KARACHI: Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves rose to $14.49 billion in the week that ended on September 26 compared with $14.48 billion the previous week, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Thursday.
Reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan were flat at $10.94 billion from a week earlier, while those held by commercial banks edged up to $3.55 billion from $3.54 billion a week earlier, data showed. Foreign reserves hit a record high of $16.5 billion in October 2007 but fell steadily to $6.6 billion by November last year, largely because of a soaring import bill. However, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) emergency loan package of $7.6 billion agreed in November helped avert a balance of payments crisis and shore up reserves. staff report
Source: dailytimes.com
Monday, October 5, 2009
Forex reserves rise to $14.49bn
Jobs Disappoints, FX Whipsaws
The dollar was initially higher following the September labor report, rallying to 1.4481 against the euro and 1.5806 versus the pound sterling before relinquishing its earlier gains by the New York afternoon. US equities also recovered from its losses in the morning session, clawing their way back into positive territory, with the Dow Jones and Nasdaq up marginally.
Although the September unemployment rate was on par with consensus estimates, the reading still touched a fresh 26-year high at 9.8% versus August at 9.7%. The most disheartening component of the labor data was the non-farm payrolls report, which defied expectations for an improvement to a loss of 180k jobs, instead revealing a considerably larger loss of 263k jobs for September compared with a revised 201k jobs shed in the previous month. Meanwhile, average earnings edged up by less than anticipated, increasing by 0.1% compared with an upwardly revised reading of 0.4% in August and average workweek drifted lower to 33.0 hours from 33.1 hours.
The economic calendar for Friday also included durable goods orders and factory orders. The headline durable goods report declined by 2.6% in August, deteriorating further from the prior month’s 2.4% decline while core durable goods orders fell by 0.3% versus a flat reading previously. Factory orders fell by 0.8% for August, missing estimates for an increase of 0.3% from 1.3% in July.
Source: forexnews.com
Dollar stays down after ISM tops expectations
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. dollar remained down slightly versus major rivals on Monday after the Institute for Supply Management said its index of the services industry rose to 50.9 in September, the highest since May 2008. The dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 76.69, -0.30, -0.39%) , a measure of the U.S. currency against a trade-weighted basket of rivals, fell to 76.868 from 77.09 in late trading on Friday. Economists polled by MarketWatch expected the index would rise from 48.4 last month to the 50 level, the dividing line between expansion and contraction in the industry. The dollar was losing ground in earlier trading after finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations made no specific mention of the currency in a joint communique at their weekend meeting.
Source: marketwatch.com
Thursday, October 1, 2009
How To Make Profit Through Forex Trading?
The currencies of the world are on a floating exchange rate, and they are always traded in pairs Euro/Dollar, Dollar/Yen, etc. About 85 percent of all daily transactions involve trading of the major currencies.
Four major currency pairs are usually used for investment purposes. They are: Euro against US dollar, US dollar against Japanese yen, British pound against US dollar, and US dollar against Swiss franc. This is how they look in the trading market: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, and USD/CHF. As a note you should know that no dividends are paid on currencies.
If you think one currency will appreciate against another, you may exchange that second currency for the first one and be able to stay in it. In case everything goes as you plan it, eventually you may be able to make the opposite deal in that you may exchange this first currency back for that other and then collect profits from it.
Transactions on the forex market are performed by dealers at major banks or forex brokerage companies. forex is a necessary part of the world wide market, so when you are sleeping in the comfort of your bed, the dealers in Europe are trading currencies with their Japanese counterparts.
Therefore, it is reasonable for you to believe that the forex market is active 24 hours a day and dealers at major institutions are working 24/7 in three different shifts. Clients may place take-profit and stop-loss orders with brokers for overnight execution.
Price movements on the forex market are very smooth and without the gaps that you face almost every morning on the stock market. The daily turnover on the forex market is somewhere around $1.2 trillion, so a new investor can enter and exit positions without any problems.
The fact is that the forex market never stops; even on September 11, 2001 you could still get your hands on two-side quotes on currencies. The currency market is the largest and oldest financial market in the world. It is also called the foreign exchange market, FX market for short. It is the biggest and most liquid market in the world, and it is traded mostly through the 24 hour-a-day inter-bank currency market.
When you compare them, you will see that the currency futures market is only one per cent as big. Unlike the futures and stock markets, trading currencies is not centred on an exchange. Trading moves from major banking centres of the U.S. to Australia and New Zealand, to the Far East, to Europe and finally back to the U.S. it is truly a full circle trading game.
In the past, the forex inter-bank market was not available to small speculators because of the large minimum transaction sizes and strict financial requirements.
Banks, major currency dealers and sometimes even very large speculator were the principal dealers. Only they were able to take advantage of the currency market’s fantastic liquidity and strong trending nature of many of the world’s primary currency exchange rates.
Today, foreign exchange market brokers are able to break down the larger sized inter-bank units, and offer small traders like you and me the opportunity to buy or sell any number of these smaller units. These brokers give any size trader, including individual speculators or smaller companies, the option to trade at the same rates and price movements as the big players who once dominated the market.
Source: blog.forexgen.com
Forex Trading Tutorial
Forex books, online manuals, short seminars, long financial courses - all these can help serve your educational process, especially if you are seriously considering a full time "employment" with online Forex trading. But even the best and the most comprehensive materials can leave a lot to be desired, particularly because most of these are simply based on theories.
In some cases, some of these theories are not even applicable in the evolving trading trends of the online market. In reality, when you begin trading, it is very common to get lost among the figures and the graphs. It is also very common to start trading immediately without even thinking of possible strategies or business plan. Likewise, it is common for neophyte online Forex traders to see their hard earned cash that was just invested in the currency bid fly out of the window before anyone can say, "I am a Forex trader."
The best way to eliminate (or lessen) these possibilities and to further your online Forex trading skills is via a hands-on approach. Fortunately, there are some software applications like Forex Tracer™, FAPS or Forex Autopilot Systems™, and Forex Funnel™ that allows you to do this by using their Forex trading tutorial applications. There are other systems, robots and applications available, of course. But try to read product reviews first to ascertain that you will not be wasting your time, money and energy on potentially useless and wasteful products.
For clarification's sake: Forex Tracer™, FAPS or Forex Autopilot Systems™, and Forex Funnel™ are not merely training tools. In fact, these are great tools for anyone who wants to indulge in online Forex trading full time. However, for any novice, it would be best to use the free demo software installed in these software applications as a Forex trading tutorial guide. Here, a trader can actually start developing the skills necessary to trade successfully in this financial market without even investing one single nickel yet during the entire process.
At the same time, the software applications can help the trader develop an eye as to how the actual trading process works, and why the seemingly innocuous details such a pip monitoring and live updates from the trading floor is essential to future trades. This can also serve as Forex trading tutorial guide by letting the user put theory to the test, without suffering from any dire consequences like monetary loss.
One more benefit to using these is that these software applications have technical support, which can help personalize the program to the trading needs of the person. At the same time, the people offering technical support are very good sources on overcoming some of the more technical aspects of online trading.
Source: articlemaniac.com
G20 means G7 no longer only game in town on forex
That's especially true now that the Group of 20, which includes emerging markets like China and India, has supplanted the Group of Seven rich countries as the forum for managing the global economy.
In fact, coordinating currency policy of any kind may get a lot harder if it requires getting 20 countries, with disparate interests and priorities, to pull in the same direction.
"It's tough to reach consensus on currencies in the best of times, but with more people at the table and more interests to pursue, it could make coordinated intervention more difficult to achieve," said David Gilmore, partner at FX Analytics in Essex, Connecticut.
Take the case of rebalancing the world economy. That's viewed as a polite way of calling for a weaker U.S. dollar, since it would require debtor countries such as the United States to save more and exporters like China or Japan to spend more.
But that would involve major social and economic changes for countries like China, which has relied on a weak currency and exports to drive its phenomenal rate of growth. In other words, it's hardly something China would want to rush into.
The G7 -- the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Canada, Germany and Italy -- say they will still meet periodically, starting this weekend on the sidelines of an annual International Monetary Fund meeting in Istanbul.
But their ability to act quickly and decisively within the larger G20 may be diminished, particularly if China, with its war chest of $2 trillion in currency reserves, is not on board for any proposed changes.
Last weekend's G20 summit, with its rebalancing pledge, is a case in point. While exchange rates may have been discussed behind closed doors, there was no official mention of currencies, much less any coordinated action.
It was a far cry, for instance, from the 1985 Plaza Accord, named after the New York hotel where officials from the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain and France met and agreed to weaken the dollar against the Deutschemark and yen.
Barclays Capital strategist Steven Englander said that with so many different interests represented in the G20, references to currencies will be rare, "even if some of what they say has clear implications for exchange rates."
But agreement on policy objectives will carry more weight, he said, now that developing countries, which hold the biggest share of currency reserves and are having a growing impact on the world economy, are represented at the table.
UNILATERALISM
Still, some worry that a lack of coordination at the top will tempt countries to act unilaterally on exchange rates.
Indeed, many countries have not been shy about weakening their own currencies to protect their fragile economies.
Source: reuters.com
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Euro Sees Mixed Results Versus Major Counterparts
The European Central Bank said Eurozone's annual rate of growth of M3 eased to 2.5% in August from 3% in July. The annual rate was smaller than the expected 2.7%.
The French consumer confidence index improved to minus 36 in September from minus 37 in August, the statistical office Insee said Friday. That was in line with expectations. The indicator rose for the second straight month.
German consumer confidence for October improved to 4.3 points from a revised value of 3.8 points in September, the latest monthly survey from GfK Group showed Friday.
The euro moved near its overnight levels against the dollar, trading close to 1.4670 in the early afternoon. The euro hit a three-day low of 1.4618 yesterday after hitting a yearly high of 1.4843.
A Commerce Department report showed that new home sales rose 0.7 percent to an annual rate of 429,000 in August from a revised 426,000 in July. Economists had expected sales to increase by 1.6 percent to 440,000 from the 433,000 originally reported for the previous month.
The euro rallied to a 5 1/2-month high of 0.9218 against the British pound, continuing a recent assault. The common currency has been trending higher for two weeks.
Total business investment in the UK dropped a seasonally adjusted 10.2% sequentially in the second quarter, better than a 10.4% fall estimated previously. Economists expected the decline to be 10.4%. In the first quarter, investments were down a revised 8.9%.
The euro dipped to an 11-day low of 131.57 against the Japanese yen. The European currency has been trending lower since Wednesday.
by RTT Staff Writer
Source: rttnews.com