3 Roadsigns popped up today from 3 different people whose opinion and calls on the market activity I respect.divbr //divdivThese people aren't market timers - if anything they're probably early with their calls, but when I hear or read people I respect offering these types of market forecasts, I pay attention and start to pull up previous strategies I think might be appropriate - in this case Bearish./divdivbr //divdivHere's the evidence:/divdivdiva href="http://twitter.com/steenbab/status/5176586766"/a/divblockquotediva href="http://twitter.com/steenbab/status/5176586766"@steenbab/a 11:25 AM CT - Midday briefing shows significant selling pressure in the wake of USD strength: http://rurl.org/223v/divdivabout 6 hours ago from web/div/blockquotediv/divdivblockquotediva href="http://twitter.com/AnneMarie2006/status/5179835022"@AnnMaries2006/a So many failed breakouts...sure sign of resolution to the downside for now $$/divdivabout 3 hours ago from Seesmic/div/blockquotediv/divdivblockquotediva href="http://twitter.com/TradeIdeas1/status/5179797762"@TradeIdeas1/a a href="http://chart.ly/2ang29"http://chart.ly/2ang29/a $SPX - One of the ways that helps me know which way I should be trading is illustrated in this picture/divdivabout 3 hours ago from Chart.ly/div/blockquotediv/divdivbr //divdivSignposts can come from anywhere. The reason ...

Where has the year gone? Looking at the two market dates you would think very little happened over the intervening period, except for the almost 50% drop, 100% rally the market has endured this past year. So what has gone and what might we expect to come? br /br /Last a href="http://zignalsblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/s-moving-average-behavior.html"June/a I took a look at the SP and studied the relationships between the 20-day, 50-day and 200-day MAs and the index. In June I concluded:br /br /blockquoteThe take home lesson is for the next month or two further downside is not just likely but probable; only in 2003 did a rally develop soon after the match. For the other five of the six matches the SP lost between 7% and 30% of its value before it finally turned around.br /br /From a buyers perspective there is little incentive to be long SP futures or stocks until a firm ...

By Guest Author: Andy Richardson (http://www.financial-spread-betting.com)

Most traders who I spoke to about 12 months ago were forecasting a gloomy future ahead for the UK clothing retail giants such as Next Group PLC, Debenhams or Marks & Spencer.
Let’s take the case of Next Group PLC. Although the recession was not full blown at the time, fierce competition, poor stock (clothes), the inevitable Credit Crunch and decrease in profits added up to a bearish stock. At around £8 to £9 at the time many were predicting a sub £6 by Christmas.
Here we are now and they were correct except the share price of course which has risen more than 100% now. Anyone who has opened short spread betting positions on Next must be licking their wounds by now. So what has really changed?
For one the economic outlook still looks really bad, as well as unemployment there is …

p style="text-align: left;"By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagenbr /emspan/span/em/pp style="text-align: center;"emspanbr //span/em/pp style="text-align: center;"emspanChina! China! burning bright /span/em/p p style="text-align: center;"emspanIn a bubble, Day and Night /span/em/p p style="text-align: center;"emspanIs it Bust or is it Boom/span/em/p p style="text-align: center;"emspanThat frames thy fearful asymmetry?* /span/em/p pbr //p pspanbr //span/ppspanCan you feel it? That calm and soothing feeling of low volatility and heaven bound risky assets driven by green shoots and second derivatives. Well, if you can't you are excused since neither can yours truly, or more precisely; he has a distinctly difficult time seeing from where people get the idea that we are headed for a broad based global recovery. However, beauty as always lies in the eye of the beholder and whichever way you look at it would be difficult to completely deny that the three key ingredients for a global recovery (and a resurgence of carry trade) in the form of ...

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Bill Gross (Pimco - Investment Outlook): Investment potions, August 2009. A 3% nominal GDP “new normal” means lower profit growth, permanently higher unemployment, capped consumer spending growth rates and an increasing involvement of the government sector, which substantially changes the character of the American capitalistic model. There is no investment potion for this new environment other than steady income-producing bond and equity investments in companies with strong balance sheets and high dividend yields, as well as selectively chosen emerging market commitments where nominal GDP growth prospects are tilted upward as opposed to gravitating to new lower norms.

• Economist.com: After the fall, July 27, 2009. The collapse in world trade has stopped, but there is no sign of a

...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /This post accompanies my recent piece on Sweden. I have been scratching my head and trying to see what could be learnt from making a comparison between Finland and Sweden. Some of the differences are obvious - one is in the euro, and the other isn't, once can adjust monetary policy and currency values, and the other can't. Others are less so. Finland's goods trade surplus has been declining steadily since joining EMU while Sweden's has remained relatively constant. And Swedish males live on average three years longer than their Finnish counterparts. So what is important here, and why? And if convergence theory has anything positive to be said for it, shouldn't we be able to observe so sort of convergence going on here.br /br /br /First, and just to remind ourselves, here is the chart from Claus Vistesen which shows what the relation ...

p style="text-align: left;"By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagenbr //pp style="text-align: left;"(please click on pictures for better viewing)br //pp style="text-align: left;"br //pp style="text-align: center;""Being a Keynesian means being a Keynesian in emboth/em the good and bad times."/p p style="text-align: center;"emAndres Velasco (Finance Minister in Chile) [1]/em/p pbr //ppIt has been a while since I last had a thorough look at Chile (a href="http://chileeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/10/chiles-economy-in-perspective-october.html"here/a and a href="http://chileeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/08/economic-growth-in-chile.html"here/a); more specifically, the last time I had Chile under the loop was in October 2008 and thus around the time when the global economy was about to enter two quarters (Q4-08 and Q1-09) of absolute horror. Whether we are past the worst at this point in time is debatable and I am, personally, skeptical with regards the narrative of second derivatives and green shoots, but it is hard to deny that it does represent a narrative and a fairly strong one too. In this context I thought ...

The Open and its frenzied activity can reward as well as punish traders. The difference between these two groups comes down to experience certainly, but also the insight and quick decisions that new tools (especially automation) can bring to bear.divbr /From the Mailbag (Support Forum) came a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=38598662"a question/a about such topics that I want to answer here. First the question then our response:divdiv/divblockquotedivbMean Reversion and poor fills: /b/divdivbr //divdivI'm using a mean reversion strategy that looks for stocks with spreads 9c. I have been automatically placing limit orders at bid+1c at the open, and have been getting killed by adverse selection. /divdivbr //divdivIf the stock moves up, I only get 1/10 of my order, and if the stock moves down, I get the entire order. I did learn that I'm making my time the order is in force too long (2 min) - losers move down in ...

By Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /blockquote"As long as excessive debt is not digested, both monetary and fiscal policies are inefficient. There is not much of an alternative. Either to let the economy collapse, in order to reduce debts, and then use fiscal policy to revive it, or inundate the insolvent economy with public credit, to avoid the collapse, and loose the ability of fiscal policy to pull it out of a prolonged lethargy. Either a horrible end or an endless horror."br /a href="http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/06/after-the-crisis-macro-imbalance-credibility-and-reserve-currency/"After the Crisis: Macro Imbalance, Credibility and Reserve-Currency/a: André Lara Resende/blockquotebr /Well, I think the title to this post makes my view on the high-profile shenanigans we are currently witnessing on the part of two widely respected contemporary intellectuals clear enough, even if Paul would probably respond that he is perfectly well able to take care of himself, thank you very much. Nonetheless, looking at the way the ...

Simplicity was a strong selling point of the first exchange traded funds offered in the early 1990s. Issuers bought the shares that made up the underlying index and sold them on to investors in the form of a single easily traded security.

But as the range of assets covered by ETFs has expanded it has become more difficult to assemble the underlying portfolio. Issuers have found a way round this difficulty by means of swaps, exchanging a perhaps less than perfect bunch of assets for a swap that precisely mirrored the relevant index.

Has this damaged the original concept and introduced an unwelcome element of complexity? The recent financial meltdown and subsequent credit crunch have made many investors suspicious of complex financial products. Plain vanilla is back in fashion.

Fully replicated ETFs still account for most of assets under management globally –

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