Foreign Exchange Broker: February 2009

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Japanese cars

Welcome to DCY Europe, (Distinctive Cars York) Japanese import & export Specialists.
Please view our full stocklist of Japanese Imports and browse through the rest of the website.

Our goal is to provide the very finest examples of pre-owned Japanese imports. Established in 2001, a dedicated team who live and breathe Japanese performance boast over 65 years combined experience, and we believe that no other specialist in the UK can give you the same unparalleled commitment to supply and maintain your vehicle. Please use the links on the right to navigate through the site.

We have access to over 200,000 cars per week and are continuously purchasing cars from Japan so if there's nothing on the stock list you fancy, there is a good chance there might be next time you visit. Alternatively we are able to offer our tailored 'ordering service' This virtually guarantees you the exact car you are looking for.

DCY Europe now offer Japanese vehicles to people all over the world. Over the last several years we have found people across Europe and as far as America have a specific interest in Japanese cars. DCY Europe now offer shipping world wide. We are able to ship any vehicle in our stocklist or if there's nothing you like on our stocklist then our order service is guaranteed to find you exactly what your looking for.
This website is updated daily and has been designed for easy navigation. they are six main areas to the site, 'About us' 'Stock list, Ordering', 'Facilities', 'Useful info' & 'Web extras' all these can be found on the left hand side of each page. Under each area you will find many other links such as a full stock list of Japanese cars, our service department, who's giving the best insurance, vehicle security, vehicle
spec's..... the list goes on.

[Sigma Services]

As a professional online trading service Sigma strives to give an eminent beyond comparison of professional and individualized trading services, Sigma also provides several facilities for all kinds of traders.
Sigma helps private and institutional clients achieve their trading goals by offering an inclusive forex trading package, along with the state-of-art trading platform, real-time news and wireless access. We relegate to meeting and exceeding our customers' expectations with the utmost professionalism and integrity.

Sigma provides appropriate services satisfying the needs of all business partners’ specified requirements. A client's profit is our success and a client's loss is a significant call of action for us, we consider every client as a special case and a partner.
Sigma's Customer Support is our business core, as we provide 24/7 customer support. We keep in touch with all our clients to make sure that we are on the right pass.

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commodity prices

Oil, grains, and industrial metals all crumbled as the week began despite the passage of the Paulson bail-out plan in Washington and dramatic moves by European governments to shore up their banking systems, compounding the steepest commodity crash in over half a century.
The big exception yesterday was gold, which surged $34 to $864 an ounce on safe-haven buying as the markets came face to face with the unsettling reality that the euro is no healthier than the dollar, and perhaps sicker.

The euro’s dramatic slide over the past two weeks has for the first time exposed the instability of the twin-pillar system holding up global finance.
Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas, said investors fear that no one is in charge of Europe’s monetary union. “Who is Mr Europe? What is his telephone number? There is no such thing. We have a cancer eating at the system because even healthy companies cannot roll over their debts, yet the politicians still don’t understand the risk,” he said.

The sudden shift in commodity sentiment has led to a massive withdrawal of funds from frontier markets, triggering stock market routs across Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. The MSCI index of emerging markets fell 11pc yesterday in its worst day ever.
Russia suspended trading after Moscow’s Micex index crashed 19pc in its biggest one-day drop since the 1998 default. The state-controlled VTB bank fell 25pc.

[Sigma Forex Practice Accounts]

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A Free practice account is a great way to experience the Forex market without risking any money.

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For those who did not trade in the forex market before can get accustomed to following a market, and open themselves to a whole new way to invest, and it also gives them the chance to understand how the trading platform works.

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For those who are familliar with trading in forex market, a practice account can help them to get use to the particular characteristics of the Forex market or our trading platform.

For Experienced and Professional Traders
A practice account can even help experienced and professional traders as they can test and practice their trading strategies without risking capital.
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Law abiding Billionaires

This policy memo focuses on the privileged tax treatment given to hedge fund managers that results in a conservative estimate of over $6 billion in forgone tax revenue.
Private investment companies, organized as hedge funds or private equity firms, have recently grown into major economic forces in the U.S. economy. They mobilize capital, and often leverage it with borrowed funds, in order to accumulate a tremendous amount of assets under their management. These investments include leveraged buyouts; market-neutral investment strategies in publicly traded stocks and bonds, energy, and other commodities; various arbitrage strategies; as well as many lesser known and some entirely unreported transactions. Hedge funds are big players in the large corporate take-over activity that reached $3.6 trillion in 2006¸ and they are also responsible for a significant share of trading volume on the major stock exchanges and in some over-the-counter derivatives markets.

These private pools of capital are unregulated, or exempt from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation, under both the Investment Advisors Act and the Investment Company Act. While these exemptions were once justified on the grounds that such investment firms were small, closely held, and did not raise their capital in public capital markets, the exemptions are no longer consistent with today’s reality. Today these firms are huge, have a wide number and range of investors, and the Internet has blurred the distinction between public and private marketing.

In addition to being unregulated, these financial institutions also reap substantial benefits from special tax provisions that, like the regulatory framework, are no longer appropriate. The professional fund managers of these hedge funds and private equity firms are allowed to treat a substantial portion of their compensation as capital gains, meaning they are most likely taxed at 15% rather than the 35% rate that applies to ordinary income such as wages and salary. Such an exemption, however, makes little sense: in economic terms, the fund managers (also known as investment advisors) perform a professional service, much like lawyers or doctors, and receive remuneration for their labor.

[SigmaForex Partnership Services]

Overall View:

Sigma helps a various groups of partners around the world to enlarge their business and expand the full
potential of the Forex market.
Sigma’s services include:

Introducing Brokers: Join our IB network and receive compensation for directing new clients to Sigma.
Money Managers: Full service trading capabilities, plus dedicated account management, client fund
administration and reporting.
White Labels: White Label Program helps fitted firms set up an online presence in the Forex industry
quickly and cost effectively.

A dedicated Partner Services team supports Sigma partners with a full range of account management services.
- Daily P&L, credits, commission allocation, etc.
- Account funding, transfers, allocations, etc.
- Customer on-boarding.

Introducing Broker.
Money Manager.
White Label.

ATT Inc

The FSC Story

Over the past decade the preservation and management of the world's forests has become an increasingly high-priority issue. Illegal logging, deforestation, conflict timber and conversion of old-growth forest to monoculture plantation means the list of problems keeps growing.
Even here in the UK we have lost nearly all of our natural forests and are neglecting much of what is left. We import approximately 85% of our wood needs, with little knowledge and no guarantees about the sustainability of the forest management in the source countries.
The ecology of forests is highly complex, especially in biologically diverse tropical forests. The definition of ' sustainability' is itself a contentious and difficult matter, and closely connected with the variety of forest management styles and the market forces that dictate them. In a natural West African rainforest, for example, there are over two hundred different kinds of tree, of which more than fifty are valuable timber species.

However, only six species can generally be profitably exported, and those six are therefore selectively logged. This 'creaming' of the resource is wasteful and very damaging to the forest, and is the result of an economic (not an environmental) logic.
In the best of all worlds it would be possible to find a good market price for all 50 timber species, but architects or specifiers would need to be less conservative in their requirements if this was to happen. Simple bans on some tropical hardwoods only serve to avoid the issue rather than tackle it.

[Sigma Contract Specification]

Sigma Forex provide the clients with the lowest spreads in Forex Market for the most traded pairs and Forex spots.

Trading Hours
Sigma Dealing Room operate 24/5 from Sunday 23:00 CET until Friday 23.00 CET.
You Can contact us directly: + 41 435 004 145

Margin Requirements
The margin requirements must be respected by Friday at 23:00 GMT and before holidays.
One of our dealers will contact you if you are below your margin requirements at that time. Your margin requirements will depend on the client's account equity. However, if you approach the level where the loss of your open positions approaches the balance of your account, you will be stopped out and your positions will be closed. Stop positions will be executed when there is only around 50% equity of the required margin left in your account.

Streamline Dealing
Clients will not suffer Price Re-Quote that you can buy and sell directly on real-time prices without a request for quote (RFQ).
Clients taking advantage of wrong price quotes in the Market Watch will be requoted.
Sigma Forex effort is taken to ensure correct pricing at all times. However, there are rare circumstances when wrong prices are given.

Stop Order Execution
Volatile market conditions can result in prices gapping, which may prevent the execution of stop orders (sell stop, buy stop, stop loss) at the price you initially requested. However, our dealers strive to execute all stop orders at the price, or failing that, at the best attainable rate the market allows.

Lot Types
Sigma Forex has generated an ultimate account type that allow you to trade Standard, Mini and Micro lot in the same account which is Sigma Account to make it more simple and easy for traders.

Multi Currency Denomination

Sigma offers the ability to set-up accounts denominated in the following currencies:

• United States dollar (USD)
• Euro (EUR)
• Great Britain pound (GBP)
• Australian dollar (AUD)
• Swiss Frank (CHF)

There is no minimum deposit for opening an account, in order to review the spreads, pip value & margin requirement choose the required pair, leverage & the lot type.

If you have any problem regarding Sigma Contract Specification click on the Live Chat button on the right hand side and our customer support staff will help you through the process.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Will Obama repeat Bush's big mistake in Iraq?

It seems to me that by vowing to get out of Iraq in 16 months, President Obama is not departing from the mistakes of George Bush, but repeating them. That is, Bush was persistently overoptimistic about Iraq. His original war plan assumed that the United States would get down to 30,000 troops in Iraq by the fall of 2003. Instead, here we are more than five years later with more than four times that number of troops mired in Iraq. I hope we can stop planning for Iraq only on best-case assumptions. I mean, it hasn't worked, I think.

It is time to start thinking realistically about Iraq, and stop walking in the failed footsteps of Bush, as Jason Raimondo would have us do, even though he doesn't seem to understand that. And good for you, Joan Walsh.

[Why Sigma]

Lowest spreads in the forex market, No other broker offers such competitive spreads .
Sigma is the only broker that allows you to customize your trading account as you wish.
Maintaining the security of your money is a major objective at Sigma.
Our devotion to our clients has made our firm a respected industry leader, that we have a strong commitment to maintain a long term relationship with our clients.
Low margin requirement.
Full Hedging capabilities.
Sigma is a registered financial institution, and registered with the European registration authorities. The regulations set out into notice by these agencies are created to help ensure the safety of our clients’ deposits.
We maintain enough liquid capital to meet the needs of the amount required to cover all client deposits, potential shift back and forth in the firm’s currency positions and outstanding expenses.
We put forward our financial information to regulatory bodies on a weekly and monthly basis.
In addition to all the above, Sigma holds all deposits with only highly reputable financial institutions. We are appreciate the trust of our clients place in us.

Central Bank US Central Bank Chief Pledges Continuing Efforts to Restore Growth

The head of the Federal Reserve,, Wednesday defended his actions over the past year that were aimed at restoring normal lending in the credit markets. Bernanke declined to make specific predictions, but was cautiously optimistic that an economic turnaround may begin this year.
In nationally televised remarks from Washington's National Press Club, Bernanke said he expected the unemployment rate to rise above eight percent before the recession ends. And while he made no prediction as to when the deep downturn will end, he did say that the combination of low interest rates and fiscal stimulus should be helpful.
"If we can take strong and aggressive action, including the Fed's actions to try to improve credit markets, I think we can break the back of this thing and that we will begin to see improvements in 2009. We fail to take adequate actions, the situation will continue to deteriorate. And unemployment would obviously be higher in that case," he said.

Bernanke answered questions following his talk. He repeated his strong belief that in a severe downturn like the current one it is vital to protect the financial system.
"We must continue the efforts to stabilize the banking system and the financial system. If we do not stabilize the financial system, then fiscal policy will not lead to a sustained recovery. Both of these parts are essential," he said.
Bernanke endorsed the fiscal stimulus program, worth nearly $800 billion, that was signed into law this week. He spoke as President Obama was unveiling his program to stabilize home prices which have declined over two years and stem the wave of foreclosures on owners who do not meet their mortgage payments.
The Federal Reserve is revising downwards its economic outlook to a possible three percent decline for 2009. Previously, the Fed had projected a recovery beginning after mid-2009.

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Ruble Russia’s Micex Drops on Ruble, Economy Concern; Sberbank Falls

Russian stocks dropped, triggering a trading halt in the Micex Stock Exchange for a second straight day, on concern that a weakening ruble and worsening recession will fuel loan losses for banks.
OAO Sberbank tumbled to the lowest in four years. The nation’s biggest bank said bad loans will probably reach 10 percent of overall lending by the end of next year. OAO Lukoil slumped 8.1 percent as crude traded below $35 a barrel. OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel dropped 13 percent as nickel prices neared the level that makes the company unprofitable.
The 30-stock Micex Index lost 5 percent to 612.65 at 3:25 p.m. in Moscow. The exchange earlier shut trading for an hour. The index dropped 16 percent in three consecutive days, the longest losing streak this year. The RTS Index sank 6.6 percent to 515.79.
“Sberbank has been undermined by the ruble, and the suspicions remain that the bank will be used to subsidize the Russian economy,” said Julian Rimmer, head of sales trading at UralSib Financial Corp. in London. “Banks generally are out of favor everywhere, and the view from here is dreadful.”
The Economy Ministry yesterday said the recession will deepen, forecasting gross domestic product will shrink 2.2 percent, compared with a 0.2 percent contraction predicted earlier.
Sberbank shares fell as much as 12 percent to 13.50 rubles, the lowest since Jan. 24, 2005. VTB Group, the second-biggest bank, sank 4.6 percent to a record low of $10.5 in London.
Weak Ruble
The ruble weakened for a third day against the dollar, depreciating as much as 0.6 percent to 36.5584 per dollar, the weakest since January 1998. A weaker ruble makes its more expensive for companies to pay back foreign-currency loans.
The MSCI EM East Europe Finance Index, a regional gauge of 13 lenders, dropped 6 percent, sinking 28 percent in three days. Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday foreign banks with subsidiaries in eastern Europe may face rating downgrades as the region’s economies slow.
Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer, fell 8.1 percent to 1,027 rubles. OAO Surgutneftegaz, the country’s fourth-biggest producer, dropped 8 percent to 16.274 rubles.
Crude in New York slipped 0.3 percent to $34.82 a barrel in after-hours trading, extending yesterday’s 6.9 percent decline.
Norilsk Nickel, the world’s biggest producer of refined nickel, tumbled 13 percent to 1,491 rubles. Nickel for three- month delivery sank 1.5 percent to $9,750 a metric ton in London, putting Norilsk’s profitability at risk.
“According to our estimates, Norilsk will be break-even at a 2009 average nickel price of $9,700 a ton,” UralSib metals analyst Dmitry Smolin wrote in an e-mail message.

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Dollar Euro Basket FOREX-U.S. dollar gains broadly on safe-haven bid

Dollar gains vs basket of currencies

* Concerns over banks, economy boost dlr safe-haven flows
* U.S. CPI rises in January, broadly in line with forecast (Recasts, updates, prices, adds U.S. data, changes byline, dateline, previous LONDON)
NEW YORK, Feb 20 - The U.S. dollar rose against a basket of currencies on Friday as persistent worries about ailing banks and a global recession boosted the greenback's safe-haven appeal.
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open on fears that the government's bank rescue plan might involve nationalization.
"The market has bigger fish to fry as it contemplates more long weekends as big decisions on the banking sector are confronted," said Alan Ruskin, chief international strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut.
"Negative risk is still ultimately seen playing at least mildly U.S. dollar positive."

The greenback has benefited from extreme risk aversion in recent months as investors sought relative safety in dollar-denominated assets such as U.S. Treasuries.
Early in New York, the dollar erased its losses versus the yen after a government report showed a rise in U.S. consumer prices in January, about in line with expectations, but the data's overall impact on the currency market was limited.
The ICE Futures U.S. dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of six currencies, was up 0.6 percent at 87.961.
The Labor Department said consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in January after falling 0.8 percent in December. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast headline CPI rising 0.3 percent. Core prices rose 0.2 percent, slightly above analysts' prediction for a 0.1 percent increase.
"It would have moved the market more had we seen a decline in CPI," said Aroop Chatterjee, senior currency strategist at Barclays Capital in New York. "Even though the report did not show deflation, it doesn't ease risk aversion in general. The dollar will continue to see safe-haven flows especially with the concerns about the euro zone and eastern Europe.

The euro pulled back after strong gains in the previous session, but it recovered from session lows on hopes for a solution to alleviate the euro zone's problems.
The euro was last down 0.6 percent on the day at $1.2582, but up from a low of $1.2566, according to Reuters data.
The dollar was little changed versus the yen at 94.30 yen, while the euro lost 0.5 percent to 118.71 yen EURJPY=>.

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Loan Program Builders back loan program

Alabama builders are backing a proposed home loan program, geared toward middle-class families, that could spur buyers and reduce inventory that has reached an estimated 41,000 homes on the market statewide, builders said.
The Alabama Homeowners Initiative Act would create a mortgage protection fund to be administered by the Alabama Housing Authority for buyers of new or existing homes, according to Russell Davis, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Alabama in Montgomery.
The plan could help as many as 7,000 people buy homes, most of them in the $150,000 to $250,000 range, he said.

We want to be selling houses under this program by late spring or early summer," Davis said.
Borrowers' total income could not exceed $98,230, which is 190 percent of the state median income, according to the state figures. To qualify for the 30-year, fixed rate loans, buyers would need a minimum 620 credit score, and their monthly payments on total debt cannot exceed 50 percent of their gross income. Buyers would also be required to complete home-buying counseling course before the purchase.
State Sens. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, and Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, introduced the plan, which calls for a mortgage guarantee fund to offset losses by investors who hold Alabama mortgages that are foreclosed, according to builders. The fund would have two sources of revenue: $6 million from the Alabama Capital Improvement Trust Fund and a 1 percent fee paid by each home buyer in the program, based on the cost of the home.
"By paying the 1 percent fee into our mortgage protection fund, the home buyer no longer has to buy mortgage insurance, which can cost as much as 3cm HALF percent of the home price," Barron said.
Should a foreclosure occur, the investor could recover up to 40 percent of the amount owed by the borrower, compared to the 20 percent recovery under today's private mortgage insurance.
So far, there is no Senate opposition to the bill, which also has the support of Gov. Bob Riley's office, Davis said.
"They are targeting people who are qualified to pay back the indebtedness," said Lindsey Walker of John Howard Homes, president of the Home Builders Association of Metro Mobile. "And they have to go to counseling before enrolling in the program. Too many times we overreact and give money to people who have no way of paying it back. This will help stimulate sales and get people working again."

The loans are not targeted for buyers of custom-built, high-end homes, but builders say it could prompt some move-up buyers.
The custom market is also slow, but there are still homes under construction, according to Robert Brown, president of the Baldwin County Home Builders Association.
"There are some people sitting tight, who are going to the expense of having their house plans drawn, but are afraid to pull the trigger" until they can be sure the market is improving, he said.
For more informationm, call HBAA at 334-834-3006 or 1-800-745-4222 or go to www.hbaa.org.
/cut/3/cPhotos by MIKE KITTRELL/ Staff PhotographerAbove: A James Ray custom home is under construction in the Stillwater subdivision on Thursday in Spanish Fort. The home is listed for $745,000. Below: Blake Vise with Boulder Construction Co. Inc. installs roof sheathing on the home.

[Sigma Contract Specification]

Sigma Forex provide the clients with the lowest spreads in Forex Market for the most traded pairs and Forex spots.