Wall Street’s Bears Come Back in Style

After almost 6 years of a whopping U. S. stock market, traders are concerned about how much longer it is going to last. All of a sudden, the views of the unfavorable Nancys are starting to get a lot of interest.

The bears build their own case that an economic crisis is close on 4 aspects: dropping oil costs, stagnant income, the “two-edged sword” of the powerful US buck and large problems overseas. “Earnings as well as financial activity are in fact weakening, not building up, ” states Chief Investment Officer, James Abate at Centre Asset Management, which handles more than $8 billion. “The development outlook, to us, is actually going downhill. “

The dollar problem: One of the greatest issues businesses encounter at this time is the powerful U. S. dollar. The euro lately hit their 11 year low of approximately $1.10 to the euro. It might sound great — it is less expensive travel to European countries — however it hurts U. S. businesses selling their products overseas. U. S. exported products are rapidly getting more costly — and much less appealing — to overseas buyers.

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Consider that MS or Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) documented strong revenue Tuesday; however its stocks decreased almost 10% because it is predicting weaker product sales overseas because of the powerful U. S. buck. Exactly the same holds true for Procter & Gamble (PG) as well as United Technologies (UTX), a few of America’s greatest businesses that employ countless numbers.

“There are limitations to just how much further the actual U. S. dollar can value before it begins to chew much more significantly into financial activity, ” states Senior Director, Sheryl King, of research at Roubini Global Economics as well as previous Bank of America economist.

Oil’s onerous price: Just like the dollar, you will find 2 sides to the massive decrease in oil costs from over $100 per barrel during the last summer months to $45 right now. People in America love inexpensive gas at the pump, however lower oil costs are forcing companies to scale back on employee positions as well as investing. The oil field has added over a 1 / 2 million jobs — most of them higher paying — because the economic downturn finished in June 2009. That is 13 percent of all US job development over that time period. Now power companies and associated sectors tend to be laying off countless numbers. Expect that trend to maintain for a while, bears points out.

“The drop in oil costs will certainly continue and result in much more, I believe, worry remarks as these businesses begin to report every quarter, ” states Chief Equity Strategist, Brian Sozzi, at Belus Capital Advisors.

It’s currently hurting business revenue. Take Tuesday, for instance: the Dow dropped 291 points right after Caterpillar (CAT), the country’s biggest building gear organization, documented a 25% drop in earnings because of company slowdown in oil-producing areas.

Concerns overseas: Beyond oil, the worldwide financial picture makes bears think that the U. S. can’t be the tug boat tugging everybody forward.

Opteck receives Cysec and IFSC regulation

opteck regulated

Opteck just announced that they have got the Cysec and IFSC regulation on May 2nd 2015. This is great news for everybody because you can now trade knowing that your money is more secure then before. Opteck is a great broker, but they do not accept US traders.

Here is their new address:

Ttrading name of Centralspot Trading (Cyprus) Ltd.
Authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC) under the license No.238/14.
Address: 6 Vassili Vryonide Street, Office 304, Limassol, 3095 Cyprus

Max. Payout:
85%
Open Free Account
Regulated Broker

With opteck you can trade commodities, currencies, indices and stocks. They offer a great payout of 85% and the minimum deposit is $250. Opteck has a variety of payment methods including credit and debit cards, e-wallets and wire transfer.

The platform is 100% web based, and it was created for new and experienced traders. You can even trade from your smartphone, because the trading platform is also available as app for iOs and android.

Company Boards: More Similar than Distinct in Operation

Boardrooms aren’t so different when it comes to the effectiveness of them and keeping directors awake at night. Why would you bother performing a formal external evaluation of the company board when it wasn’t needed? It might seem a little like a school requesting an Ofsted inspection or something which is the type of thing that gives head teachers’ nightmares at night. However, more and more we see boards seeing regular board evaluations and being of value and employing the UK Corporate Governance Code as the tool for them.

Indeed since the year 2010, it has been a requirement within the list of FTSE companies to every three years conduct an external evaluation around this code. Any company that has a reporting date that follows October 1, 2014, is required to use the updated version of last year’s code putting more significance on long term risk management and organization sustainability.

Although this might come across as cumbersome, external evaluations have become more accepted gradually and are considered valuable to PLC company boards along with their stakeholders. It compares how serious a board takes its performance improvement and evaluation and offers some assurance about the operation of a board.

Many of company boards that are outside of the FTSE 350 are looking at the benefit of implementing the FRC code, which also includes public sector and mutual organizations and charities. However, does the assortment of core business and culture of these companies really indicate that only a single code can be their guidance?

Well, taking a look at the whole scheme of things, although a privately financed company has a far different mission than that of a large charity, when it comes right down to the anxieties and the insomnia it gives the Chairman, you can pretty much sum it up to boards not really being so different.

There’s More Alikeness than Difference in the Board’s Operation

A survey of the improvement and evaluation of board’s across all sectors was recently conducted which include over 100 company board members. This survey was put in place to explore the amount of differences between each sector.

It was found that although boards might operate very distinctive organization types, when it comes down to setting priorities, making decisions, obtaining proper skills and their viewpoint of their performance improvement, there was more similarity than difference between boards. Some priority differences were obvious.

For instance, the survey showed that there is much less focus on investment decisions and risk management with public sector boards as opposed to private sector boards. Also, important executive appointments were put on a higher priority list with charity boards than with other sectors.

Across all sectors, there are a higher percentage of boards that are performing some type of evaluation, however, outside the PLCS; most of these are exercises being done internally. But, the word is spreading about the good practice and FRC code adherence and more and more boards are beginning to look towards evaluation structures to help them with their development and assessment plans. Plus, newer codes are being developed in the public and charity sector.

Often, these newer codes are coming about due to companies feeling as though the FRC code is not applicable to their business. However, the new codes which are put in place to meet anticipated requirements of specific situations might result in missing the all point of a broadly applicable code.

There leaves a risk in typical blind spots within sectors being focused on when codes are created to suit specific sectors. Also, newer codes might not have continued resourcing and commitment which is offered through the FRC ensuring they are kept updated with the quick changing expectations of stakeholders.

Transfer Lessons, Build on Experience

Finance professionals and CFOs are in high demand for serving as trustees on boards and NEDs in various sectors. They gain a lot of experience which is in most cases an asset for the development of their own career as well as what they can contribute to governing the board.

Through supporting and reassuring board evaluation framework that is based off of the FRC code, these executives and NEDs may come up with a common language for discussing weaknesses, strengths and certain risk factors of any board. It also promises a better understanding of how boards can be more effective around the media and stakeholders and better board performance transparency.

The Obama oil boom

oil_prices

The best oil boom within this country’s historical past has occurred through the period of environmentalist and self-proclaimed Barack Obama. Under Obama, the constant decrease in U. S. oil manufacturing that had happened practically unchecked since the year of 1971 has been reversed. Crude oil creation has increased each year of his administration. It has leaped 72% since he got in office, generating around 3. 6 million extra barrels each day in that period.

Oil manufacturing has exploded so much that last summer the country found and handed down Saudi Arabia as the planet’s biggest oil maker. Just before Obama departs office, domestic oil manufacturing might lead the U. S. record placed in 1970.

A mix of new technology, mainly fracking, has unlocked oil which was formerly out of reach from drillers. That, along with high oil costs throughout a lot of his term has motivated investment decisions within the oil exploration, industry expert’s state. The administration is a bystander throughout the oil boom, neither motivating nor discouraging it, it is said. “You cannot credit or fault the U.S. president for the actual oil boom,” stated Chief oil analyst, Tom Kloza, of the Oil Price Information Service. It has already been the double pillars of cost and technologies. It’s capitalism at its best. “

Production increased only slightly on government lands, causing the boom cities in North Dakota. Several of the gains are already on privately owned property. At the same time, in the face of less expensive on-shore oil, manufacturing has dropped from costly offshore wells rented from the government.

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Overseas manufacturing climbed to its top in 2010, the year of BP’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
“This country’s power renaissance continues to be completely dependent on personal investment on privately owned land, “stated Senior Policy Consultant, Andy Radford of the American Petroleum Institute. Critics of the Obama administration, particularly Republicans, have long falsely accused him of not really doing enough to motivate oil manufacturing.

The Obama administration has taken a few steps to restrict production, along with a short-term moratorium on drilling within the Gulf of Mexico inside the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe as well as support for alternate power. It has additionally proposed reducing $4 billion in annual tax breaks around the oil market, however that in no way got past Republicans in Congress. The most recent battle continues to be over the administration refusal to accept the Keystone XL Pipeline to transport oil from North Dakota and Canada to refineries and terminals within the Gulf Coastline.

However the Obama administration has not attempted to prevent the expansion in fracking. This week it introduced plans to permit overseas oil drilling across the Atlantic Coastline from Virginia to Georgia. It might be the very first time overseas drilling would be permitted there. The proposal delivered criticism from Obama’s normal allies in the environment community and the oil market complained that it did not open sufficient overseas locations to drilling.

Stock.com launches Binary Options Platform

stock binary options

The owners of the forex platform stock.com have just launched a new binary options platform. Stock.com is a big brand in the industry, which means that we can expect great things from their new binary options site.

Stock.com CMO Sydney Ifergan, says,

Clients can take advantage of forex market volatility with quicker trades and shorter time spans with binary options. With our new site we are offering the ability to ride waves of trades with different products suited to every level of proficiency.

The new binary site is welcoming new traders and is fully regulated by CySec, the best know regulator from Cyprus.

Stock.com started in 2013 and both the forex and binary platform are powered by Sirix software.

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Stabilizing Oil Prices before Fresh Supply Data

oil_rafinery

Tuesday news: there were some gains and losses of US crude oil futures prior to the release of the weekly inventory data of US oil. This happened after coming against the multi-annual lows on the concerns of oversupply.

Light, sweet crude futures are set for delivery in Feb CLG5, +0.13% on the NY Mercantile Exchange, trading up 0.1% or 7 cents at $53.68.

Brent crude in Feb on LCOG5 London ICE Futures exchange turned a brief -0.47% higher, but returning back to the red. There was a 0.3% or15 cent decrease in Futures to $57.74 a barrel.

The American Petroleum Institute later on Tuesday is scheduled for the publishing of its weekly US oil inventory data. On Wednesday, the US Energy Information Administration data is scheduled. There is a 1.25 million barrels decline expected to happen for the week ending December 26 according to the analysts polled by Platts.

Because of the strong winter demand, there is usually a decline in oil inventories around this time of year and because of high production levels and a build in stockpiles, oil prices will be pushed even lower according to traders.

Even though oil prices seem to continue to decline, chief market Ava Trade analyst, Naeem Aslam, states we are close to finding the bottom since the US reports a halt in the number of rigs which reduces supply and balances the demand. Trading oil is available at most binary options trading sites.

According to Baker Huges Inc., an oil field services corporation, amid low crude prices of US oil producers continues to scale back since the 37 count fall last week of the onshore drilling rigs. In fact, this is the 3rd week consecutively that the count of the drilling rig fell and is one of the largest since the tumble of crude oil prices in June. However, it will take a few months for how fast the spending cuts turn into a lowered oil production and is anticipated to be a gradual process.

Nymex crude was at its undermost value on Monday since May 1, 2009. Since its $107.26 52 week high in June, it has dropped 50%. In fact, this was the fastest 50% drop since 2008 for the Nymex crude front month contract. Within a 30 year span, it has dropped faster in 2 other periods which was in 1985 through 1986 and another from 1990 through 1991.

Since May 15, 2009, Brent crude was at its undermost. This new low pushes back the hope for more durable price support and according to Citi Future’s analyst Tim Evans; the market still is challenged by a surplus of 1.5 million barrels daily in the beginning months of 2015.

Binary Options are No Problem in Post-Holiday Slow Markets

binary options

These days have observed a higher trade in the S&P 500 futures in the early stages of the session which find a 2087.50 high. Even though some people may find the current price action to be overbought and having to close lower off the highs of this week, you will still find buyers who are pushing for a higher market and initiating a short for this market will be difficult.

With Nadex offering binary options, people are able to take a limited risk market position and craft a strategy that will fit their view and risk reward requirements.

At the moment, there is a 2087.00 trading for ESH5. If the week’s close remains below the price today, there could be a shortening of the 2085.00 daily option for the Nadex US500 (Mar) at a $50.00 price or better. This means people will get a $50 credit on their trades and will have the ability to maintain it if there remains a ESH5 close that stays below 2085.00. The risk to the trade would be the difference between the option value of $100 and the $50 credit which would leave people with a $50 risk. This would result in a 1.1 reward to risk ratio on their trade.

If there is a higher close today, people might want to consider purchasing the 2088.00 daily option for the Nadex US500 (Mar) which is priced at $50 or better. You can trade binary options online on Optionrally or Optionweb. Potential profits on this would be the difference between the $50 price to purchase the option and the $100 option value which will leave a $50 potential profit. Any risk would be limited to the $50 cost of the trade and offers a 1:1 reward to risk ratio which may be profitable provided there is a higher than 2085.00 close this week for the E-mini S&P 500 futures.

There are weekly, daily and even hourly expirations offered by Nadex which are based on a few factors which include both US and international energy metals, indexes as well as forex products. The range of expirations and products allow people many options when selecting a strategy and risk to reward profile that suits their view.

It is obvious that futures markets may be quite volatile; however, using Nadex’s binary options limits peoples risk to the amount paid when the trade was first started. Therefore, their stop-loss is built in already.

Keep in mind, you always have the choice to liquidate early should your trade begins working against you or in your favor. However, at expiration, only a single party either buyer or seller can get the $100 while the other gets nothing.

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The Reason Oil Prices are pointing towards being $35 a Barrel

oil_prices

As Wednesday hit, prior to rebounding, West Texas Intermediate futures, during a testing, came out at a low of $46.83 a barrel. This is a near 57% decrease from the $107.68 summertime high and is pointing in the direction of the depths that were seen last in the recession and financial crisis of 2008 that followed. There is a low $1.31 per barrel tested for wholesale gasoline futures.

In the past recent months, all angles have been covered for the energy price wipeout which includes the negative repercussions for corporate earnings, US economy and energy independence. There is now an increasingly turning focus on the damage and how bad it could possibly get.

Bank of America Merril Lynch new estimates pointed towards below $35 a barrel for the short-term floor. This is a drop that could indicate a near 30% decline from here with the market being a million oil barrels per day oversupplied. Option traders are beginning to set bets that there could be a drop in prices into the $20s in the following months.

It is obvious there is no quick reversal to come. There seems to be an earnest decision by OPEC to recapture the US market share of shale oil producers. Many of the oil exporting nations are stuck in what is called a prisoners’ dilemma; they yearn for higher prices but still feel the pinch in their national budgets. As far as Venezuela and Russia are concerned, their pain is strong and could end up leading to a total currency crisis. However, none of them wish to make any needed production cuts to balance out align supply with the undergoing economic demand which came about from economic weakness in Asia and Europe. Start trading oil with one of our top 10 binary options brokers.

With Japan slowly picking up pieces of its newest hike in sales tax, Europe stalling and China still trying to get a handle on its fixed asset investments and runaway housing without contributing to its bad debt issue, oil demand is hardly expected to absorb up any excess supply in the near future.

There is a component of negative self-reinforcement in the demand situation: Analysts of Bank of America Merril Lynch not that 50% of the growth of global oil demand of the last 10 years has been brought on from oil producing countries. This is an issue with the Middle East sucking into currency reserves and Russia pointing towards recession. Furthermore, it is assumed that any demand side response might come with a 6 month lag anyway.

Therefore, in order to find a price floor, there will need to be a cut in supply from areas that are outside of OPEC. According to the analysts, the large state owned oil producers are not a likely source since low cash production costs; price hedging, currency benefits and tax breaks have an impact on the price sensitivity of production. Currently, only the Kearl oil sands project of Canada is at risk with the price being close to $55 a barrel. However, its operator states there will be no shut down even in the event of a cash flow negative. The pre-salt fields of Brazil need around $23 to cover expenses.

This results in US shale producers having to carry the burden with the drying up of operating cash flows. However, with the occurrence of a natural gas flood a couple years back, also motivated by shale success, indicates that there will be a shifting of rigs by operators to more profitable fields prior to cutting output. This will result in US production cuts not occurring until the decline in newer investment, new rigs and new wells starting to flow in today’s production numbers. It will take time, however, it will happen.

Bringing in the Festive Season with Binary Options Trading Competitions by BigOptions

The exclusive trading competition for Christmas and New Year has been launched by BigOption. BigOption is offering its traders this festive season with a brand new trading binary options concept to bring in more thrills. This tournament offers the ability for traders to compete against one another and demark themselves as binary options trading champions. Over $10,000 in cash awards will be offered to the top 5 traders.

Launched on December 17, 2014, this competition will last until January 17, 2015. All competition winners will be announced on January 19, 2015. The biggest benefit of this competition is that new traders will not have to invest large amounts of money to enter. There is only a $500 minimum deposit required (take a look at Optionrally where the minimum deposit is only $250)

The platform on BigOption has a fully integrated leader-board page and requires no third party or download software in order to access the trading tournament. The rules for the competition are outlined thoroughly to maintain transparency and avoid any misunderstanding during the tournament. In order to join the tournament and participate, traders have to enter their credentials like their name on the platform. Once their account is active, they will find a big selection of trading tools to help maximize their winning trades. All levels of traders can adapt to the trading tools and experienced, expert traders will be there to offer assistance to help traders get higher scores, increase winning chances and generate profits.

Traders will have the ability to monitor the evolution of the competition through the leaderboard. The leaderboard list will include the top 15 leading traders and will include their initials, their ranking and their winning amounts. Other traders can check the ‘Check my Rank’ button to see how near they are to the leaders.

BigOption’s Marketing and Communications manager, Priscilla Camryn, is extremely happy about the tournament. She claims all efforts were invested into offering traders a platform that is secure for trading for the festive season. The intent was to reward the best performing traders for the Christmas and New Year season.

This is a huge encouragement for enthusiastic traders who are looking to really bring in the festive season with a bang. It is a huge one-time chance for traders to join in and secure the first 5 places and be rewarded up to $10,000 worth of cash prizes. BigOption’s officials will be monitoring the competition to ensure unbiased support and fair treatment.

US Stocks Slip Due to the Continuing Slump of Crude Oil

oil_rafinery

Since Monday, US Stocks have been slipping due to a big slump in the price of oil. The market is keeping a close eye on the Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted around 0.2% or 27 points to 17254. The Nasdaq Composite Index went down 0.4% or 16 points to 4637 and the S&P 500 index went down 0.1% or 1 point to 2001.

In the afternoon trading was when US stocks decreased the worst brushing off big declines in European stocks and emerging markets. In these particular regions, investors were looking for safety while anticipating the Federal Reserve meeting later this week where increased short-term interest rates can be signaled through officials. Indonesia and Russia currencies were hit Monday as well as Thailand and Malaysia. There was a 5% slide as well last week when there was a 2.2% drop in Europe’s Stox 600.

While oil prices continued to bounce off session lows, the midday recovery came. At $56.58 a barrel, crude oil dropped 1.2% and fell as much as 3.3% before 12pm. In June, the price of oil slumped from their highs during slow economic growth and global oil surplus concerns which has hurt demand.

According to Brokerage Firm ITG’s head of sales (see all regulated binary options brokers here), Brian Fenske, correlated trade like this continues while the S&P tends to be connected with crude oil prices. When compared to other sectors, the energy stocks in S&P 500 did much better. Traders state that some of the better-performing positions were being cut back by investors reaching the end of year.

In the S&P 500, the worst performing was utilities. Despite the 0.6% decline on Monday, year-to-date, they are up 19%. In addition, despite the increased 33% for the year, the Nasdaq Biotechnology index was 1.7% down on Monday. The Jones Trading Institutional Service’s head of exchange traded fund trading, Dave Lutz feels that even though there is an increase in concern to the investors of how fast oil is declining, he does not think it is the cause of any huge equity angst. Profits are being made.

When it comes to energy companies, they are rising with Exxon Mobil Corp at a 1.1% gain and Chevron Corp at a 0.4% gain. The Dow industrials experienced their largest weekly loss last week since November 2011, when the Eurozone debit crisis shook markets. During this week, the S&P 500 declined the most since 2012.

In light of that, US stocks, despite the losses of last week, still remain 5% below their average all-time highs. Although some investors feel the resurgence in market volatility caught them off guard, they still believe the decline in the price of oil will after a while; benefit the US economy by reducing the price of gas and boost spending.

Investors will most likely focus on the Federal Reserve meeting being held later this week. Participants will be ultimately looking for a reaction to the weak inflation and downturn in the price of oil and any hints on interest-rate increases.