Tag Archives: FOREX trading

Trading Floor Launch News Widget

Trading Floor, the website featuring commentary by Saxo Bank’s strategy team, is launching a news widget – a ‘mini web site’ – allowing the latest stories from Trading Floor to be placed on any website or blog by pasting a few lines of computer code.

Trading Floor Launch News Widget

The widget is the first of several FX Tools under development that will be launched during 2010. The tools will support Trading Floor’s aim of providing the best knowledge to online traders in Forex trading, equities, FX options and CFD trading. The code can be copied from tradingfloor.com/FX-Tools and links are provided to help on how to add the code to the two of the most widely used blogging platforms.

Trading Floor’s strategy team writes posts throughout the trading day, starting with the opening of European markets to the close of Asian.

Trading Floor offers a range of news and market analysis including the daily trading stance which highlights the important signs to watch for in economic indicators and key levels for the major currency crosses, FX options and commodities. This includes a calendar for important earnings announcements and macroeconomic events. Trading Floor also publishes a wide range of reports covering macroeconomic indicators, and trading suggestions for FX and equities which are all free to download. Trading Floor also offers two to three interviews a week covering FX, equities and commodities. Commodities are covered with Ole Hansen on Wednesday and the FX and equity update is broadcast on Friday. Extra interviews are posted for significant macroeconomic indicators or reports.

Commentary on Trading Floor is written by Chief Economist David Karsbøl, Equity Strategist Christian Tegllund Blaabjerg and Forex expert John Hardy. Futures and Fixed Income expertise is provided by Ole S. Hansen and Alan Plaugmann. Also commenting are Market Strategist Mads Koefoed and Research Analyst Robin Bagger-Sjöbäck.

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BestForexAccount.net Revealed Truth About Trading Forex Platforms!

Do you know what is the most important thing that you should do before starting a Forex business? It is to find a Forex Trading platform. But how would you do that when more than half the websites on the internet provides malicious and unauthentic information about such platforms? There would be a million recommendations for a specific platform but how would you check its authenticity? The answer is simple. Go by its user’s reviews and comments. BestForexAccount.Net is one such site which is gaining lukewarm acceptance more or less solely through the word of mouth factor.

But why should you listen to somebody? Don’t! Instead try it out yourself and then make your own judgment on the basis of your own experience. One visit to this site will make you understand the real difference between this site and other Forex related sites. Firstly, while choosing a Forex platform you need to check their reputation. Do they have a sound background or you can smell some bankruptcy? Then you should consider is the package they are offering. Does it include any free demo/trial accounts? Or should you directly take the risk of investing in their service. And lastly focus on the superfluous services. What are the compliments they are willing to offer? Free utilities, free trading advice, regular and instant market updates/alerts and how secure would be your transaction through their server etc. Indeed performing such an extensive assessment would be time consuming and often the results could be misleading. Now that is why people sought to take the help of BestForexAccount.Net. This site regularly publishesForex articles and reviews that advise people on what and how should they choose their Forex trading platforms. The site even summarizes and lists answers to all the above questions in a tabular format for the ease of the visitor.

Now who would do such a thing for a total stranger like you? Only a person who believes in helping people in the right direction and so is the owner of the site, a Forex investor since 3 years and whose free tips and advice has helped many Forex traders flourish. The site in fact has brought forth certain facts regarding different trading platforms that otherwise would have been hid by other biased sites. It has compared and listed the Pros & Cons of different Forex trading platforms such as eToro and EasyForex on the basis of their site popularity, registration speed, leverage, spreads and minimum deposit required etc. Never would you find a site which has presented such impartial statistics about so many Forex trading platforms.

You may even feel free to state your queries and doubts regarding Forex trading directly and a prompt reply is guaranteed. Also the site as a matter of fact could be considered a democratic site since any visitor is free to express his/her opinion through the feedback section which will be then listed on the rightmost pane of the site. This doesn’t even ask for a sign up. The site’s transparency and professionalism is beyond question.

The site’s extensive comparison about the different aspects of the platforms and the overall rating of each platform within a scale of 5 allows the visitor to immediately conclude the best platform he/she should take for their business. The presentation of data with proper authentic citing and references assures the visitor that their decision won’t go vain. Also the links to the official site ensures two things: firstly that they wouldn’t have to roam about surfing the internet for the platform’s official site and secondly they needn’t worry about its legitimacy and the site’s professionalism.

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Saxo Bank announce Outrageous Claims for 2010 now live on Trading Floor

Saxo Bank’s annual ‘Outrageous Claims’ now has its own page on tradingfloor.com, the home for news from the Denmark-based online bank’s strategy team.

Among the 10 ‘Outrageous Claims’ for 2010 are predictions of the devaluation of the CNY, the emergence of a third political party in the US, a massive fall in the price of sugar, a positive US trade balance for the first time since the 1975 oil crisis and the US Social Security Trust Fund going bust.

The online futures trade and investment specialist’s ten claims are an annual thought exercise to predict rare but high impact ‘black swan’ events that are beyond the realm of normal market expectations. The exercise aims to challenge market conceptions. Compiled as part of the bank’s 2010 Outlook, the claims this year paint a picture of a more positive year ahead but with a few tremors along the way.

David Karsboel, Chief Economist at Saxo Bank, commented: “We believe that 2010 will be a year of reflation, but structural headwinds lie ahead of us and could turn 2010 into a rollercoaster ride.

“One of the most likely structural headwinds will be a shift in investor focus towards slowing GDP and timing issues regarding the path of FED tightening. This will bring risk aversion back into markets.

“Whilst our annual ‘Outrageous Claims’ should be seen as the black swans of the market rather than outright predictions, we do believe that the odds of these events happening are somewhat higher than what is currently priced into the market,” David Karsboel concluded.

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eToro Announces British Trading Challenge Winners

eToro (www.eToro.co.uk), the fastest growing online financial trading platform has announced the winners of its first ever British Trading Challenge held from November 16th to December 1st 2009. Over 1,000 entrants from all walks of life joined the UK competition which invited contestants to learn foreign exchange and commodities trading basics, and gain skill using the practice mode on eToro’s trading platform, while trading with virtual funds. Of the over 1000 entrants, 92% of which were men, the majority classified themselves as novice traders with no prior experience of financial trading.

Sajith Valiyaveetil, a 22 year old MBA student and part-time shop worker from London, clinched first place in the competition achieving a virtual Forex trading profit of £15,500. Commenting on his win, Mr. Valiyaveetil, who takes home £1000 in prize money said: “I discovered Forex while browsing the internet; I was searching for ways to increase my earnings online which wouldn’t get in the way of my studies. I’m amazed to have won the trading challenge on my first try and I really think it shows that anyone can start trading Forex.”

A professional poker player from Morecombe, Lancashire, Andrew Omara, age 43, tied for second place with trading profits of £6,300. A self-confessed ‘gambler at heart’ Andrew considers himself a beginner trader. “Prior to trading with eToro I had absolutely no experience. But I found the eToro platform easy to understand and control. It is very straightforward. I used all of the e-Tutorials which helped get trading Forex in a different perspective.”

Third and fourth places went to Tamas Kalanyos age 35, a computer programmer from Hungary living in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire and now working as a factory worker and Leslie Wilson, a 45 year old property developer from Coventry in the West Midlands. Both consider themselves beginner traders.

Jonathan Assia, eToro CEO says: “We congratulate all who participated in the competition and in particular our top ten ranked traders. Feedback we have received from the contestants confirms that traders whether novice or expert, enjoyed the eToro trading experience and also achieved significant success. This is a testament not only to their newly acquired trading skills, but also the accessibility of our platform in providing educative, informative and highly accessible learning tools to enable anyone to trade the markets.”

About eToro www.etoro.co.uk
eToro is the fastest growing platform for online Forex trading. With more than 1.2M customers and over 2,000 new unique customers registered per day eToro brings financial trading to life with its user-friendly platform and comprehensive toolboxes featuring instructional animations, e-tutorials, analytical tools and real time data feeds combine to facilitate financial trading for everyone from absolute beginner to expert trader.

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Saxo Bank Offers New Guide To Global Economic Indicators

Saxo Bank’s strategy team has gathered together the most important of its macroeconomic forecasts into a new monthly publication that can be downloaded for free from the Trading Floor website.

Saxo Bank Offers New Guide To Global Economic Indicators

The new Macro Forecast publication is based on the results of Saxo Bank’s comprehensive macroeconomic models and is released on the first working day of every month. The publication will give the most important economic indicators for the US, Eurozone and Japan.

“The US gets the most attention in line with its position as the most important world economy with more than 20 quarterly and monthly indicators. The most important indicators from Europe and Japan will be covered initially, with more depth added with time as the publication grows,” said David Karsbøl, Chief Economist at Saxo Bank.

The Macro Forecast has been designed to be easy to read and navigate. Each country has a table giving the consensus forecast, Saxo Bank’s forecast, the previous level, percentage change and release date.

“The Macro Forecast isn’t meant to provide trading triggers,” added Saxo Bank Market Strategist Mads Koefoed, who has been responsible for developing the model. “The publication is more a signpost to the general economy and makes the strategy teams views on the development of the economy easier to follow on a regular basis.”

Tradingfloor.com has been running since May 2009 and features expert commentary starting every morning with The Daily Trading Stance that Saxo Bank’s strategists distribute to clients giving a rundown of the main themes of the day in Forex trading, equities, FX options and CFD trading.

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Saxo Bank Acquires A 40% Stake In Initto

Saxo Bank, the online specialist in trading and investment, has announced the acquisition of a 40% stake in Initto, the Danish owned software and IT services provider. Initto has around 200 employees based mainly in India and Ukraine and the acquisition of Initto will enable Saxo Bank to continue to support and speed up the development of its trading systems.

Saxo Bank Acquires A 40% Stake In Initto

Designed to meet the varying needs and demands of financial investors and traders, Saxo Bank has developed four specialised and integrated trading platforms; the downloadable SaxoTrader, browser-based SaxoWebTrader, compact SaxoMiniTrader and phone-based SaxoMobileTrader.

Mikael Munck, CEO of Initto, commented: “Initto provides a wide range of customized IT services and software engineering solutions to clients. We have been very successful in offering and integrating our services into the organisation of our clients. We offer access to a wide range of international specialists that focus entirely on delivering high quality solutions to our clients’ allowing them to focus on core competencies, freeing up time for innovation and value creation. This is the secret of our success which we are certain Saxo Bank also will benefit from”.

Since its establishment in 2003, Initto has grown by an average of 50% per year and expects to enhance its service offerings with the support of Saxo Bank as a strong financial partner. Initto is headquartered in Ballerup near Copenhagen with a representative office in Oslo. Initto will continue to develop software and provide services to its existing client base.

In a joint statement, Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen, Co-CEOs and co-founders of Saxo Bank, said: “We are thrilled to have acquired this stake in Initto, which has great synergies with Saxo Bank and fit perfectly with our business model. The acquisition is in line with our ambition to acquire fully developed businesses and utilize their expertise to develop and strengthen Saxo Bank’s products and services. Over the next few years, we will be working with Initto to further increase the value we offer our own clients. Initto’s current and future client base will also benefit from our commitment as client and shareholder. We want to remain a first class service provider and we believe Initto can help us achieve this goal.”

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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.”

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Saxo Banque Wins Banking Innovation Award 2009

Saxo Banque, the French division of the online trading and investment specialist Saxo Bank, has been awarded the “Prix de l’Innovation 2009” (Banking Innovation Award), by the Investment Forum for its TradeMaker service. The innovative and free-of-charge service enables the bank’s customers to translate an idea into an order, to be kept informed of opportunities, and to compare results from trading ideas proposed by analysts.

The Award ceremony took place on 10th October at the Palais des Congrès, in Paris. Each year, a panel composed of financial journalists and editors from publications including La Tribune, Le Revenu and Investir are convened by the Forum’s organizers to present the innovation award. In the category of ‘Informed Investors’, the panel awarded the 2009 prize to Saxo Bank’s new TradeMaker facility.

TradeMaker was developed in response to two of the obstacles facing both futures traders and more general investors. Firstly, TradeMaker addresses the feelings of confusion that often arise from an overwhelming abundance of information. Secondly, TradeMaker facilitates the application of this information, allowing the investor to employ the resultant data in their trading.

TradeMaker publishes the results of proposed trading ideas. Customers can subsequently choose the issuer with the best performance for a given product. TradeMaker then uses text and graphics to explain trading ideas before pre-completing order forms which include such considerations as Stops and Limits. Relevant trade data, which is not always easy to assimilate, is translated into an order by the issuer. The customer need simply choose the value of his or her investment before validating the order with a click of the mouse. Advice, Trading Assistance and Transparency are the three major advantages of the TradeMaker tool.

Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier, CEO of Saxo Banque, declared: “It is a real honour for Saxo Banque to win an award such as this. It is reward in particular for our engineers who work hard all year on the development of new services to grow the platform and deliver increasingly innovative solutions to our customers. Saxo Banque is an independent bank, we create our own products by way of a dedicated technology research unit.”

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Positive Economy Growth For Late 2009 Predicted by Trading Floor Expert

Trading Floor columnist and Saxo Bank chief economist David Karsbol says the American economy will return to positive GDP growth in the second half of 2009; however, the reliance of the recovery on government spending and inventory re-stocking may mean the growth is not sustainable.

Karsbol says consumer deleveraging will continue and demand will remain subdued. US unemployment will continue to rise over the coming months, further hindering debt repayments and consumption.

Saxo Bank’s fourth quarterly financial outlook for 2009 is available for download on the Trading Floor site, which has been running since May 2009. Trading Floor gives daily and quarterly outlook and trading analysis of Forex, Equities, FX options, CFD trading, and commodities.

The Saxo Bank quarterly report is put together by the bank’s strategy team of chief economist David Karsbol, chief equity strategist Christian Blaabjerg, consulting FX strategist John Hardy and market strategist Mads Koefoed.

The quarterly outlook predicts that monetary stimuli and government deficits are likely to continue, leading to a ‘Japanisation’ of financial markets – higher price-to-earnings ratios and lower yields on both corporate bonds and treasuries.

Karsbol added: “Because Western economies are more flexible and able to embrace the necessary changes, we do not think that things will get as bad as was the case in Japan.

“However, it is increasingly evident that the current scenario in the West bears a close resemblance to post-1990 Japan, and it looks progressively like we have entered a new regime in which everyone assumes that large companies will be bailed out. This means that default risk is ‘priced out’, and we see higher price-to-earnings ratios and lower yields on fixed income.”

With maximum stimulus in the rear view mirror and austerity and exit strategies increasingly on the menu, Forex trading as a whole may begin to shift away from the rosier recovery projection that is already priced in. This could likely mean the exhaustion of many of the trends that are currently in place in FX, where so many trades are aligned along the ubiquitous risk appetite axis.

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Saxo Bank, The Online Specialist In Trading And Investment, Maintains Profitability In First Half Of 2009

Saxo Bank, the online specialist in trading and investment, has reported its half year results showing that clients’ collateral deposits and assets under management in total exceeded DKK 25 billion and, in a very difficult year, profit before tax reached DKK 55 million.

Saxo Bank, The Online Specialist In Trading And Investment, Maintains Profitability In First Half Of 2009

Operating costs increased primarily due to new office openings, product launches, as well as contributions to the Danish State Guarantee Scheme and with unchanged income, profit before tax declined from the same period in 2008.

– Pre-tax profits of DKK 55 million (DKK 162 million).
– Operating income of DKK 969 million (DKK 969 million).
– EBITDA of DKK 128 million (DKK 221 million).
– Clients’ collateral deposits increased to more than DKK 11 billion (DKK 8 billion).
– Assets under management in the Asset Management department exceeded DKK 14 billion (DKK 0).
– The solvency ratio for Saxo Bank Group was 18.9% (10.1%).

In a joint statement, Saxo Bank co-CEOs and co-founders, Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen, commented: “We did expect 2009 to be a difficult year. However, the results reassure us that we took the right decision when we chose to steer the Bank into a new phase based on a more flexible structure before the financial crisis took hold. We also find it encouraging that the Bank managed to strengthen and optimise its entire value chain, product offering and geographical footprint during what were six very challenging months for the financial markets as a whole. And, equally importantly is of course, that our new Asset Management department got off to a good start with DKK 14 billion in assets under management, a number that since has grown to DKK 16 billion”.

During the first half of 2009, Saxo Bank introduced a number of enhancements to its award-winning online trading platform, the most significant of which were related to Commodity CFD’s and FX options. In addition to a broader product offering, the Bank widened its geographical footprint and established its presence in Milan, Madrid and Prague, and acquired two Dutch broker houses and a Tokyo-based provider of FX services. In May, Saxo Bank became the first Danish bank to receive regulatory approval to operate a regional office in the Dubai International Financial Centre.

About Saxo Bank
Saxo Bank is an online trading and investment specialist, enabling Forex Trading for clients, CFDs, Stocks, Futures, Options and other derivatives, as well as providing portfolio management via SaxoWebTrader and SaxoTrader, the leading online trading platforms.

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