movement is required. Murphy. Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets, 24 - 31.

Prices move in trends
While it cannot be shown that prices must trend, technical analysis relies on empirical evidence and common sense to assert that prices do trend. To a technician, markets are trending up, trending down, or trending sideways (flat). This definition of a price trend is essentially the one put forward by Dow Theory. Murphy. Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets, 24 - 31.

A person who does not believe that prices move in trends will find little use for technical analysis. The assumption that prices must trend is probably the most important concept in technical analysis.

History tends to repeat itself
Technical analysts believe that investors en masse repeat the behavior of the investors that preceded them. "Everyone wants in on the next Microsoft," "If this stock ever gets to $50 again, I will buy it," "This company's technology will revolutionize its industry, therefore this stock will skyrocket,"-- these are all examples of investors' attitudes repeating. To a technical analyst, the human characteristics of the market might be irrational, but they exist. Because investors' attitudes often repeat, investors' actions in the marketplace often repeat as well. I.e., patterns of price movement will develop on a chart that a technical analyst believes have predictive qualities.

Technical analysis is not limited to charting. Technical analysis is always primarily concerned with price trends. Anything that can influence the price trend is of interest to a technical analyst. As an example, many technical analysts monitor surveys of investor enthusiasm. These surveys attempt to gauge the general attitude of the investment community to determine whether investors are bearish or bullish. Technical analysts use these surveys to help determine whether a trend will reverse or whether a new trend will develop. A technical analyst would be alerted that a trend might change when these surveys report extreme investor reactions. When surveys are overly bullish, for example, a technical analyst will look for evidence that an uptrend will reverse. The logic being that if most investors are bullish, then they would have already bought the market (anticipating that the market will move higher). But because most investors are bulllish and have invested, it is safe to assume that there are few buyers remaining in the market. With most investors long, there are more potential sellers in the market than buyers despite the fact that the overall attitude of investors is bullish. This implies that the market is set to trend down and is an example of a technical analysis concept called contrarian trading.

Criticism of Technical Analysis
Lack of evidence
Although chartists assert that their techniques provide excess returns over time, this assertion is controversial. Many academics believe that technical analysis has no predictive power. Burton Malkiel in his book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" (8th edition, 2003) and Eugene Fama in "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," May 1970 Journal of Financesummarize many early studies, conducted from the 1950s-70s, that show that after trading costs are considered, the returns generated by many technical strategies underperform a simple buy and hold strategy.

Cheol-Ho Park and Scott H. Irwin [1] reviewed 93 modern studies on the profitability of technical analysis and considered 59 of them to indicate positive results, and 24 negative results. "Despite the positive evidence ... it appears that most empirical studies are subject to various problems in their testing procedures, e.g., data snooping, ex post selection of trading rules or search technologies, and difficulties in estimation of risk and transaction costs." See also [2].

Critics of technical analysis include well known fundamental analysts. Warren Buffett has exclaimed, "I realized technical analysis didn't work when I turned the charts upside down and didn't get a different answer" and "If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians." Still, even an investor like Buffett occasionally recognizes technical analysis. In a recent conference on investing in mining companies, Buffett commented, "In metals and oils, there's been a terrific [price] move. It's like most trends: at the beginning, it's driven by fundamentals, then speculation takes over...then the speculation becomes dominant." To a technician, Buffett basically paraphrased Dow Theory.

Inconsistencies with Other Market Hypotheses

The Efficient Market Hypothesis
The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) concludes that technical analysis cannot be effective. According to this hypothesis, all relevant information is quickly reflected in a security's price through the actions of traders who have that information. Thus, it is impossible to "beat the market," and technical analysis cannot work. News events and new fundamental developments which influence prices occur randomly and are unknowable in advance. Advocates of EMH have produced many studies that reject the efficacy of technical analysis.

Proponents of technical analysis counter that technical analysis does not completely contradict the efficient market hypothesis. Technicians agree with EMH in that they believe that all available information is reflected within a security's price; that is why technicians say a study of the price movement is necessary. Technicians argue that EMH ignores the realities of the market place, namely that many investors base their future expectations on past earnings, track records, etc. Because future stock prices can be strongly influenced by investor expectations, technicians claim it only follows that past prices can influence future prices.

Technicians point to the new field of behavioral finance. Behavioral finance essentially says that people are not the rational participants EMH makes them out to be. Market participants can and do act irrationally. Technicians have long held that irrational human behavior influences stock prices and claim to have ways of predicting probable outcomes based on this behavior.

The Random Walk Hypothesis
The random walk hypothesis is also at odds with technical analysis and charting. Essentially, the hypothesis claims that stock price moments are a Brownian Motion with either independent or uncorrelated increments. In this model, movements in stock prices are not dependent on past stock prices, so trends cannot exist and technical analysis has no basis. Again, proponents of this theory have generated substantial research in support of the hypothesis.

The random walk hypothesis may be derived from the weak-form efficient markets hypothesis, which is based on the assumption that market participants take full account of any information contained in past price movements (but not necessarily other public information).

Technical analysts maintain that trends are identifiable in the market and that it is impractical to believe that market prices move in a random fashion. To a technician, over time prices will trend in a direction until supply equals demand. Therefore, there cannot be any pure random price movement. As stated earlier, one of the cornerstones of technical analysis is that prices trend. If one does not believe this concept, one will not agree with technical analysis.

Also, with regards to EMH and Random Walk Theory, technicians claim that both theories ignore the realities of the marketplace. To a technician, the market is neither composed of completely rational participants as EMH assumes (participants can be greedy, overly risky, etc. at any given time) nor is its stock price movement completely independent of its prior movement (technicians will point at charts like AOL above). Technicians maintain that both theories would also invalidate numerous other trading strategies such as index arbitrage, statistical arbitrage and many other trading systems.

Proponents of Technical Analysis
To many traders, trading in the direction of the trend is the most effective means to be profitable in financial or commodities markets. John Henry, Larry Hite, Ed Seykota, Richard Dennis, Bruce Kovner, and Michael Marcus (some of the so-called Market Wizards in the popular book of the same name by Jack D. Schwager) have each amassed massive fortunes through the use of technical analysis and its concepts. George Lane, a technical analyst, coined one of the most popular phrases on Wall Street, "The trend is your friend!"

Many non-arbitrage algorithmic trading systems rely on the idea of trend-following, as do many hedge funds. A relatively recent trend, both in research and industrial practice, has been the development of increasingly sophisticated automated trading strategies. These often rely on underlying technical analysis principles (see algorithmic trading article for an overview).

Charting terms and indicators
Many different techniques and indicators can be used to follow and predict trends in markets, and usually at least a few at a time are considered when making an investment decision. Some of the most widely known include:

Accumulation/distribution index - based on the close within the day's range
Average true range - averaged daily trading range
Bollinger bands - a range of price volatility
Breakout - when a price passes through and stays above an area of support or resistance
Commodity Channel Index - identifies cyclical trends
Hikkake Pattern - pattern for identifying reversals and continuations
MACD - moving average convergence/divergence
Momentum - the rate of price change
Money Flow - the amount of stock traded on days the price went up
Moving average - lags behind the price action,
On balance volume - the momentum of buying and selling stocks
PAC charts - two-dimensional method for charting volume by price level
Parabolic SAR - Wilder's trailing stop based on prices tending to stay within a parabolic curve during a strong trend
Pivot point - derived by calculating the numerical average of a particular currency's or stock's high, low and closing prices.
Point and figure charts - charts based on price without time
Relative Strength Index - oscillator showing price strength.
Resistance - an area that brings on increased selling
Stochastic oscillator, close position within recent trading range
Stop loss - controls drawdown
Support - an area that brings on increased buying
Trend line - a sloping line of support or resistance

Initial margin requirement

2006-06-05T16:11:00.000+07:00

Initial margin requirement - The minimum Margin Balance necessary to establish a NEW Open Position. Trading System reserves the right to change the Initial Margin requirement at it’s sole discretion. The Initial Margin requirement can be expressed as a percentage (i.e., 2% of US dollar position amount) or can be calculated by the Leverage Ratio. For example, a $100,000 position in USD/JPY would require $2,000 of margin given a 2% Margin Requirement. Expressed as a leverage ratio, if 50:1 leverage ratio is used a $100,000 position would require the same Initial Margin ($100,000 / 50 = $2,000).

Stop loss order

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Stop loss order - A specific order entered by the client to close out a position if the price moves in the opposite direction of the position by a certain amount of pips. In most cases Stop Orders are executed as soon as the market reaches or goes through the Customer set Stop Price level. Once issued, the stop order will be held pending until the stop price is reached. Stop orders may be used to close out a position (Stop Loss), to reverse a position, or open a new position. The most common use is to protect an existing position (by limiting losses or protecting unrealized gains). Once the market hits or goes through the stop price, the order is activated (triggered) and Trading System will execute the order at the next available price. Unlike a Limit Order, a Stop Order does not guarantee execution at the stop price. Market conditions including volatility and lack of volume may cause a Stop order to be executed at a price different than the order.

About E-gold

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Before you click through to the e-gold site, here is a quick summary of e-gold. When you get there you will be able explore the site and verify the information for yourself.
The Gold community centers around the use of GOLD (AUG) as a worldwide digital currency. The focal point of this community is presently e-Gold Limited which is the primary issuer of digital currency, although new competitors in the field such as GoldMoney.com and E-bullion.com are now offering gold digital currencies as well.
The foundational currencies to the Gold Economy are 100% backed by gold bars held in secure vaults in locations around the world, such as London, Zurich, and Dubai. Should any holder of a gold digital currency require their equivalent value of gold holdings, they are redeemable in actual gold bars or can be converted to national currencies by exchange agents.
E-gold is second only to PayPal in popularity. They've actually been around longer than PayPal (they're the original online money transfer service). The biggest selling point of eGold is that all online currency is backed 100% by real world gold. In fact, members can even cash in their eGold for real gold. Carrying it around might be a little difficult but gold is nice because of it's immunity to inflation. Also, we realize a lot of people have sexual confusion related to bullion, making e-gold the perfect choice.
Egold is a payment service similar to PayPal but with a few significant differences:
It is based on gold. When you open an egold account, you are actually buying a quantity of gold. If the price changes, the value in your account changes.
The price you pay depends upon the quantity purchased. The more you buy, the better price you get.
There is a minimum amount which must be purchased.
Payments are made to account numbers. You don't see the name of the recipient.
Payments are non-refundable. If you pay the wrong account by accident, it's too bad.
It's easy to see why gold was humanity's currency of choice for all those centuries. It doesn't tarnish or rust. It exists in limited quantity, making it hard for governments to manipulate. And it looks and feels comforting, a kind of metallic analogue of ice cream and chocolate. Converted into bits in this way, gold once again becomes a viable -- some would say vastly superior -- kind of money. Conceptually, it works like this: You transfer some dollars or euros or whatever to a firm that buys gold for you and deposits it in a super-safe vault. You then make payments from this account via credit card or PC, and the gold -- without ever leaving the vault -- is credited to the recipient's account.
Because of these factors, it is common for people to open egold accounts with large purchases and then sell them in smaller blocks to investors who can't come up with the minimum purchase. There are also sellers who accept egold for their auctions. If you win one of their auctions and don't want to open an egold account, you might pay an existing account holder who accepts paypal to act as a middleman and ask him to then pay your seller.
e-gold is accounted by weight of metal, not US$ or any other national currency unit. Weight units have a precise, invariable, internationally recognized definition. Additionally, precious metals, gold in particular, enjoy a long history of monetary use around the world. Thus, e-gold is ideally suited for international transactions.
Although e-gold is accounted by weight, the e-gold payment system allows Spends to be expressed in terms of a number of major national currencies.For example, it's possible to:
Spend 10 troy oz worth of e-gold.
Spend 5.3 grams worth of e-gold.
Spend US $100.00 worth of e-gold.
Spend CHF 685.88 worth of e-gold.
This means (for example) that a Canadian can pay a German or a Japanese can pay an Australian the correct weight of gold (e-gold) for a good or service as easily as if the price had been quoted in his own national currency.
All financial value will migrate to cyberspace over the next few years. e-gold is ready so that you can be too.
e-gold is borderless - e-gold may be Spent to any other e-gold account anywhere in the world via the e-gold shopping cart interface (SCI), the e-gold Account Manager, or web enabled mobile phone.
e-gold is quick -e-gold payments clear instantaneously (with no chargeback risk), no matter how large the payment, no matter how far apart the Spender and Recipient.
e-gold is cost effective -Spending e-gold is free, even if your recipient is on the other side of the world.
Recipient pays only 1% of the transaction amount for Spends less than or equal to US $50 worth of e-gold. e-gold is well suited (and e-silver is ideal) for micropayments.
Recipient pays a flat USD 50 cents worth of e-gold for Spends greater than US $50 worth of e-gold, no matter how large the payment. The e-gold Agio fee, based on average daily balance, is only 1% per annum.
What are E-Currencies?
The simplest way to look at the E-Currency systems is not as a real 'currency' such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, or the Yen, since those are actual currencies created and backed by their respective governments. You can't exactly go to a currency conversion booth in France and ask to exchange your Euros for E-Gold (one of the E-Currency systems). Rather, E-Currencies are "stored value units", in a sense, they are digital widgets! You buy some digital widgets from a particular E-Currency System and use them in whatever manner you wish. Your concern would be that whatever particular use you had in mind - such as sending the widgets to a friend in Iceland, for example – that the person on the other end will accept your widgets for their stored value.
Should people or governments be concerned about what you do with your "digital widgets"? Even if these E-Currency systems were actual currencies, what would be the concern as to how you use or convert them? If you were an American on vacation and flew to France and went to a currency conversion booth and changed $1,000 U.S. into the Euro equivalent, what concern is it of either the American or French governments? As mentioned, E-Currencies are not actual government backed currencies and therefore are not related to any particular government currency, per se.
History - the 'why' of E-Currencies
The E-Currency industry came about in an effort, I believe, to circumvent the restrictions of using hard currencies in dealing with international business. Additionally, the aspect of transaction privacy seems to be of import to those using E-Currencies also. By transferring funds to your E-Currency account, you can then easily transfer them to someone else's account with the expectation of having very good privacy and anonymity, depending on the E-Currency used. Finally, the speed of transfer is quite fast with E-Currencies, from one account to another. So if you were in the U.S. and wanted to purchase something from someone in Italy and an E-Currency that you use was an option, you would probably choose that payment transfer method rather than a bank wire. It would seem that these three factors,
(1) the need for a common currency rather than dealing with conversion issues between various hard currencies;
(2) privacy of transaction and
(3) speed of transaction, are the main reasons for the existence of the E-Currency industry. Which of those 3 factors is most important depends on the individual using the E-Currency systems.

Are E-Currencies legal?
E-Gold (www.e-gold.com) is currently the largest E-Currency provider, with over 500,000 customers worldwide. They have been in operation since July, 1996. At no time, I am aware of, has any government of any country accused an E-Currency of doing anything illegal by that country's laws and statutes. At no time has any International body, such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, or Interpol accused any E-Currency of violating any International laws.

Top reasons to prefer E-gold
Low Cost - Creating an e-gold account costs nothing. Clicking a payment costs nothing. The maximum fee for receiving any e-gold payment is 0.05 grams, about fifty cents (in 2002 US dollars or about 70 cents in 2004) worth of e-metal®.
Safe :e-gold is 100% backed by physical gold.
Secure : No one can draw upon another person's account. With e-gold when you get paid, you stay paid. If you keep your passphrase secure, then your e-metal is secure.
Fast :An e-gold payment settles in seconds. You have spendable money right away.
Flexible :Your e-gold account is instantly accessible anywhere you can reach the Internet.
Convenient - can remit the proceeds of an OutExchange™ by check (cheque) or wire to anyone you choose, in a variety of national currencies. (USD, JPY, GBP, FFR, EUR, DEM, CHF, CAD, AUD...etc) You can review detailed transaction records securely.
Transparent - You can audit total physical metal reserves in real time with Examiner™, an automated report that displays live data from the e-gold system.
Portable :A transfer of physical gold is risky, expensive, and slow. With an e-gold transaction your metal stays safe ... only its ownership changes.
Automated Conversion :You can specify e-gold payments using familiar national currency units or by weight.
Micropayments :e-gold is highly divisible, enabling very small payments if desired.
Advantages of E-gold
Low transaction fees : The maximum payment processing fee is 0.05 grams. For a $1000 value payment, this is less than one twentieth as much as credit cards.
Immediate settlement :e-gold payments clear instantaneously, no matter how large or small the payment, no matter how far apart the spender and recipient.
Non-repudiation : No chargebacks. Get paid, stay paid.
Direct access with bi-directionality : Anyone can pay or be paid.
Automation support :The e-gold Shopping Cart Interface is easily implemented and provides immediate authenticated notification of completed payment.
Zero financial risk :e-gold is the world's first remote payment system backed 100% by physical gold in allocated storage.

E-gold Fees
On January 1st 2004 E-gold changed their fees (or more precisely increased them) - check here for details: http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/fees.htm.
There is no change in that only the receiver is charged fees.
Secondly, it makes sense that the new e-gold fees are not defined in terms of USD, where as previously the maximum fee was 50 cents. The new maximum spend fee is 0.05 Grams of Gold (AUG), which is equal to $0.65 at today's exchange rate.
Thirdly, they have introduced minimum spend amount of 0.0004 Grams of Gold (AUG), equal to about half a cent ($0.0053) at today's exchange rate.
For spends over 1 Gram of Gold (AUG) equivalent to about $13.07 at today's exchange rate, the rate is 1% or less, equal to the maximum rate of $0.66 at today's exchange rate.
Advantages: The e-gold payment system should become more responsive as users will be reluctant to pay charges of up to 55% on spends worth less than a dollar.
Disadvantages: E-gold becomes a more costly medium to use. E-bullion becomes a more cost effective alternative for transfers over $25.
Examples of Typical PT Digital Gold Users
Danny Makes a Small Anonymous Payment
It's often easier to illustrate using examples, so we will start with Danny. Danny is in Phoenix, Arizona - just testing the water, having never used digital gold. He is aware that the encrypted email provider Hushmail accepts e-gold, and he wants to use this payment method to pay them $100 for services, rather than having a link to Hushmail on his credit card statement.
First he will need a throw-away email account, or at least one not directly related to him. With this, he will sign up for an e-gold account, which will be opened online in seconds.
Then he locates the website of a suitable exchanger. In this case, let's assume he selects an exchanger based in Florida, and their fee for this transaction is 4%. He buys a money order for cash in Phoenix for $104, mails it to the exchanger, and within a few days they have received it and transferred $100 to his e-gold account.
Then all he has to do is log in to his email account, transfer the money to Hushmail's e-gold account, and voila! Transaction completed.
If Danny is really security conscious he can now ditch the e-gold account and use a new one for the next transaction, but that's probably unnecessary. He can keep the same account for the coming months and maybe use it to receive some money anonymously for little trades he fulfills on Ebay.
Rory Wants to Move Money Offshore
Rory from Dublin, Ireland already has an e-gold account and wants to use it to transfer funds to his secret account in Latvia. Obviously if he wires the funds directly from Ireland, that would not look good.
Instead, he visits the websites of some exchange businesses and locates several which he thinks would be suitable: in the UK, the USA and Australia. Wires to these countries, he figures, will not attract attention because they fit into the normal pattern of his business, and are not headed for known offshore locations.
Over the course of some months, he randomly sends wires and bank drafts of between $3,000 and $7,000 from his business accounts at several different Irish banks, to each of these three exchangers. On receipt of the money, they credit his e-gold account as instructed. All in all, he wires out maybe $100,000.
At the same time, he has located another couple of reputable exchangers located in Estonia and Finland to complete the other end of the transaction. Periodically, Rory logs in to his e-gold account and makes a transfer to the accounts of these exchangers, then he fires off an encrypted email to them giving his Latvian bank details. The exchangers send Euros to Rory's Latvian bank account.
Of course, if the Irish tax authorities were really desperate to unravel this set of transactions they could. But it would require court orders in the UK, USA, Australia, Estonia and Finland, and it is very unlikely they would bother.
For extra security, Rory could pay a nominal fee (perhaps 1%) to a straw man who would claim ownership of the e-gold account if required, and he would have a contract with Rory for consultancy services, programming work, website design or something similarly intangible.
How much does this cost Rory? Buying and selling of e-gold depends on market conditions, but a fair estimate suggests that he could get quite a decent rate by emailing the exchangers in advance and explaining that he needs to make regular transactions. In this case he might be able to pay 2% in and 1% out. That's a total of 3% (ignoring any movements in the gold price) which we think is a very reasonable price to pay for the privacy afforded.
Note that in the above case, if Rory is simply transferring his own, tax-paid savings, then he is doing absolutely nothing illegal. Like most civilized countries, Ireland has no restrictions on what you can and can't do with money you have legitimately earned.
But if he is involved in making false tax declarations or trying to avoid court orders, the above process could quickly be construed as money laundering. Needless to say, we strongly recommend against that. If you do everything in good time when you have no tax emergencies or claims pending, then you can do everything by the book and totally legally. Much better.
Giles Wants a Golden Offshore Nest Egg
Giles is seriously, independently wealthy. His family founded one of London's landmark department stores and made their fortune before selling out to an international chain. Giles is British but now lives in Monaco. Giles would like to keep some assets in gold, as part of a diversified portfolio. But he's what his friends call a privacy freak so he wants to avoid buying it through the more conventional channels.
Because what he wants is a long-term holding, he decides to go for GoldMoney rather than e-gold because of their better corporate governance. He opens an account with them, named G-WIDGET ACCOUNT, and provides them, unbeknown to her, with a copy of the passport of his Filipina maid.
He locates an exchanger in nearby France and calls him on the phone. Although the exchanger doesn't normally take cash, he's a small businessman out to make a buck and sees now harm in doing so, given the profit potential of the situation Giles offers him.
Giles therefore loads up 100,000 euros in his car, drives to meet the exchanger, and the transaction is carried out then and there. Giles watches as the exchanger transfers the GoldMoney to G-WIDGET, and then he logs in from his laptop as a double check.
The transaction goes well and Giles makes a mental note to repeat this transaction soon and increase his holding in GoldMoney.
Dealing with E-Currency Exchange Providers exchaning E-gold, GoldMoney..etc
There are quite a number of exchangers which make it their business to get your money into and out of the digital gold systems. Most are small businesses and are not related to the companies managing the actual systems.
Some of these outfits are better than others. If in doubt, check this list http://www.golddirectory.com/e-gold.htm – I can vouch for http://www.icegold.com/ and http://www.goldage.net/ since I use them regularly.
The other issue to consider is that exchange providers are subject to different regulations in different countries. For example, those in the USA are treated as money transfer businesses and are required to obtain ID on clients for most transactions. Nonetheless, you might still want to use a US exchanger, though, if you are doing business in the US - obviously getting money to and from them in such a case would be quicker, cheaper, and more private than using a foreign exchanger. PTs know how to be creative and solve the ID problem.
Some of the exchangers in other countries are prepared to conduct business anonymously but they will need to be reassured that you are not just another internet fraudster or hacker trying to launder your ill-gotten gains. We suggest you email several and only deal with those you seem comfortable with, who are on your wavelength.
E-gold has spent nothing on advertising, but its account base is already larger than some Internet-only banks that lay out millions of dollars on marketing. e-gold is succeeding where other electronic payment initiatives are failing because it is designed specifically for worldwide eCommerce. All others merely add additional layers of liability to legacy systems. The promise of the Internet - elimination of barriers to the free and instant flow of information and value - is being fulfilled.
Does the Gold Really Exist?
This is an obvious question to which any prudent user requires an answer. Since you cannot physically see or touch the gold, how can you be sure it really exists? How can you be sure you are not just placing blind faith on someone's word? (as is the case for example when you pass US dollars around).
But there is no general answer to this question digital gold as a whole. There are a number of competing digital gold systems and some are more secure than others. Before using them, it is important to carry out due diligence and satisfy yourself as to the authenticity of claims. Clearly the amount of time and effort you put into this will vary depending on whether you are depositing $100 or $1 million.
What we really like to see is an independent, regularly updated third party audit by a trusted name such as a major accounting firm. At the moment, there is only one digital gold system which offers this: GoldMoney, which is audited by Deloitte and Touche. Additionally their gold is stored in the UK by a third party of international repute - the secure storage company ViaMat - who are able to confirm this.
Therefore, we consider GoldMoney to be the best for long-term storage of value if that is your objective.
E-Gold has published audits in the past but they are now out-of-date. Nonetheless, e-gold is a well-established system that our associates have been using for several years without any problem. On the internet reputation is everything because bad news travels very fast - and e-gold has developed an excellent reputation. Therefore we can cautiously but responsibly recommend it.
Surveillance of Digital Gold Transactions
At present Digital Gold is a relatively free economy, small enough to be unregulated. Because it is so international in scope, it would be very hard for any government to regulate. Most governments have no idea it even exists.
There is no known reporting of transactions within Digital Gold systems. However at the time you are cashing in or out, your transactions do have to go through the regular banking system of some country or another, and there of course they could be monitored.
We imagine that all systems will keep permanent records of the IP address (that of your internet provider) so anyone with access to those records will be able to ascertain exactly where the transaction was made from. We can also assume that they monitor the part of the world you are in. For example, if you have an address in the USA on file but the account is accessed from the Ukraine, that could be cause for further investigation.
The other issue you need to be aware of is security. If a hacker or Big Brother has installed a malicious program such as a keyboard logger on your system, it would be possible for them to steal your passwords. But of course this risk applies to all forms of internet banking, not just to Digital Gold. It is therefore very important for users to maintain good levels of computer security (see the separate chapter on computer security).
Blending In
What is a typical transaction size? Most digital gold transactions will be relatively small, but low five figure dollar amounts are not unusual and should pass below the radar. Six or seven figure transactions (over $100,000) certainly happen quite often too, but they are probably big enough to stand out and maybe receive some extra attention. If you were seeking privacy, you would not want that unless you had a well-established account with a history of larger transactions.

The History of Forex

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Over the last three decades the interactions of the Forex market have been expanding and developing to become the robust, global market it is today. The foreign exchange market, as it now stands originated in 1973. However, money or currency has been in our society in one form or another since the time of the ancient Pharaohs. Middle Eastern moneychangers were the first currency dealers who exchanged coins from one country to another. With the introduction of paper bills a transferable payment of funds became viable, making transactions on this primitive foreign exchange market much easier for merchants and traders. International trading and Forex ( FX trading ) encouraged the growth and strengthening of economies and brought many benefits to the countries involved.

The establishment of the current foreign exchange market underwent many modifications; the first major changes came in 1944 with the Bretton Woods Accord, towards the end of World War II. The United States, Great Britain and France met at Bretton Woods, to design a new global economic order. The U.S. dollar became the standard from of currency that currency dealers used in order to determine the value of other currencies on the foreign exchange market. Prior to this the British pound, was the major currency by which most currencies were compared to on the Forex market. At this time much of Europe was in disarray whilst the US remained unscathed by the war. The Bretton Woods Accord aimed to create a stable FX trading environment by which global economies could restore themselves in the hope of stabilizing the global economic situation.

Main Dates

1930
In the Swiss city named Basel the Bank of the International payments has been created. The purpose of creation was financial support of the young independent states and the states temporarily testing deficiency of the payment balance.

1944
Bratton Wood conference has been conducted in the USA. It has been counted as the termination of the American-British rivalry. There were two largest figures at conference: John Maynard Keynes (England) and Harry Deckster Whyte (USA). They manage to create and accept the new order of world financial system development in current conditions.
Main notice of Bratton - Wood conference.
" The international currency fund becomes the major institute supervising the international financial and economic attitudes; " The currencies playing a role of the international reserves (dollar and de facto pound sterling) are proclaimed; The adjustable parities of currencies adhered to US dollar (the deviation 1 % is possible) established; the dollar is adhered to gold (ounce of gold - $35); " Members of IMF have the right to change parities only with the consent of IMF; " On transitional end all currencies should become convertible; for observance of this principle all governments undertake to store the international reserves, and if necessary - to make interventions on currency markets. " Members of IMF do a payment by currency and gold.

1947
The program of restoration of the European economy has been accepted in the USA for the suspension of communism approach. The USA state secretary Marshall depicts the plan in his report. According to following plan the economy of Europe will be improved up to that level when it can independently support the military potential. One of the problems was satisfying of "dollar famine". If in 1949 dollar obligations of the USA to Europe made 3.1 billion they have reached 10.1 billion dollars.

1958
The majority of the European countries declare free convertibility of the currencies.

1964
Japan has declared convertibility of its own currency. After the announcement of convertibility of the basic currencies it became clear, that the USA cannot stay able to support the price of $35 for ounce of gold anymore. Dollar inflation has made threat for the USA. Kennedy administration had been accepted a number of incorrect actions - the tax to the percentage differential raising costs of foreign borrowers, and the program of voluntary restriction of foreign credits is entered. The tax and restrictions were an incitement to occurrence of the new market - the market of Eurodollars.

1967
There was a devaluation of English pound that has stroked last blow on illusory stability of Bretton Wood system. In 60-s deficiency of the balance of payments in the USA leads to reduction of gold reserves with 18 up to 11 billion dollars. There is an increase of external duties of the USA simultaneously to it.

1970
Interest rates in the USA that generate the strongest crisis of dollar are sharply reduced. There was a massive capital outflow from the USA to Europe where the level of interest rates was higher.

May 1971
Germany and Holland declare temporary free fluctuations of the currency rates.

August 1971
Growth of deficiency of the paymen balance of the USA has compelled the president Richard Nickson to suspend convertibility of dollars in gold.

December 1971
The last attempt to keep Bretton - Wood system has been undertaken at the meeting in Smithsonian institute in Washington. The interval of deviations of exchange rates from parities has been increased up to 4.5 %.
To keep borders of an interval it was very uneasy. And later Bundes Bank has lead intervention for the sum of 5 billion dollars. It was the enormous sum at that time, but it has not brought the success. Currency stock exchanges in Europe and in Japan should be closed temporarily and the USA have declared devaluation of dollar on 10 %. The developed countries have stopped to support the fixed parities and were started up in currency navigation.

1973-1974
The USA had cancelled stage by stage with the tax to percentage differential and the program of voluntary restriction of foreign credits.
The Bratton-Wood system had stopped its existence.
Last years of Bretton - Wood system existence currency traders extracted big speculative profit during the periods following the termination of interventions of the central banks. After the refusal of the rates the opportunity of such profit extraction became strongly limited. Many banks have incurred large losses, and two known as "Bankhaus Hershtadt " in Colon and " Franklyn National " in New York - even have gone bankrupt because of unsuccessful speculative operations.

1976
The Jamaican conference (Kingston) has taken place. The representatives of major world states have generated new principles of World currency system formation. The states have refused use of gold as means of a covering of deficiency at the international payments.
The interstate organizations regulating currency attitudes, convertibility of currencies act as basic elements of new system. National currencies of the states act as payment means. Commercial banks act as the main mechanism by means of which the international currency transactions are carried out.

1978
European Voluntary System (EVS) is created. Core of EVS is the grid of cross-countries - exchange rates with the central and boundary values of exchange rates. Basically EVS reminds Bretton Woods. If the cross-country-rate comes nearer to the border, both parties are obliged to carry the intervention out. Deutch Mark is a key currency of EVS.

1985
Gradually ecu becomes not accounting, but the physical tool. Traveler's cheques denominated in ecu and credit cards are issued, banks open deposits in ecu.

January 1999
There was a new European currency called Euro which replaced ECU by its self. 11 European states have fixed exchange rates in relation to Euro. The European central bank started to operate a currency policy of the European currency union (EMU). The fixed exchange rates of participants of the European currency union to Euro:
EUR/LUF 40.3399 Luxembourg franc
EUR/BEF 40.3399 The Belgian franc
EUR/IEP 0.787564 Irish pound
EUR/FIM 5.94573 The Finnish mark
EUR/PTE 200.482 The Portuguese escudo
EUR/ESP 166.386 Spanish peseta
EUR/ITL 1936.27 Italian lira
EUR/FRF 6.55957 The French franc
EUR/DEM 1.95583 Deutch mark
EUR/NLG 2.20371 The Dutch gulden
EUR/ATS 13.7603 The Austrian shilling

As against other financial markets currency market is characterized by a great volume of the tenders, the lowest cost of spent transactions, and the fastest movement of money resources. It is the unique world market working 24 hours a day. Its liquidity has increased up to 1 billion US dollars a day. Now operations at the currency market are the basic source of incomes of world conducting banks, such as: Chase Manhattan Bank, Barclays Bank, Swiss Bank Corporation and so on. Soros's gamble on sale of English pound against DM which has brought billion dollars of net profit within 2 weeks became classical, having made Soros famous and having his charities begun. The opportunity of work in the financial markets of Asia, Europe and America became accessible, due to their association in one global communication network. 24 hour access on the currency market allows to open and close positions during optimum time and under the best price. Big profit can be extracted at rather small deposit during a short time interval. One phone call or simple pressing a key of "mouse" (at carrying out of operations with the help of our information-trading system) is enough to open position.

What is Forex

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FOREX or The FOReign EXchange rate market is an international market where various currency exchange transactions take place; this is in the shape of simultaneously buying one currency and selling another. The most commonly traded currencies are referred to as “Majors”; over 85% of daily transactions on Forex trading involve the Majors. These seven currencies are the US Currency (Dollar, USD), Japanese Yen (JPY), Euro (EUR), British Pound (GBY), Swiss Franc (CHF), Canadian Dollar (CAD) and Australian Dollar (AUD). The Forex system in operation today was established in the 1970s when free currency exchange rates were introduced, this period also saw the US Dollar overtake the British Pound as the benchmark currency. Prior to this and in particular during World War II, exchange rate remained more stable.

Forex trading in simplest terms is the buying of one currency and the selling of another. Forex trading, also referred to, as “FX” is open to corporations, small businesses, commercial banks, investment funds and private individuals, it is the largest financial market in the world averaging a daily turnover of over $1 trillion dollars, making it a diverse and exciting market. It is a 24-hour market enabling it to accommodate constant changing world currency exchange rates . According to New York time, trading begins at 2.15pm on Sunday in Sydney and Singapore and progresses through to Tokyo at 7pm, London at 2am and reaches New York at 8am. This leaves investors free to respond to global political, economic and social events when they take place, day or night.

Forex and World Currency Exchange Rates

In this market of currency exchange , the value of major currencies change continually, investors hope to make a profit from the purchase of stronger currencies. If an investor has bought a currency that appreciates in value, a profit will be earned by ‘closing the position'. Closing the position simply refers to the selling back of the appreciated currency in order to collect your profit. These currencies are traded in pairs for example US Dollar/ Japanese Yen (USD/JPY) or EURO/ British Pound (EUR/GBP), trading in pair's values one currency against another, establishing a rate of worth for a global exchange rate. Currency can hold no value unless it has something with which to be compared.

Reading these trade quotes is simplified by remembering the currency listed first is the base currency and the base currency exchange rate is always equal to one. The ‘base' currency is the main currency that is used to evaluate the worth of foreign currency it is the basis for the transaction. Taking the US currency as the center of the Forex trading market where 1USD is equal to 109.21 Japanese Yen (1USD/109.21JPY) this situates the US currency as the base, as the currency exchange quote goes up, the dollar appreciates in value and the Japanese Yen depreciates or weakens. So if foreign currency exchange rates change the quote to 1USD/111.21JPY this would imply the US currency is getting stronger and will earn the investor a larger profit. For the majority of exchange rate the US currency is the base, with the exception of the Euro, British pound and Australian dollar.

The Benefits of Forex Trading

The mechanisms of the currency exchange rates market are similar to the workings of other markets; it has no central location like the stock market, transactions occur over electronic and telephone networks. World currency exchange rates do not only fluctuate during regular office hours, Forex trading can be accessed 24 hours a day as currency exchange rate demands. Forex has superior liquidity to other markets, implying any dealings can be readily converted into accessible hard cash. It is fifty times larger than any similarly structured market ensuring there are always brokers and investors pursuing business. Currency exchange is an objective market; because of its sheer volume manipulation of foreign currency exchange rates would prove very difficult, involving colossal sums of money.

The start up capital required to begin trading on world currency exchange rates is relatively small in comparison to capital required for similar marketplaces. Margin trading, that is trading with a borrowed capital is a frequent feature of Forex trading ; this is similar to a performance bond or good faith deposit. This allows for smaller and independent brokers to deal equally on foreign currency exchange rates. The fees involved in the various transactions are also kept to a minimum; only the difference between buying and selling prices is levied. As trading on currency exchange rate takes place in pairs, there is the potential for investors to make a profit on both rising and falling markets. An environment has been created making it possible to buy and sell currencies without any limitations. Overall, Forex investments provide decent returns; it is a global market, easily accessible with its potentials for profit widely being revealed