Forex Yellow Pages

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…

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…

LONDON (Reuters) – Gold hit a fresh record high near $1,150 an ounce on Wednesday, boosting precious metals across the board, as a dip in the dollar index added to momentum buying as prices broke through key technical resistance levels.

In non-U.S. dollar terms, gold also climbed, hitting multi-month highs when priced in the euro, sterling and the Australian dollar.

Spot gold hit a high of $1,147.45 and was at $1,146.05 an ounce at 0948 GMT, against $1,141.50 late in New York on Tuesday.

U.S. gold futures for December delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange also hit a record $1,148.10 and were later up $7.10 at $1,146.40 an ounce. Read more…

HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stock markets advanced Monday as better-than-expected news about U.S. retailers buoyed confidence in the world’s largest economy and gold prices hit a new record. European shares were modestly higher.

Major markets across Asia rose between 1 percent and 2 percent as the foundering dollar led investors to pour more money into commodities and shares of resource companies. Gold broke above $1,130 for the first time and oil traded higher around $77.

Encouraging quarterly reports Friday from large U.S. retail chains, as well as The Walt Disney Co., helped ease investor worries about American consumer spending, long a major source of growth for Asia’s export-oriented economies. Read more…

SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) – Warren Buffett is finally spending some of Berkshire Hathaway’s cash hoard. And he’s buying a railroad company. As the greatest investor of our generation, does his latest acquisition signal a market bottom?

Dissecting the Deal

Buffett’s firm, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A – News), agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (NYSE: BNI – News) for $100 a share valuing the deal at $44 billion.

Over the past year, Burlington’s stock price has lagged the performance of its peer benchmark, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (NYSEArca: IYT – News). Read more…

The U.S. economy got to play “trick or treat” early and ahead of the Halloween festivities with several economic indicators.  New home sales and consumer confidence clearly were tricks with numbers being very disappointing. But equity investors got a treat on Thursday as real GDP posted a stronger-than-expected 3.5 percent annualized gain for the quarter.  The relatively strong number sent the “equities-are-in-correction” traders scurrying for cover—or rather short covering for the day.  Nonetheless, the question remains—how strong is the recovery and is there reason to believe equities are a little ahead of where economic growth is really headed? Read more…

It is only a number — the stock market equivalent of an appliance chain’s millionth customer, or the gazillionth hamburger served at McDonald’s.

Still, the Dow, which closed up 124.17 points, at 9,789.36, on Monday, is within reach of 10,000. Who would have thought?

At the depths of Wall Street’s crisis, when traders were despairing and shares of Citigroup were trading for just over a dollar, Dow 5,000 seemed a likelier prospect than this.

But now, one of the most-watched measures of the financial world is on the cusp of jumping back to five-digit territory.

That does not mean the economy’s problems are over, or that 401(k)’s are going to be made whole anytime soon. In fact, this milestone could even stall the rally if enough investors use it as an opportunity to cash in their gains, analysts say. Read more…