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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Email Money Transfer



Interac Email Money Transfer (EMT) is a funds transfer service between personal accounts at participating Canadian financial institutions. The provider of this service is CertaPay, a division of Acxsys Corporation. If your bank is in Canada you will be able to send the world's first, interbank-based Interac Email Money Transfers.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Determinants of FX Rates


The following theories explain the fluctuations in FX rates in a floating exchange rate regime (In a fixed exchange rate regime, FX rates are decided by its government):

(a) International parity conditions viz; purchasing power parity, interest rate parity, Domestic Fisher effect, International Fisher effect. Though to some extent the above theories provide logical explanation for the fluctuations in exchange rates, yet these theories falter as they are based on challengeable assumptions [e.g., free flow of goods, services and capital] which seldom hold true in the real world.

(b) Balance of payments model (see exchange rate). This model, however, focuses largely on tradable goods and services, ignoring the increasing role of global capital flows. It failed to provide any explanation for continuous appreciation of dollar during 1980s and most part of 1990s in face of soaring US current account deficit.

(c) Asset market model (see exchange rate) views currencies as an important asset class for constructing investment portfolios. Assets prices are influenced mostly by people’s willingness to hold the existing quantities of assets, which in turn depends on their expectations on the future worth of these assets. The asset market model of exchange rate determination states that “the exchange rate between two currencies represents the price that just balances the relative supplies of, and demand for, assets denominated in those currencies.”

None of the models developed so far succeed to explain FX rates levels and volatility in the longer time frames. For shorter time frames (less than a few days) algorithm can be devised to predict prices. Large and small institutions and professional individual traders have made consistent profits from it. It is understood from above models that many macroeconomic factors affect the exchange rates and in the end currency prices are a result of dual forces of demand and supply. The world's currency markets can be viewed as a huge melting pot: in a large and ever-changing mix of current events, supply and demand factors are constantly shifting, and the price of one currency in relation to another shifts accordingly. No other market encompasses (and distills) as much of what is going on in the world at any given time as foreign exchange.

Supply and demand for any given currency, and thus its value, are not influenced by any single element, but rather by several. These elements generally fall into three categories: economic factors, political conditions and market psychology.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Automotive industry crisis of 2008–2009

The automotive industry crisis of 2008–2009 was a part of a global financial downturn. The crises affected European and Asian automobile manufacturers, but it was primarily felt in the American automobile manufacturing industry. The downturn also affected Canada by virtue of the Automotive Products Trade Agreement.[1]
The automotive industry was weakened by a substantial increase in the prices of automotive fuels[2] linked to the 2003-2008 energy crisis which discouraged purchases of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickup trucks which have low fuel economy.[3] The popularity and relatively high profit margins of these vehicles had encouraged American "Big Three" automakers, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler to make them their primary focus. With few fuel-efficient models to offer to consumers, sales began to slide. By 2008, the situation had turned critical, as the global financial crisis and the related credit crunch [4] placed pressure on the prices of raw materials.
Car companies from Asia, Europe, North America, and elsewhere have implemented creative marketing strategies to entice reluctant consumers as most experienced double-digit percentage declines in sales. Major manufacturers, including the Big Three and Toyota offered substantial discounts across their lineups. The Big Three faced criticism for their lineups, which were seen to be irresponsible in light of rising fuel prices. North American consumers turned to higher-quality and more fuel-efficient product of Japanese and European automakers. However, many of the vehicles perceived to be foreign were actually "transplants," foreign cars manufactured or assembled in the United States, at lower cost than true imports.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Forex Market Update 17 sep, 2009

Risk appetite still on the menu after hitting a few speed bumps yesterday

USD continues to weaken, but are we approaching a turning point?


MAJOR HEADLINES – PREVIOUS SESSION

US Aug. CPI out at +0.4% m/m, -1.5% y/y vs. +0.3%/-1.7% expected and flat/-2.1% prior
US Q2 Current Account Balance out at -$98.8 bln vs. -$92.0 bln expected and -$104.5 bln prior
US Jul. Net long-term TIC flows out at +$15.3 bln vs. +$60 bln expected and +$90.2 bln prior
US Aug. Industrial production out at +0.8% vs. +0.6% expected and revised +1.0% prior
US Aug. Capacity Utilization out at 69.6% vs. 69.0% expected and revised 69.0% prior
US Sep. NAHB Housing market Index out at 19, as expected, vs. 18 prior
NZ Aug. Business PMI out at 48.7 vs. revised 49.6 prior
JP Q3 BSI Large All Industry Index out at 0.3 vs. -22.4 prior
JP Q3 BSI Large Manufacturing Index out at 15.5 vs. -13.2 prior
JP Jul. Tertiary Industry Index out at 0.6% vs. 0.5% expected and 0.2% prior
JP BOJ leaves rates unchanged at 0.1%
SI Aug. Non-oil Domestic Exports out at -7.1% y/y vs. -5.0% expected and revised -8.7% prior

THEMES TO WATCH – UPCOMING SESSION

(All times GMT)

UK Retail Sales (0830)
EU Euro-zone Trade Balance (0900)
EU Construction Output (0900)
UK CBI Sep. Industrial Trends (1000)
CA CPI (1100)
Swiss SNB Rate Decision (1200)
CA Leading Indicators (1230)
US Housing Starts (1230)
US Building Permits (1230)
US Initial Jobless Claims (1230)
US Philadelphia Fed Index (1400)
Market Comments:

A session of sharp swings yesterday but the dollar finished the session still with a weaker bias as risk sentiment remained intact. US bond markets took a hit amid reports that a leading think-tank suggested 2 senior Fed officials were turning more hawkish and that markets jumped to the conclusion thast they could advocate a rate hike as early as next week, and look for an early exit strategy. The kneejerk reaction was to buy the dollar as US yields rose with USDJPY staging the smartest turnaround from the low 90’s to head back to mid 91’s. Earlier the pair had gravitated towards the 90.0 mark after Japan’s new finance minister Fujii had said he supported a strong JPY and was against intervention if markets moves were not too rapid.

The dollar’s strength proved short-lived however as US data continued to come in on the better side of forecasts (CPI, industrial production and capacity utilization)and we soon hit new 2009 highs for the EUR, CHF AUD and NZD. GBP was again a laggard even though UK employment data was better than expected with the hangover from BOE King’s comments on Tuesday still a threat.

During the Asian session, the BOJ kept the call rate unanimously unchanged at 0.10% and its Lombard rate steady at 0.30%, as had been widely expected. However it's economic assessment was upgraded by saying the economy now showed signs of recovering versus its view in the prior month that the economy had stopped worsening. Otherwise everything else was more or less the same, with the central bank sticking to its stance that the economy would likely pick up in the latter half of the year to March 2010. The BOJ also still saw downside risks but noted financial conditions, though severe, were increasingly showing signs of improvement.

While on the topic of central banks, the Swiss National Bank holds its rate meeting today and, while the market is expecting no change in rates from their current 0.25%, eyes will be glued to the accompanying statement for further comments relating to CHF strength. With a sense that the market is heavily positioned short of CHF, there is a risk that any reaction to weakening the CHF may be muted. Watch for that at 1200GMT.

Elsewhere in Europe, UK retail sales and Euro-zone trade data will grab the attention. While the UK sales data is notoriously fickle and unreliable, markets will pounce on any sign of weakness as another excuse to pound the pound. On the other hand, if US data matches market expectations (initial jobless claims at 555k versus 550k last, housing starts at 598k versus 581k, building permits at 583k (564k prior) and the Philly Fed Index at 8.0 from 4.2 last) then expect to see an extension of the recent trend – Wall Street higher, the USD lower and commodity currencies in demand.



More analysis: Saxo Bank Market News & Analysis

Risk Warnings:

Saxo Bank A/S shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any recommendation, forecast or other information herein contained. The contents of this publication should not be construed as an express or implied promise, guarantee or implication by Saxo Bank that clients will profit from the strategies herein or that losses in connection therewith can or will be limited. Trades in accordance with the recommendations in an analysis, especially leveraged investments such as foreign exchange trading and investment in derivatives, can be very speculative and may result in losses as well as profits, in particular if the conditions mentioned in the analysis do not occur as anticipated.

Please read our full Analysis Disclosure & Disclaimer at www.saxobank.com/analysis/disclaimer.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Dollar strengthens across the board on U.S data

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - U.S. retail sales have increased 2.7% in August, beating market expectations of a 1.7% increase, while Producer Prices Index rose 1.7% in August, following a 0.9% decline on the previous month, and the NY Empire manufacturing Index has risen to 18.88 in September from 12.8 in August. The Dollar has been favoured against Euro Pound and Yen.

EUR/USD rose initially from 1.4600 to 1.4628 after U.S. data was released, although the pair turned down and dropped to session low at 1.4575 shortly afterwards.

GBP/USD has extended its decline after Retail sales/PPI data was released, and the Sterling broke below its intra.-day low to hit a fresh low at 1.6440.

USD/JPY has extended its recovery from 90.20 low, as the pair broke above intra-day high at 91.25 to hit a fresh hiogh at 91.50.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Thursday, September 3, 2009

FXdirekt Bank




The FXdirekt Bank is an independent company with around 90 employees. The company headquarters are located in Krefeld, Germany and the branch office is located in Oberhausen. The FXdirekt Bank is a member of the EdW ("Entschädigungseinrichtung der Wertpapierhandelsunternehmen"), which is an organisation created to secure investor claims and is also registered as a commercial bank with the BaFin (German Federal Institute for Financial Services Supervision).

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

InstaForex

InstaForex (InstaTrade Corporation) – ECN-broker provides on-line trading services on the international financial Forex market and trading of contracts for difference CFD services.

The name of the company comes from the eng. "instant" and "Forex", which means "instant execution of orders on the Forex market".

Zarco Exchange

Company Information

Zarco Exchange international is a forex company based in Lahore, Pakistan.
Company was ranked 2nd largest nationwide after Khanani and Kalia International(KKI).

[edit]Operations

Company maintained a larrge scale network nationwide as well as in other countries. Company had working relationships with world's active forex companies like Western Union, Pay Pal andWebmoney. Company introduced its own visa travel cheques and some other financial products.

[edit]Defaulted

Zarco became second forex company to be bancrupted after Khanani and Kalia in August 2009. Pakistan Finance ministry blamed Zarco in Money Laundering and illegal money transfers to other countries. More than 7000 of its employees had to sit home after company had no legal way to operate even a single office.

Retail forex

In financial markets, the retail forex (retail off-exchange currency trading or retail FX) market is a subset of the larger foreign exchange market. This "market has long been plagued by swindlers preying on the gullible," according to The New York Times[1]. Whilst there may be a number of fully regulated, reputable international companies that provide a highly transparent and honest service, it's commonly thought that about 90% of all retail FX traders lose money. [2] [3]

It is now possible to trade cash FX, or forex (short for Foreign Exchange[4] (FX)) or currencies around the clock with hundreds of foreign exchange brokers through trading platforms. The reason that the business is so profitable is because in many cases brokers are taking the opposite side of the trade, and therefore turning client capital directly into broker profit as the average account loses money. Some brokers provide a matching service, charging a commission instead of taking the opposite site of the trade and "netting the spread", as it is referred to within the forex "industry."

Recently forex brokers have become increasingly regulated. Minimum capital requirements of US$20m now apply in the US, as well as stringent requirements now in Germany and the United Kingdom. Switzerland now requires forex brokers to become a bank before conducting FX brokerage business from Switzerland.[citation needed]

Algorithmic (automated) trading has become increasingly popular in the FX market, with a number of popular packages allowing the customer to program his own rules.[citation needed]

The most traded of the "major" currencies is the pair known as the EUR/USD, due to its size, median volatility and relatively low "spread", referring to the difference between the bid and the ask price. This is usually measured in "pips", normally 1/100 of a full point.[citation needed]

According to the October 2008 issue of e-Forex Magazine, the retail FX market is seeing continued explosive growth despite, and perhaps because of, losses in other markets like global equities in 2008.

Foreign Exchange Dealers Coalition (FXDC)

The Foreign Exchange Dealers Coalition (FXDC) is an alliance of the largest U.S. foreign exchange market dealers. The FXDC partnership was formed in the fall of 2007 to pool together industry resources to demonstrate the viability of the forex industry and to ensure fair regulation and oversight that does not hamper freedom of choice, innovation or job creation.

Foreign exchange autotrading

Forex autotrading is a trading strategy where forex buy and sell orders are placed automatically based on an underlying system or program. The buy or sell orders are sent out to be executed in the market when a certain set of criteria is met.

Autotrading - and systems, or programs to form buy and sell signals -, are used typically by active traders who enter and exit positions at a much higher rate than the average investor. There are also a wide range of systems that differ on the set of criteria used to generate the buy or sell signals. Typically, the criteria used are more technical in format - in that they focus on price movement and technical indicators

Retail forex platform

Retail forex trading is a segment of the vast foreign exchange market. It has been speculated that it represents 2 percent of the whole forex market which amounts to $50-60 billion [1][2] in daily trading turnover. Due to the increasing tendency in the past years of the gradual shift from traditional intrabank 'paper' trading to the more advanced and accurate electronic trading, there has been spur in software development in this field. This change provided different types of trading platforms and tools intended for the use by banks, portfolio managers, retail brokers and retail traders.

One of the most important tools required to perform a forex transaction is the trading platform providing retail traders and brokers with accurate currency quotes.

Forex scam

A forex (or foreign exchange) scam is any trading scheme used to defraud traders by convincing them that they can expect to gain a high profit by trading in the foreign exchange market. Currency trading "has become the fraud du jour" as of early 2008, according to Michael Dunn of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. [1] But "the market has long been plagued by swindlers preying on the gullible," according to the New York Times [2]. "The average individual foreign-exchange-trading victim loses about $15,000, according to CFTC records" according to The Wall Street Journal. [3] The North American Securities Administrators Association says that "off-exchange forex trading by retail investors is at best extremely risky, and at worst, outright fraud." [4]

“In a typical case, investors may be promised tens of thousands of dollars in profits in just a few weeks or months, with an initial investment of only $5,000. Often, the investor’s money is never actually placed in the market through a legitimate dealer, but simply diverted – stolen – for the personal benefit of the con artists.”[5]

In August, 2008 the CFTC set up a special task force to deal with growing foreign exchange fraud.”[6]

The forex market is a zero-sum game[7] , meaning that whatever one trader gains, another loses, except that brokerage commissions and other transaction costs are subtracted from the results of all traders, technically making forex a "negative-sum" game.

These scams might include churning of customer accounts for the purpose of generating commissions, selling software that is supposed to guide the customer to large profits, [8]improperly managed "managed accounts", [9] false advertising, [10] Ponzi schemes and outright fraud. [4] [11] It also refers to any retail forex broker who indicates that trading foreign exchange is a low risk, high profit investment. [12]

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which loosely regulates the foreign exchange market in the United States, has noted an increase in the amount of unscrupulous activity in the non-bank foreign exchange industry.[13]

An official of the National Futures Association was quoted [14] as saying, "Retail forex trading has increased dramatically over the past few years. Unfortunately, the amount of forex fraud has also increased dramatically..." Between 2001 and 2006 the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has prosecuted more than 80 cases involving the defrauding of more than 23,000 customers who lost $350 million. From 2001 to 2007, about 26,000 people lost $460 million in forex frauds. [1] CNN quoted Godfried De Vidts, President of the Financial Markets Association, a European body, as saying, "Banks have a duty to protect their customers and they should make sure customers understand what they are doing. Now if people go online, on non-bank portals, how is this control being done?"

Foreign exchange reserves

Foreign exchange reserves (also called Forex reserves) in a strict sense are only the foreign currency deposits and bonds held by central banks and monetary authorities. However, the term in popular usage commonly includes foreign exchange and gold, SDRs and IMF reserve positions. This broader figure is more readily available, but it is more accurately termed official international reserves or international reserves. These are assets of thecentral bank held in different reserve currencies, mostly the US dollar, and to a lesser extent the euro, the UK pound, and the Japanese yen, and used to back its liabilities, e.g. the local currency issued, and the various bank reserves deposited with the central bank, by the government or financial

Technological and industrial history of Canada

The technological and industrial history of Canada encompases the country's development in the areas of transportation, communication, energy, materials, public works, public services (health care), domestic/consumer and defense technologies. Most technologies diffused in Canada came from other places. Only a small number actually originated in Canada. For more about those with a Canadian origin see Invention in Canada.

The terms chosen for the "age" described below are both literal and metaphorical. They describe the technology that dominated the period of time in question but are also representative of a large number of other technologies introduced during the same period. Also of note is the fact that the period of diffusion of a technology can begin modestly and can extend well beyond the "age" of its introduction. To maintain continuity, the treatment of its diffusion is dealt with in the context of its dominant "age". For example the "Steam Age" here is defined as being from 1840 to 1880. However steam powered boats were introduced in 1809, the CPR was completed in 1885 and railway construction in Canada continued well into the twentieth century. To preserve continuity, the development of steam, in the early and later years, is therefore considered within the "Steam Age".

Epidermal growth factor receptor

edit
Epidermal growth factor receptor (erythroblastic leukemia viral (v-erb-b) oncogene homolog, avian)
Cartoon diagram of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) (rainbow colored, N-terminus = blue, C-terminus = red) complexed with its ligand epidermal growth factor (magenta) based on the PDB 1NQL crystallographic coordinates.
Available structures: 1ivo, 1m14, 1m17, 1mox, 1nql,1xkk, 1yy9, 1z9i, 2gs2, 2gs6, 2gs7, 2itn, 2ito, 2itp, 2itq,2itt, 2itu, 2itv, 2itw, 2itx, 2ity, 2itz, 2j5e, 2j5f, 2j6m
Identifiers
SymbolsEGFR; ERBB; ERBB1; mENA
External IDsOMIM: 131550 MGI: 95294HomoloGene: 74545
EC number2.7.10.1
RNA expression pattern

More reference expression data

Orthologs
HumanMouse
Entrez195613649
EnsemblENSG00000146648ENSMUSG00000020122
UniprotP00533Q3TQS6
RefseqNM_005228(mRNA)
NP_005219(protein)
NM_007912(mRNA)
NP_031938(protein)
LocationChr 7: 55.05 - 55.24 MbChr 11: 16.65 - 16.81 Mb
Pubmedsearch[1][2]

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR; ErbB-1; HER1 in humans) is the cell-surface receptor for members of the epidermal growth factor family (EGF-family) of extracellular protein ligands.[1] The epidermal growth factor receptor is a member of the ErbB family of receptors, a subfamily of four closely related receptor tyrosine kinases: EGFR (ErbB-1), HER2/c-neu (ErbB-2), Her 3 (ErbB-3) and Her 4(ErbB-4). Mutations affecting EGFR expression or activity could result in cancer.[2]