Month: January 2012

After a decade of sustained and rapid growth, the retail foreign exchange (Forex) market is seemingly entering the phase of consolidation. Japan, which used to have the top place globally with estimated USD 65B per day turnover is estimated to have come down to USD 35B/day. The decline of Japan market does not represent the global trend but is an indication of consolidation. Over the past few years Forex trading has been getting very popular among small retail investors and the retail forex trading volumes have been growing exponentially. Some of the factors which have been fueling this exponential growth was the heavy advertizing by Forex firms to lure new investors or traders, the spread of a feeling that this could be a fast way to riches because of very high leverages and hence very less capital requirements and also that anyone can do it with practically no experience and minimum of studies or knowledge. Even though many of these points could be taken as true but on the other side most of these points are the slow poisons for both the traders and the Forex brokers.

Many people say that the heavy regulations being imposed by some of the major markets are killing the retail trading. For example the highest allowed leverage cut by Japan to 1:25 and by the US to 1:50 but on the other side these regulations are going to be the cause of the matured and long-term growth of the market. No market can grow when more people are losing money but a market will always grow when more people make sensible amounts of money.

Some other factors which are making the traders more knowledgeable and hence pave the way for a matured growth is better education avenues and better communities like various Forex forum, mirror trading platform, other forex trading communities and forex portals like CountingPips (http://www.countingpips.com).

Any matured market always depend on the awareness of both, the buyers and the sellers about the market dynamics and it needs better sources of information, better knowledge sharing and better knowledge management. Every new market goes through it’s own cycles of growth and consolidations and foreign currency exchange market, with its continued growth is no exception.

Article by forexabode.com

Sonoco (NYSE:SON) reported preliminary Q4 base EPS of $0.45 – $0.47, compared to its previously given range of $0.59 – $0.63, vs. consensus estimates of $0.61.The company cited lower than anticipated Q4 Tube, Cores/paper results and a higher tax rate.Sonoco sees about 39% effective tax rate, vs. its prior outlook of 32% as well as an annual EPS of $2.28 – $2.30, vs. its prior guidance of $2.41 – $2.46, and estimates of $2.43.The company expects 2011 sales to be up 9% vs. estimates of a 10% rise.

The Wall Street Journal reported that American Airlines’ parent AMR Corp (NYSE:AMR) contributed only $6.5 million by the January 15 deadline of the about $100 million payment it was scheduled to contribute to the company’s employee pension, according to a federal agency. AMR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late November. It warned that it may reduce its pension commitments to employees as part of the restructuring.

European banks must submit their recapitalization plans to their national authorities by the end of the day today, as the banks seek to increase their capital reserves by a combined 115 billion euros, or $147 billion. The deadline, set by the European Banking Authority, is part of regulators’ efforts to strength European institutions’ core Tier 1 ratios, a measure of a bank’s ability to weather financial shocks, to 9 percent by June. Banks, including Deutsche Bank and Société Générale, have until the end of the day today to provide national authorities with guidance on how they expect to raise the extra money.

Some encouraging news coming out of Washington today – the National Association of Realtors said that sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose for a third month in December to the highest level since January 2011, a sign the housing market ended last year with momentum.Purchases increased 5 percent to a 4.61 million annual rate. The gain helped push down the inventory of homes for sale last month to the lowest level since 2005. Low mortgage rates and a pickup in employment may be giving Americans the confidence to purchase homes that have fallen in value.

AllThingsD is reporting that Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) is actively pursuing and researching a number of opportunities and is in talks with several partners about gambling on the internet. Zynga poker has over 30 million users per month. Zynga Inc. develops, markets, and operates online social games on the Internet, social networking sites, and mobile platforms.

UBS (NYSE:UBS) expects Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to have a big holiday quarter and report upside to its $9.90/$38.5 billion estimates.The firm sees a limited impact from the HDD shortage in Thailand and expects conservative guidance. Shares of Apple are Buy rated with a $510 price target.Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has potential upside of 19.9% based on a current price of $424.48 and an average consensus analyst price target of $509.09.Apple is currently above its 50-day moving average (MA) of $395.83 and above its 200-day of $373.30.In the last five trading sessions, the 50-day MA has climbed 0.41% while the 200-day MA has risen 0.33%.

Facebook could be seeking to double its presence in Europe according to a recent report from Bloomberg. The online social networking giant may double its HQ size in Dublin as the company prepares for its IPO that could raise over $10 billion. The unnamed source said that the firm may move its head quarters and lease as much as 120,000 square feet of office space over five years. Facebook setup its Dublin office in 2008, and it currently occupies approximately 5,000 square meters of space in the south docklands neighborhood of Dublin.

Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) recently launched a new iPhone application that allows customers to watch live television from their iPhone or iPod Touch along with allowing viewers to control, manage and program their DVR. The new app also allows users to browse the TV guide, favorite channels and search for programs by title or episode name. Last March, Time Warner released the iPad version of the app along with the Android version. Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) has potential upside of 19.2% based on a current price of $68.68 and an average consensus analyst price target of $81.86. Time Warner Cable is currently above its 50-day moving average (MA) of $62.32 and should find resistance at its 200-day MA of $68.97.

Susquehanna attributes the weakness in shares of Omnicare (NYSE:OCR) and PharMerica (NYSE:PMC) to concerns that their proposed merger may be the subject of a closed door enforcement action meeting at the FTC this afternoon. The FTC posted on its website a closed meeting for this afternoon, which has some speculating the meeting is about the transaction between Omnicare and PharMerica, Susquehanna says. However, the firm points out that there have been other closed door meetings where the topic has been vastly different from what the financial market assumed. Omnicare is currently above its 50-day moving average (MA) of $32.72 and above its 200-day of $30.37.