EU Finance Ministers Address Crisis

EU estimates tax and spending plans to add 2.4 percent to growth in 2009

Europe's various stimulus plans combined with extra welfare spending and lower tax receipts should boost growth by around 2.4 percent in 2009, the European Commission said late Thursday.
Joaquin Almunia, the EU monetary affairs chief, said the European Commission estimates that the different national spending plans will add up to 0.9 percent to the 27-nation's growth rate. EU governments plan to inject a total of 200 billion euros ($292.32 billion) into their economies in a bid to ward off the gloom from the global crisis.

The EU commission also estimates a 1.5 percent boost to growth from the higher welfare spending and lower tax receipts automatically generated as the economy slows.
"Its a very important contribution to support demand and to try to make up for the reduction of activity in consumption and private investment," Almunia said after a meeting of EU finance ministers in Paris late Thursday.
European Central Bank President Jean Claude Trichet warned governments to be cautious, urging that they respect EU budget rules.
"For some countries we are arriving at levels of debt or absence of economic sustainability that prevent them from doing more than they are now," he said.

The 15 nations that use the euro entered a recession in the second quarter.

Discussions at the meeting hosted by French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde were limited by the absence of some of the EU's heavyweight finance ministers. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, Britain's Alistair Darling and Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, who also chairs meetings of euro zone ministers, did not attend.
The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was present at the meeting, but he didn't attend the press conference as he worked on a rescue package for Latvia, Lagarde said.
Ministers discussed increasing the IMF's budget, and the possibility of establishing an early monitoring system to spot countries heading into difficulty, Lagarde said.

Lagarde also addressed recent currency movements which have seen the U.S. dollar swing wildly against the euro.
The 15-nation euro dropped to $1.4313 in late New York trading from $1.4349 late Wednesday. The euro peaked at $1.4719 in overnight trading, its highest point since late September.
"I have a special concern for the very abrupt volatility that we are observing on this matter and for European exporters in particular its going to be a competitive disadvantage that comes upon extremely suddenly."

[ForexGen Money Manager]

An individual who is responsible for the entire financial portfolio of another individual or another entity. A money manager receives payment in exchange for choosing and monitoring appropriate investments for the client.

Benefits of being a Money Manager with [ForexGen]:

* Providing three different commission sources.
* Weekly commission plan.
* Easy & fast commission withdrawals.
* Fixed percentage of the profits.
* P = k * D “P=Profit, k=Variable Parameter, D=Deposits”

The money manager gets a fixed percentage of the profit previously agreed upon with the client for managing the client funds as a bonus feature.

The most competitive trading conditions:

* 2 pips spread on six currency pairs.
* Providing online trading services without maintenance margin, margin call and no automatic closing of positions below the initial margin on weekdays for accounts with initial equity of up to $1 million US. The margin level have to be recognized Fridays at 23:00 CET and before public holidays.
* Leverages up to 1:200 for accounts up to $1 million US.
* Liquidity and 24/5 availability are the characteristic factors of the Forex market compared with other financial markets.

The Destination and Fundamentals of Technical Analysis:

Technical analysis is being used for the prediction of market movements (that is alterations in currencies prices, volumes and open interests) outgoing from the information obtained for the past. The main instruments of the technical analysis are different kinds of charts, which represent currencies price change during a certain time preceding exchange deals, as well as technical indicators. The latter are being obtained as a result of the mathematical processing of averaged and other characteristics of price movements. The instruments of the technical analysis are universal and applicable to any Forex sector, any currency and any time span.

Technical analysis is easy to compute what is important while the technical services are becoming increasingly sophisticated and reasonably priced. They are available to all the Forex participants independent on their trade plans, strategies applied and the time of position continuance. Under contemporary conditions it is executed by means of computers, which is important if to account that means of the electronic support become more and more sophisticated.

[ForexGen Services]


Client Services

• Customer Support
• Trading Support

ForexGen Partnership

ForexGen offers three types of business partnerships.

* [Introducing Broker]
* [White Label]
* [Money Manager]

ForexGen Introducing Brokers ,White Label and Money Manager holders are recognized as a strategic business partners. The main focus of our service is to satisfy our partner's needs in order to deal with a qualified service and gain a large income sharing plan.

[ForexGen] provides appropriate services satisfying the needs of all business partner's specified situation and requirements.

Trichet Holds His Hawkish Tone Despite Deteriorating Fundamentals

The deteriorating outlook for the Europe’s largest economy has certainly raised expectation that the ECB will ease policy further throughout the next year as price pressures alleviate. However, hawkish comments from President Trichet has cast some doubt on further easing.






















Fundamental Headlines

• Toyota Delays Mississippi Prius Factory Amid Slump – Wall Street Journal

• Energy-Reserve Revisions - Wall Street Journal

• German stimulus offers job promise – Financial Times

• U.S. May Give Car Czar Power to Force Bankruptcy – Bloomberg

• HSBC May Raise $14 Billion in Capital on Rising Bad Loan Risk – Bloomberg

• EURUSD – Service-based activity in Euro-Zone contracted for the seventh consecutive month in December as the advanced PMI reading slipped to 42.0 from 42.5. In addition, the manufacturing PMI dropped to 34.5 from 35.6, and led the PMI composite to reach its lowest level since recordkeeping began in 1998 as the index slipped to 38.3 from 38.9 in the previous month. A deeper look into the report showed that new orders declined to 27.4 from 28.8, while the employment component weakened to 39.1 from 41.0. The latter suggests the acceleration in the pace of job cuts, which will add to growth concerns and weigh on consumption trends. Both the manufacturing and services readings were firmly below the 50 boom/bust level which supports expectations of another quarter of negative growtrh. The deteriorating outlook for the Europe’s largest economy has certainly raised expectation that the ECB will ease policy further throughout the next year as price pressures alleviate. However, hawkish comments from President Trichet has cast some doubt on further easing. Discuss the topic and your trade ideas in the EUR/USD Forum.

• GBPUSD – The annual rate of inflation in U.K. fell to the lowest level since June but exceeded economists forecasts. The headline reading slipped to 4.1% from 4.5% in October, but failed top meet ex[ectations of 3.9%. In addition, the core measure of inflation edged up to 2.0% year-over-year from 1.9% in the month prior, highlighting that some stickiness is still apparent in the market despite the rapid cool down of the economy. However, retail prices came in weaker than expected, with the RPI decelerating to 3.0% from 4.2%. The increasingly dire outlook for the domestic and global economy will further dampen inflation expaectations, which have led market participants to raise their bets that the BoE will continue their current easing policy. Discuss the topic and your trade ideas in the GBP/USD Forum.






[ForexGen Promotions]

As ForexGen believes that its success depends totally on its client's satisfaction and success, ForexGen is sharing its growth and new site release with wonderful promotion packages.

*[Claim Your Bonus ]
* [Live Account Contest ]
*[ Demo Account Contest ]
* [Refer A Client ]
* [Scalping enabled Account]

Home Builder Sentiment Remains at Record low

U.S. home builder sentiment held steady in December but remained at a record low as deepening economic turmoil, a deteriorating job market, and a flow of foreclosed homes on to the market continued to hurt sales conditions, an industry group said on Monday.

The National Association of Home Builders said its preliminary NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index was 9 in December, unchanged from November when it reached its lowest level on record since its launch in January 1985.

Readings below 50 indicate more builders view market conditions as poor than favorable. The December index was in line with expectations based on a Reuters survey of economists.

"This is suggestive of the continued decline that we have been seeing in new home sales, stubbornly high inventory levels and mounting foreclosures," said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Barclays Capital in New York.

"What is most surprising, however, is that home builders are not more optimistic about their outlook despite growing speculation of greater federal assistance for the housing market," she said.

The U.S. housing market is suffering the worst downturn since the Great Depression as a huge supply of unsold homes, tighter lending standards and record foreclosures push down home prices.

"The crisis continues," NAHB Chairman Sandy Dunn, a home builder from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, said in a statement.

"While builders are doing everything we can in the way of price and non-price incentives to move new homes off the books, buyers are afraid to move forward, and in any case there is almost no way to compete with the cut-rate product that is continually flooding the market from mounting foreclosures," she said.

Dunn said Congress and the administration must step in with substantial incentives to bring qualified buyers back to the table and effective foreclosure relief programs.

The gauge of current single-family homes sales fell to 8 from a revised 9. The index of sales expected in the next six months dropped to 16 from a revised 18. The prospective-buyer traffic measure was unchanged at 7, the group said.
HOME BUILDERS ARE HURTING

U.S. home builders, struggling under sinking demand and a credit crisis, have been facing off with a flood of homes in foreclosure.

Interest rates on mortgages have fallen sharply over the past month, a key development that could help turn the hard-hit housing sector around.

"Lower mortgages rates would be most helpful for the housing market at the moment," said Torsten Slok, senior economist at Deutsche Bank in New York.

Slok said there needs to be a boost in demand for housing before a significant improvement is seen.

"The housing market continues to crawl on the bottom and things will only gradually begin to get better in 2009," he said.

Home builders have curbed their new construction. They have also been offloading their inventories of unsold homes by slashing prices at the expense of profits to pay off their debt and keep afloat.

"We have seen no improvement over the past month in terms of sales conditions for new homes," NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe said in a statement.

"In fact, certain factors have gotten progressively worse, not the least of which is the job market, where massive layoffs are having a devastating effect on consumer confidence," he said.

Crowe said at this point it will take definitive government action to stop the slide in home values and turn the tide of consumer sentiment.

"Expanding the first-time buyer tax credit and providing government action to reduce mortgage rates would go a long way toward arresting this downward spiral, just as a combination of similar moves worked in the 1970s to boost the housing market and economy," he said.

On a regional basis, the housing market index declined in two out of the four regions in December. The Midwest and South posted a one-point and a two-point decrease, to 6 and 10, respectively. The Northeast held even with the previous month's 11 reading. The West posted a one-point gain to 7 this month.

[ForexGen Academy]


If you are an experienced ‘FOREX’ Trader or just a beginner looking for the opportunities offered in the ‘FOREX’ market, Forexgen has created ForexGen Academy to give you the chance to get a ‘FOREX’ education and improve your trading skills. No hard expressions, no buzz words, and no rocket science language are used throughout these lessons.

How to Get Started?

People are introduced to the exciting world of foreign exchange in many ways: friends, current events, newspapers, television, and many others. For those of you who are new to forex, the following guidelines cover the basics of currency trading.

Canada Agrees on Conditional Auto Aid Plan

Canada agrees on conditional auto aid plan as part of larger US bailout

Canada's federal government and the province of Ontario agreed Friday to provide $3.5 billion Canadian dollars ($2.8 billion) for the Canadian auto industry.
Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement said that is the equivalent of 20 percent of the $14 billion that the Bush administration is considering in emergency aid for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler.
Clement said the main auto manufacture restructuring will be done in the United States, but Canada is also prepared to provide help to save the troubled industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of direct and spinoff jobs in Ontario, which is across the border from Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan.

"What we are signaling here tonight, both the governments of Ontario and Canada, is that we want to be part of the solution as well and it will be commensurate with the production that takes place here in Canada ... about 20 percent," Clement told reporters.
The Detroit Big Three automakers currently employ more than 30,000 people at car assembly plants in Ontario.
The move by Canadian politicians comes after the U.S. Senate rejected a $14 billion plan, endorsed by U.S. President George Bush and congressional Democrats, that would have provided quick loans to the Detroit automakers.

On Friday, GM, Ford and Chrysler were talking with the administration and the U.S. Federal Reserve about how they could still get the billions of dollars they say they need to survive. The talks included conditions that automakers would have to meet, said GM spokesman Greg Martin.
The administration said no decisions had been made on the size or duration of the new bailout plan, or what type of concessions might be demanded from the struggling automakers, their workers, stockholders or others.
Canada's federal government came under increasing pressure to announce a multibillion-dollar aid package for the auto industry even before the White House finalizes details of its planned bailout of the battered Detroit Big Three.

The president of the Canadian Auto Workers union said Friday that aid can't come quickly enough for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and their Canadian subsidiaries.
"The Canadian government should be proactive, announcing a Canadian financing package conditional on a U.S. package coming together," CAW president Ken Lewenza told a news conference.
"We think if Canada was to move and move swiftly, then that would put pressure on the U.S. to respond more appropriately."
Both the federal and Ontario governments have been reluctant to hand out any aid without first seeing the details of a comparable U.S. package so they can match any conditions and provide a proportional amount of funding.

[Why ForexGen]


1. Lowest spreads in the market with 0-1 pips in 10 pairs, no commissions, no swaps and instant account Activation.
2. Scandinavian quality with Swiss precision, funds secured and local agents in 18+ countries.
3. ForexGen offers Forex trading in the major currency pairs and crosses.
4. Low capital start, with $250 as a minimum account size.
5. Liquidity and 24/5 availability are the characteristic factors of the Forex market compared with other financial markets.
6. ForexGen offers a free trial Forex [demo account] that allows you to test your skills and practice without risking real money.

We consider every client as a special case, a VIP and a partner. A client's profit is our success and a client's loss is a significant call of action for us. Customer care is the heart of our business, we know every client on personal bases as we provide 24/7 customer support.
We keep contact with our clients to ensure that we are on the right track. Leading our client relationship to success is our focus.
Let [ForexGen] prove to you that you have taken the right step by choosing our partnership.

Post of The Day: USD/JPY

Please find attached the chart for 2days-1hour having the support line and the resistance line. If I would have decided to buy I would have bought when the market fell a little low, the third time and would have done a short trade and closed the position by attaining a marginal profit. Please correct me if I am wrong and give me more ideas about using the support and resistance lines. And do let me know whether I'm right in drawing lines.

Power Course Instructor’s Response:

It is clear that you have the right idea about support and resistance lines. What we need to be sure of, however, is in what direction should we be taking the trade...long or short.

Take a look at charts below for a visual on using them to trade this pair.

We want to get the direction that we should take the trade from the Daily chart. On that chart we can see that the trend is down so we know we only want to take short positions since they will be the higher probability trade. Next we can drill down to a 4 hour chart (which I did) or a 1 hour chart to "fine tune" our entry in the direction of the trend. The second chart provides two options as to how to trade this pair.





[ForexGen Live Account]

The live/real account is provided to those clients who may have some experience in the online trading.


[Opening an Account Online]

The quickest, easiest and secure way to open a ForexGen trading account is online.
Complete and submit your application online in just a few minutes.

ForexGen.com is an online trading service provider supplying a unique and individualized service to Forex traders worldwide. We are dedicated to absolutely provide the best online trading services in the Forex market.

ForexGen provides a unique online trading experience based on our intelligent online Forex trading package, the ForexGen Trading Station, including the best online trading system.

GBP/USD: Trading the U.K. Producer Price Index

Price pressures in the U.K. are expected to weaken further as economists forecast the producer price index to fall to 5.6% from 6.8% in October.

Trading the News: U.K. Producer Price Index Output

What’s Expected
Time of release: 12/08/2008 09:30 GMT, 04:30 EST
Primary Pair Impact : GBPUSD
Expected: 5.6%
Previous: 6.8%

Impact the U.K. PPI Output has had on GBPUSD after the last 3 releases







October 2008 U.K. Producer Price Index Output

The U.K.’s producer price index fell at a record pace in October, which lowered the annual rate of inflation to 6.8% from 8.5% in September. The breakdown of the report showed that petrol prices fell 5.6% from the previous month, while core prices slipped 0.5%. The data suggests that firms will continued to cut prices as Europe’s second largest economy heads into its worst recession since 1991, and has certainly raised the risks for deflation as the Bank of England expects inflation to fall below the 2% target. Falling commodity prices paired with deteriorating fundamentals led the BoE to aggressively lower borrowing costs throughout the second half of the year, and may continue to ease policy next year to carry out their dual mandate to ensure price stability while fostering economic growth.

September 2008 U.K. Producer Price Index Output

Factory-gate prices in the U.K. dropped for the second consecutive month in September as economic activity weakened throughout the second half of the year. The producer price index slipped to 8.5% from a revised reading of 9.1% in August on the back of falling commodity prices, and should allow the Bank of England to lower borrowing costs further as the economy heads into a recession. The MPC voted unanimously cut the benchmark interest rate by 50bp in a coordinated effort to restore confidence in the financial market, and lowered the rate to 4.50% from 5.00%. Easing price pressures paired with fears of a significant economic downturn has already stoked expectations that the BoE will continue to cut borrowing costs in the near-term, which could weigh on the British pound going forward.

August 2008 U.K. Producer Price Index Output

U.K. producer prices unexpectedly declined for the first time in nearly a year due to a significant pullback in commodity prices. The PPI slipped to 9.7% from 10.2% in the previous month, which suggests that inflation may have peaked during July. Easing prices pressures will certainly allow the Bank of England to shift their focus to growth and push inflationary concerns to the backburner, which leaves the door open for a potential rate over the coming months as growth prospects for the U.K. deteriorate. Meanwhile, the MPC continued to hold a neutral policy stance as they voted to hold the interest rate at 5.00% during the September 4th meeting, while Chancellor Alistair Darling explicitly stated that Great Britain may face the worst economic downturn since the 1940’s.

How To Trade This Event Risk

Price pressures in the U.K. are expected to weaken further as economists forecast the producer price index to fall to 5.6% from 6.8% in October. The remarkable slowdown in the economy paired with falling commodity prices allowed firms to aggressively lower output prices throughout the second half of the year, and may continue to cut prices over the coming months as the economy heads into its worst recession since 1991. Europe’s second largest economy contracted 0.5% in the third quarter as private-sector consumption fell for two consecutive quarter, and was followed by a 2.4% drop in business investments. In addition, retail spending contracted for the second straight months in October, which suggests that firms will continue to lower prices in order to stay afloat during the considerable downturn in the economy. Meanwhile, the Bank of England continued to highlight the risks for deflation as he saw a ‘substantial risk’ for inflation to fall below the 2% target, which could lead the central bank to lower borrowing costs even further as policymakers carry out their dual mandate to ensure price stability while fostering economic growth. Moreover, Credit Suisse overnight index swaps are showing that investors expect the BoE to lower rates further over the next 12 months, which could stoke increased selling pressures for the British pound over the near-term.

As the Bank of England continues to hold a dovish outlook, we would need to see a considerable spike in inflation to set the stage for a long pound-dollar trade. As a result, a PPI reading above 6.8% would favor a bullish outlook for the British pound, and we will look for a green, five-minute candle following the release to confirm entry on two lots of GBPUSD. We will place our initial stop at the nearby swing low (or reasonable distance), and this risk will determine our first target. Our second target will be based purely on our discretion, and once the first lot reaches its target, we will move the stop on the second lot to breakeven in order to preserve our profits.

[ForexGen Services]
Client Services

• Customer Support
• Trading Support

ForexGen Partnership

ForexGen offers three types of business partnerships.

* [Introducing Broker]
* [White Label]
* [Money Manager]

ForexGen Introducing Brokers ,White Label and Money Manager holders are recognized as a strategic business partners. The main focus of our service is to satisfy our partner's needs in order to deal with a qualified service and gain a large income sharing plan.

[ForexGen] provides appropriate services satisfying the needs of all business partner's specified situation and requirements.