Lloyds TSB is Hitwise UK Online Performance Award Winner

Lloyds TSB has been named the number one website in the Business and Finance – Banks and Financial Institutions category for January – June 2009 in the latest Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards program. The annual Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards recognise excellence in online performance through public popularity, awarding websites in more than 50 key industries online.

This year is the fifth Hitwise Annual Awards and Lloyds TSB has been awarded number one every year since the awards began.

In addition to the Internet Banking top spot, online.lloydstsb.co.uk was also awarded a Hitwise Top 10 Online Performance Award for January – June 2009, ranking number two based on market share of visits among all UK websites in the Hitwise Business and Finance – Banks and Financial Institutions industry.

Results of the Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards are based on the Internet usage of more than 8 million UK Internet users with winners receiving the greatest market share of UK visits throughout the first half of 2009 in their online industry.

Jason Bacon, head of Digital Marketing for Lloyds Banking Group which includes Lloyds TSB said: “The Internet has fast become one of the most popular ways for customers to get information about financial services and to do their banking. Over the years we made sure that our online services evolve to meet customers’ needs and as a result we’ve seen both our website and our internet banking service grow in popularity. This award is a fantastic recognition of that.”

Daniel King, General Manager of Hitwise UK said, “With the dynamics of online marketing continually evolving, the online success of LloydsTSB during 2009 is an incredible achievement. Receiving a Hitwise UK Online Performance Award acknowledges that Lloyds TSB is amongst the most popular websites visited by UK Internet users, signifying the strength of their online marketing”.

Via EPR Network
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New Forex Strategy To Strengthen Portfolios And Reduce Volatility

Trading Floor has unveiled a new Forex Portfolio Model created by Saxo Bank’s strategy team. The Portfolio model offers a way to reduce total portfolio volatility in the wake of the stock market rally that saw many investors turn away from Forex trading.

“Many investors are staying out of the Forex market – either because they lost money and have given up, or because they simply don’t know where to put their money,” said David Karsbøl, Chief Economist at Saxo Bank and Trading Floor commentator. “The Saxo Bank Forex Portfolio Model is a way of re-activating this idle money by applying them in a low-cost and relatively low risk fashion.”

The portfolio model is based on the Saxo Bank Fundamental Indices that measure the underlying economic strength (contraction or expansion) of 10 currencies: NZD, AUD, CAD, JPY, EUR, GBP, USD, CHF, SEK, and NOK. This should give a theoretical 45 possible currency crosses, but the model subtracts the12 most illiquid and expensive to trade and looks at 33.

The allocation signals are generated by the spreads in the fundamental indices and the idea is to always allocate more capital to the currencies with a relatively strong economic activity (and positive rate outlook) and fund the positions by going short on the currencies with weak economic activity (weak rate outlook).

The model allocates capital after changes in the spreads between the fundamental indices. For example, if the Eurozone Fundamental Index suddenly drops relative to the US Fundamental Index, the model (everything else being equal) would reduce exposure to EURUSD. Additionally, positions are scaled up or down according to the volatility of the currency crosses in question so that the expected risk-adjusted return for positions in EURCHF is the same as for positions in EURCAD.

“The model is always well diversified and is always in the market,” said David Karsbøl. “It is therefore not exposed to timing issues.”

The model doesn’t use stops, since the overall volatility of returns tends to be low (especially on single leverage). One particularly interesting feature is that returns tend to be almost completely uncorrelated to returns in stock markets (correlation = 0.1) and other risky asset classes (correlation to the CRB Index is 0.11).

In back testing since 1991, the model has produced annual returns of 5.34% using single leverage, 10.58% using double leverage and 15.67% with triple leverage.

“Therefore, if the back-testing is indicative of future returns, it would make a lot of sense to use part of one’s portfolio to allocate to the FX Model and thereby decreasing overall portfolio volatility without lowering returns too much or at all, depending on the leverage used.”

Via EPR Network
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