Archive for February, 2011
US Government Committee Kills China Deal
A US government inter-agency committee established in 1975 has asked China’s Huawei Technologies to “unwind” its $2 million acquisition of the assets of US networking start-up 3Leaf Systems. That request from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, indicated that the group would not approve the acquisition. Huawei has now withdrawn [...]
Forex Options Trading Coming to China
China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, SAFE, has issued a statement that beginning April 1, 2011, banks will be permitted to trade forex options among themselves and to sell options to customers, who may resell them as long as “they are trying to exit from an option bought earlier,” according to The Wall Street Journal. [...]
“Hot Money” Not a Problem Says China
Part of the blame for the rise in China’s inflation has been laid at the feet of short-term foreign capital inflows chasing higher returns — so-called “hot money.” That cash typically finds its way into China by means of lightly regulated trusts, and the flows are technically illegal. In 2010, the headline number assigned to [...]
Will the Bank of England Raise Interest Rates?
When the head of the European Central Bank remarked that the ECB was going to toughen its stance against inflation, the forex markets sent the EURUSD trade to a two-month high. About a week later, he walked those comments back, and the EURUSD trade swung back the other way. Now, the Bank of England has [...]
Netflix: The Oscars, Subscribers, And Black Swans
If there’s a Super Bowl Indicator, can there be an Oscar Indicator? Or more specifically, could the winner of the upcoming Academy Awards help predict how a stock might trade? I thought I’d take a look at just one stock, Netflix (NFLX), mainly because it’s one of the best known movie-oriented companies in both the [...]
Zecco Mobile Lite Has Arrived!
UPDATE: Zecco Mobile, with fully-featured trading capabilities, is now available for both iPhone and Android platforms. Get the free app now: Apple App Store Google Play You asked for it and now it’s here! We are kicking off the mobile platform roll-out with Zecco Mobile Lite for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. So, if [...]
High Put/Call Ratio on Brazil: Bearish Bets?
I saw a Bloomberg article suggesting that “options traders are placing more bearish bets” on the iShares Brazil ETF (EWZ), noting that the ratio of put options to call options is at a three year high. The ratio of put options to sell the iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund versus calls to buy has jumped [...]
Forex and US Housing Finance Reform
According to The Wall Street Journal, before the US Treasury Department released its report on reforming the way the US finances its housing market, a respected Chinese economist warned his countrymen of the risks inherent in holding US agency debt, and recommended that China should “sell the securities soon.” The economist, Lu Zhengwei, estimated that [...]
Good News and Bad News from Ford
If you own shares of the Ford convertible preferred stock (F.P.S), it’s decision time because the shares have been “called.” On March 15, the company will redeem those shares for about $50.87 each (redemption price plus unpaid distributions). These are convertible preferreds, so shareholders also have the option to convert each preferred share into 2.8769 [...]
Egyptian Instability – Not Over Yet?
The announcement that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had resigned sent forex traders heavily into the US dollar as they tried to figure out what would happen next. That’s no easy calculation though. Now that political power in Egypt is invested in the army, the central question becomes to what degree will the army share power [...]
