My first real job was as a junior enlisted member of the United States Air Force. I had great benefits, but as a low ranking enlisted member my take home pay wasn’t worth bragging about. I was earning a comfortable living for a 19-year-old, but I didn’t think I had enough money to invest. It turns out I was wrong.

A talk with one of my mentors, a senior enlisted member in my squadron, made me rethink the way I viewed investing. During one of our conversations I brought up the topic of investing and mentioned I would like to start in a couple years when I had more money. He listened to me give several excuses why I couldn’t invest and then he said something that changed the way I think and act about investing. Read more…

NEW YORK – Stocks rocketed higher and interest rates fell Monday after investors were reassured by a nearly $1 trillion plan to avoid a European debt crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 390 points. The Dow and broader stock indexes rose more than 3 percent. Markets also barreled higher in Europe.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.55 percent from 3.43 percent late Friday. Read more…

You don’t have to be a daily trader to take advantage of the forex market – every time you travel overseas and exchange your money into a foreign currency, you are participating in the foreign exchange (forex) market. According to the 2007 Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivative Market Activity conducted by the Bank for International Settlements, the forex market generated $3.2 trillion dollars worth of transactions each day. This makes the forex market the quiet giant of finance, dwarfing over all other capital markets in its world.

Despite this market’s overwhelming size, when it comes to trading currencies, the concepts are simple. Let’s take a look at some of the basic concepts that all forex investors need to understand. Read more…

Despite economists’ expectations that the unemployment rate would climb well into the economic recovery, the percentage of unemployed, job-seeking Americans fell 0.3 percentage point in January to 9.7 percent, its lowest point since August. The unemployment rate is calculated through a separate survey from the payroll count, which found the nation’s employers still reluctant to add new workers, as jobs fell by 20,000.

The report truly brought mixed news. While employers are still not beefing up their payrolls, the Labor Department’s survey of households found major employment gains. The results were altogether better than many were expecting. “All in all, we see encouraging signs of progress in labor market conditions and expect to see much better payroll performance … in coming months,” Morgan Stanley economists Ted Wieseman and David Greenlaw wrote in a morning note. Read more…

Talking Points

British Pound Continues to Retrace the Decline From December, Euro Remains Supported by 200-Day SMA

The British Pound crossed back above the 50-Day SMA (1.6338) during the overnight trade to reach a high of 1.6381, and the GBP/USD may continue to retrace the decline from December as market participants raise their appetite for risk. Meanwhile, Ernst & Young’s Item Club held a cautious outlook for the U.K. and said that the region faces a “challenging” year as households face a weakening labor market paired with tightening credit conditions, and forecasts the growth rate to increase at an annual pace of 1.0% in 2010 as the expansion in monetary and fiscal policy continues to feed through the real economy. Read more…

NEW YORK (TheStreet) — 2009 was a golden year with bullion making a $340 upwards move (+35%) from Jan. 3 to the Dec. 26 highs.

At the same time the Usd was the one of weakest currencies in global trade. However, since Dec. 3 and the last U.S. non-farm payroll report, gold has declined by more than $150 (-12%) in just three weeks, as shown on this chart.

The three-week gold move has fed off very strong down-side momentum, and a freshly broken trend-line suggests that this may be a near-term, first leg, of something larger to follow. The Elliott Wave team at the TheLFB.com will monitor gold weakness and Usd strength in the first part of 2010. Read more…

Additionally, Forex trading with us is done on a margin system, essentially using a free short-term credit allowance used to purchase an amount of currency that greatly exceeds the traders account value

Understanding the Margin System
Trading currencies on margin lets you increase your buying power. Here’s a simplified example: If you have $2,000 cash in a forex margin account that allows 1:100 leverage, you could purchase up to $200,000 worth of currency-because you only have to post 1% of the purchase price as collateral. Another way of saying this is that you have $200,000 in buying power.

You are probably wondering how a small investor can trade such large amounts of money. Think of your broker as a bank who basically fronts you $100,000 to buy currencies and all he asks from you is that you give him $1,000 as a good faith deposit, which he will hold you for but not necessarily keep. Sounds too good to be true? Well this is how forex trading using leverage works. Read more…

The dollar has fallen for much of this decade, and lately the decline is picking up speed. Already down more than 15% against the euro since March, the buck is expected to sink another 10% by the first quarter. Usually, when a once-strong asset falls this far out of favor, the correct long-term strategy is clear: Be a contrarian and buy.

But the dollar isn’t an asset — it’s a vehicle through which investments are made. And the fact that investors around the world are buying more and more non-U.S. assets suggests that the dollar will keep falling. Read more…

Exchange traded funds are collective investment vehicles which track indices – they can allow low cost exposure to the performance of an index as quickly and efficiently as the most liquid stocks.

Exchange traded funds (ETFs)  are listed on an exchange and can be traded intraday. Investors can buy or sell shares in the collective performance of an entire stock or bond portfolio as a single security. Exchange traded funds add the flexibility, ease, and liquidity of stock trading to the benefits of traditional index fund investing.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are increasing in popularity, as they are often responsible for approximately 50% of the daily trade volume on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX). ETFs are passive funds that track their related index and have the flexibility of trading like a security. They are managed by professionals and provide the investor with diversification, cost and tax efficiency, liquidity, marginability, are useful for hedging, have the ability to go long and short, and some even provide quarterly dividends. Read more…