Real-Forex News & Analysis 27.2.2013

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EUR-USD
Date: 26/02/2013 Time: 19:46 Price: 1.3047
Strategy: Short
Graph 4 hours
Quote previous review:
The pair makes a great move toward its target of a graphic format called “head and shoulders” (look at brown background), the level of 1.3000. You can see a breaking of the neck of this template (purple dotted line), and it going down to the support level, an accurate testing of 1.3166, also an increase of the bottom line of the neck, all of these in order to see whether it can switch roles from a support to resistance level and a make a sharp decline, while creating a new low structure of the falling prices of the last downtrend movement which began at the level of 1.3711. As long as the price structure does not changes, any move in an upwards direction, will signal us about a technical correction during the future declines.
Current Review today:
During the last trading day, the buyers tried to make a little lift of their positions,while they lean on a support level of 1.3039, but so far, their efforts have not been successful. We can see that any of these attempts to make the priceincrease, has left a long tail after it. On the other hand,no candle hasn’t yet closed below the support level and are still holding on for now. The high ofthis will initially target the graphic formation of “head and shoulders”price structure, the level of 1.3000. As long as the falling price structure does not changes, any move upwardsis going to be only a technical correction during the declines ahead.
You can see the graph here:
 

GBP-USD
Date: 26/02/2013 Time: 23:03 Price: 1.5128
Strategy: Short / Long
Graph 4 hours
Quote previous review:
A descending price structure indicates us about a continues downwards movement, while you can see the moving average of the Bollinger bands which protects the sellers from many attempts of the buyers to change the direction and a failure of the last to close a candle above it. On the other hand, the price stays, for the second time, over the lip of the parallel descending channel (fragmented red lines) and a creation of an increasing price structure, during it basing above the moving average of the Bollinger bands, might send the price to a deep technical correction of the downtrend which has started at the level of 1.5828, between one third and two thirds of it by the Fibonacci bar.
Current Review today:
Price continues to be supported by the 1.5070 level, but again reaching the moving average of the Bollinger bands, stopped and now it makes its way to the last mentionedlow level. The high point of this downtrend is going to be continued, while preserving the structure of fallingprices. However, blocking the price above the level of 1.5070 and breaking the last record level of 1.5219, might create an initial price rising structure which is likely to move upwards thento correct the downtrend which has began at the level of 1.5828, between one third and two thirds of it by the Fibonacci bar.
You can see the graph here:

Business Opportunities in HealthCare Market in India

The healthcare sector in India is growing fast. The sector is currently estimated to be worth US$ 65 billion and is expected to reach US$ 100 billion by 2015, according to the rating agency Fitch. The growth in the sector comes due to- increasing population, growing lifestyle-related health issues, economic treatment, rising incomes, government initiatives, etc.

India is the first country to have a large number of multinational healthcare providers. This rapidly developing industry in India has led to a qualitative shift in patient demands. This has resulted in centers of medical excellence developing and acquiring the latest medical equipment to treat their domestic and international patients.

Due to the development in the rural areas, people even in the villages are now become more conscious about their health issues. They are opting for more health benefits for safe and diseases free existence. This will create huge investment opportunities in the sector.

Opportunities for investment in Healthcare

Healthcare infrastructure: A huge amount of private capital will be required in the coming years to meet infrastructure needs of healthcare in India. An additional 2 million beds are required for India to bridge the gap and prepare for demand estimations in 2025. The government is expected to contribute only 15-20 per cent of the total, providing a vast opportunity for private players to fill the gap.

Diagnostic & Pathology Services: High cost difference in India allows for outsourcing of pathology and laboratory tests by international hospital chains

Telemedicine: There is a vast opportunity for investment in telemedicine as it provides rural areas access to better quality healthcare.

Medical tourism: Medical tourism in India has also received a boost with the arrival of patients from different countries. According to industry estimates, the market size of medical tourism is estimated to be around US$ 2.5 billion and is growing at over 25 per cent per annum. Hence, create enormous investment opportunities in India.

Contract Research: Contract research is a rapidly growing segment in the Indian health care industry. Foreign players are entering into contract research to reduce their operational and clinical cost.

Health Insurance: Increasing healthcare cost and burden of new diseases along with low government funding has raised the demand for health insurance coverage. Less than 15 per cent of the Indian population is covered through health insurance. With the increasing demand for affordable quality healthcare in India, the penetration of health insurance is poised to grow rapidly in the coming years.

Major Growth Drivers

  • 100 per cent FDI is permitted for all health-related services under the automatic route.
  • Lower tariffs and higher depreciation on medical equipment.
  • Income tax exemption for five years to hospitals in rural areas, Tier II and Tier III cities.
  • Increasing penetration of health insurance.
  • High-growth in medical tourism.

About the Author

Harjeet is an Indian – born mass-market novelist, who covers the world internet related topics. He writes columns and articles for various websites and internet journals in the domain of Investments and Investing in India.

 

Revealed: Inside a Share Trader’s Den

By MoneyMorning.com.au

I thought I’d spend today taking you through an actual share trade that I sent to my Slipstream Trader members last year. We’re still in the trade so I won’t reveal the actual stock code, but it won’t take a genius to work out which stock it is.

Therefore I have to add that this is not a recommendation to buy this particular stock right now. For me the opportunity to buy this stock with a very good risk/reward has passed. We have already taken part profit on the share trade and adjusted our stop losses so that none of our initial capital is at risk in this trade going forward.

Buying the stock now would be a completely different trade with a different set of risk and return characteristics. I want to point this out so you don’t mistake this article for a recommendation to buy the stock.

The purpose of this article is simply to give you some practical insight into how I go about selecting trades on the Australian share market

Analysing the Price Action

This company is an oil and gas company worth well north of a billion dollars. I’ve liked the stock for the past few years and have actually traded in and out of the stock for profit on multiple occasions before this trade occurred in June last year.

When making a decision to enter a stock I need to have both the fundamentals and technicals going my way. I think it’s necessary to combine the two in any trading decision because relying on one or the other means you are only reading part of the story of the stock.

The volatility of stock prices is so intense that a purely fundamental approach will often get you into trouble. That’s because the volatility will either shake you out of the stock at the wrong time or you’ll need to risk a large portion of the stock’s price since you have no idea of when you’re proven wrong.

On the other hand, being purely technical means that you could end up playing with fire by buying a stock that is fundamentally unsound.

Here’s a weekly chart of the stock in question going back nearly ten years:

Weekly Price Chart

Source: Slipstream Trader

I’ve included some horizontal lines on the chart to show you how I analyse the stock’s price technically. The key levels are the solid blue lines based on the range created all the way back in 2006 between $1.00 and $1.64. The dotted line in between is called the ‘point of control’ and is what I see as the gravitational point around which all of the subsequent price action oscillates.

Using this method I have a point of reference for analysing the past ten year’s price action.

It’s very interesting to note that the low reached in 2010/2011 was exactly 61.8% (A Fibonacci level) below the upper distribution. This relationship is a very important one. Based on this relationship we bought this stock at 74c and rode it up to over $1.00 in late 2010 to early 2011.

I think it’s an amazing thing to see that there is a set of underlying relationships that explain this stock’s entire price move over a period of ten years. If you understand this relationship it becomes far easier to see where an opportunity lies and where danger lurks.

When looking at the chart above where would you like to have bought the stock over the past year?

Slipstream Trade Entry Point

Source: Slipstream Trader

The point at ‘X’ on the right side of the chart is where we bought this stock, based on a retest of the bottom of the major distribution that the stock had been in for years. The most important thing to note is that the risk taken on the trade was only 20% of the stock’s price. The entry point was $1.05 and the stop loss was set at $0.85.

In fact the stock sold off to $0.895c after we entered the stock, just 4.5c above our stop loss. I think this shows that the stop loss level was set at the right level to withstand a move against us.

The initial profit target was set at around $1.30 because that price was equal to the stock’s ‘point of control’. The probability was high that we would at least see a return to the point of control and therefore taking part profit at that level makes sense.

We took a third profit at that level and adjusted the stop loss to a point where, if the stock hit it, we wouldn’t have lost any of our initial capital. So from that point on we effectively had a free option to see what would happen to the stock.

By creating the free option it lowers our stress to a negligible level. We know that we’ll either make money or lose nothing, so we can relax and let the stock do its thing.

The Keys to Trading the Equity Market

Ultimately the aim of the game is to plant as many of these seeds as possible and then sit back and hope that one of them goes ballistic and hands us some big gains. You never know which ones will be a home run but you can be pretty confident that sooner or later you will get a few king hits.

We will take some more profit if the stock hits the next profit taking level so that we’ll be certain of at least making some money on the trade or making even more money. That’s a very powerful position to be in.

Fundamentally the stock has exposure to some serious upside in the form of shale gas so this may be the beginning of even bigger gains. We’re now in the box seat to participate in those gains without having a heart attack every time the stock pulls back in price.

Hopefully this gives you some insight into the decision making process involved in trading the equity market. There are a hell of a lot of moving parts, so you need to whittle the noise down to some overriding principals that make sense. Then you can enact a strategy based on probabilities and risk management…rather than your gut feelings, which are often wrong.

Murray Dawes
Editor, Slipstream Trader

Murray Dawes
Editor, Slipstream Trader

From the Port Phillip Publishing Library

Special Report: The Gold Mirror of Kaieteur Falls

Daily Reckoning: Why Italy’s Gold Hoard Tells You the Precious Metal is Ridiculously Cheap

Money Morning: Where to Find Value in this Rising Stock Market

Pursuit of Happiness: ‘Let Them Eat Horse’

The Arckaringa Basin Could Be the Largest Shale Oil Find of All Time

By MoneyMorning.com.au

Over the past few days, I have released information on what could be the largest shale oil find ever recorded.

It’s located in an area of Australia called the Arckaringa Basin and contains as much as 233 billion barrels (or more) of recoverable shale oil.

That’s more than all of the estimated oil in Iran, Iraq, Canada, or Venezuela. And it’s just 30 billion barrels shy of the estimated reserves in all of Saudi Arabia.

The discovery at the Arckaringa basin is so big it’s already prompting some observers to begin talking about energy independence for Australia, much in the same way Americans did after similar discoveries in the Bakken, Marcellus, Eagle Ford, and Utica basins.

And there is one small company that controls what is shaping up to be the biggest worldwide oil project to hit in decades.

The Opportunity in the Arckaringa Basin

It’s a company called Linc Energy.

That a company this small is in the driver’s seat in a find this big is one of the major new wrinkles in these mega-projects.

It used to be (and we are only talking about four or five years back), that the top international majors would be calling the shots on mega- billion dollar projects like this one.

But what’s happening in the Arckaringa Basin is occurring more frequently – especially in this part of the South Pacific.

Today, small cap companies are controlling access to some of the biggest shale projects on the planet, requiring the big boys to rethink their strategies.

These developments provide individual investors some major opportunities to buy into projects with small companies at low cost or ride in on the backs of the majors and oil field service producers coming in.

And if you learn the right way to invest, there is some serious money to be made down under.

Both shale/tight oil and shale gas have significantly changed the hydrocarbon production landscape. Until recently, the emphasis has been on North American production.

However, studies from the US Geological Survey, the International Energy Agency, and even OPEC itself have all concluded shale oil and gas is prevalent elsewhere in the world.

And that has led to new targets for major development.

The Shale Oil Boom Continues Down Under

For example, a second event is unfolding just north of Australia, where another small company just happens to control access to a massive project. This one is in Papua New Guinea, and it has some of the largest international majors just drooling over the idea of being involved.

However, the parade of big companies seeking a piece of significant projects controlled by much smaller operators hardly ends there, especially in this part of the world.

Chevron once again made news by announcing it had agreed to pay as much as $349 million to join Australian minnow Beach Energy in two separate projects.

Both are shale gas plays – one in South Australia and the other in Queensland.

Now despite the huge projects Chevron already runs further west (the ones I know quite well from my work there), these two new concessions amount to the company’s first foray into Australian shale gas.

These are Cooper basin developments, where several projects are into producing shale gas. Chevron is likely to take over controlling interest (as much as 60% in the first), while settling for a bit more than a third in the second. Beach Energy is an Adelaide-based producer.

The parade of internationals moving into Australian projects continues. Chevron joins the likes of US companies ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) and Hess (NYSE: HES), Norwegian major Statoil (NYSE: STO) and U.K.’s BG Group (OTC: BRGYY).

To sweeten the pot, the Australian government has recently estimated there may be as much as 400 trillion cubic feet (11.3 trillion cubic meters) of shale gas in the country.

So don’t be surprised if there are more such announcements of more big projects controlled by small local companies coming in the near future.

As for the massive find in the Arckaringa Basin, the real investment play is with the companies coming in to provide the essential working capital for field development and to provide the essential field services to pull it all off.

Dr. Kent Moors
Contributing Editor, Money Morning

Join Money Morning on Google+

Publisher’s Note: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in Money Morning (USA)

From the Archives…

The Biggest Crisis to Hit the Stock Market Since the Last One
22-02-2013 – Kris Sayce

My Wife and Warren Buffett
21-02-2013 – Kris Sayce

How a Share Trader Approaches the Market
20-02-2013 – Murray Dawes

The Poster-Child for the US Shale Gas Revolution
19-02-2013 – Dr. Alex Cowie

The Two-Dimensional Diamond That’s Set to Turn Your World Upside Down
18-02-2013 – Dr. Alex Cowie

A Quiz For Gold Lovers

By MoneyMorning.com.au

‘The city’s accomplishments are difficult to believe, even as you watch them materialize. It’s a place that mercilessly taunts the pessimist.’

– Jim Krane, City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism

Let’s start with a little quiz. See how many you get right:

Who holds the majority of US government debt?

a) China
b) Japan
c) USA

What percentage of products consumed in the US are produced in the US?

a) 25.3%
b) 58.6%
c) 88.5%

What percentage of products consumed in the US are produced in China?

a) 78.6%
b) 23.8%
c) 2.7%

Richard Poulden posed these questions in his annual letter. I met Richard for lunch at the Blue Rain restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in Dubai. He is an ace at turning nothing into something in the mining world.

Richard built up Sirius Exploration, a potash concern, from a mere $3 million to a company worth over $460 million. Investors made over 800%. Today, he is trying to do it all over again as the founder and executive chairman of Wishbone Gold.

Riding the Back of Cheap Energy

Richard is one of those entrepreneurial characters that one seems to find often in Dubai. My friend Peter Cooper, whom I like to call ‘our man in Dubai’ and who edits ArabianMoney, made the introduction.

All three of us sat at a table behind a glass wall situated behind the hotel’s 10-story waterfall and enjoyed excellent Thai food as we talked about the markets.

Poulden has a definite point of view on the markets, which is worth sharing. And that brings us back round to those questions.

The answer is c) in every case.

‘China actually holds only around 7.5% of US debt,’ Richard writes, anticipating surprise that China isn’t the answer to the first question. ‘The vast majority is held by US institutions and individuals.’

The second and third questions also may surprise you. Most of what the US consumes the US makes. And there is little dependence on China for anything. ‘The point here,’ Richard says, ‘is that this shows you just how disconnected the US economy actually is from the rest of the world.’

Richard is a gold and silver man. He is not one to trust the value of paper currencies. He is also aware of the debt issues of the US. Still, he believes the US will be okay. ‘I know they don’t deserve it,’ he says of the US, ‘but it is all going to come right. Never underestimate the underlying strength of the American economy.’

I would agree with this. The big reason why Richard thinks this way will be familiar to long-time readers. ‘Yes, the shale/hard rock oil and gas reserves under the US are going to make them a net energy exporter in a couple of years,’ he writes. ‘They can once again ignore world energy prices.’

Second, but related, is the comeback of American manufacturing. ‘Forget cheap labour,’ says Richard, ‘in modern manufacturing, the cost of energy is almost always the key, and this will prove to be America’s salvation.’

Based on these things, Richard ‘can see how a US recovery on the back of cheap energy, regardless of the debt, could happen.’

At lunch, we talked about China too. ‘If China is not already the world’s largest economy,’ Richard says, ‘it is certainly the most influential.’ China has accounted for most of global growth since 2002.

Richard travels quite a bit to China. He acknowledges China has slowed down, but it is still growing quickly. He seems unconcerned about a crash in China and, instead, points to the phenomenal growth potential.

‘China will be OK, and the rest of the world will benefit from this,’ he says. He has no such rosy view on Europe.

Two Suffering Markets: Short One, Go Long the Other

The EU suffers from the same debt problems that plague so many developed markets.

But Richard believes the economies of the EU are fundamentally broken. They require a restructuring ‘like turning around a failed company.’ He doesn’t see that happening and so believes there will be no recovery in the EU.

‘There’s that old joke that goes, ‘I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather… not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus,” Richard says. ‘Unfortunately, for those in Europe at least, if you are not screaming already, it is time to start.’

Richard is a keen observer of financial markets, but also an active participant as a builder of companies. We talked about the travails of the junior resource sector – all those little penny stocks that speculators love so much.

Like me, Richard has a dim view of the sector at large. Most management teams don’t own much stock and don’t particularly care whether their projects become real mines or not. They mostly want to just keep raising money and advance the project. In this way, they can continue to pay themselves.

There are always exceptions, however, and one can make a lot of money backing the right guys. Richard has a track record here, as I’ve mentioned, and a new company called Wishbone Gold. (Richard owns nearly 29% of the stock.)

Right now times are really bad in the junior mining world. People seem fearful to do anything. All of these stocks have come way down. Here is a three-month chart of the GDXJ, for instance, which is made up of little gold mining stocks:

three-month chart of the GDXJ

It’s been brutal. For a broader perspective, consider that the GDXJ was $40 in May 2011. It is $16 today. As I noted at the time of its peak in the summer of 2011, the commodity bull market was on its last legs. It’s been a swift and nasty down draft for many natural resource stocks since.

No trend goes on forever, however. In this mix of dumped shares, there are some good projects trading at super-cheap prices. I said that I would expect mergers and acquisitions to cure this, as larger gold companies buy out these projects on the cheap.

Richard agreed, and, in fact, this is what his new company Wishbone aims to do. Wishbone Gold went public in July. As described on the company’s website, Wishbone will be a ‘consolidator of gold projects with commercial potential globally.’

The site also adds that, ‘Wishbone Gold has commenced this process through the acquisition of two highly prospective gold licenses in Queensland, Australia and continues to assess the prospectivity [sic] of a pipeline of opportunities.’

Let me end with a question of my own. Of the following, which was the best place to put your money over the last 12 months?

a) NASDAQ
b) Wal-Mart
c) Bank of America

The answer is c) Bank of America, which was up 45%. The NASDAQ was up 7%, and Wal-Mart was up 19%. Certainly, Bank of America would’ve been a tough choice a year ago. Banks were unpopular and remain unpopular – as do gold stocks. But that’s where future outperformance comes from.

Investors in gold shares, take heart.

Chris Mayer
Contributing Editor, Money Morning

From the Archives…
Join Money Morning on Google+
The Biggest Crisis to Hit the Stock Market Since the Last One
22-02-2013 – Kris Sayce

My Wife and Warren Buffett
21-02-2013 – Kris Sayce

How a Share Trader Approaches the Market
20-02-2013 – Murray Dawes

The Poster-Child for the US Shale Gas Revolution
19-02-2013 – Dr. Alex Cowie

The Two-Dimensional Diamond That’s Set to Turn Your World Upside Down
18-02-2013 – Dr. Alex Cowie

EURUSD stays within a downward price channel

EURUSD stays within a downward price channel on 4-hour chart, and remains in downtrend from 1.3519. Key resistance is now located at the upper line of the channel, as long as the channel resistance holds, the downtrend could be expected to continue, and next target would be at 1.2900 area. On the upside, a clear break above the channel resistance will suggest that a cycle bottom has been formed at 1.3018, and the downtrend from 1.3519 has completed, then another rise towards 1.4000 could be seen.

eurusd

Daily Forex Forecast

How to Get Started Trading Binary Options for Forex Traders

If you’re a Forex trader, you probably have some questions about binary options. Luckily, the transition from the world of trading currencies into becoming a binary options trader is actually quite simple. A lot of the same principles can be transferred from one area to the other, and this makes binary options very popular amongst people with experience in Forex trading. Here is a quick guide designed to help make your switch to be as smooth as possible.

1. Start with what you know

If you’ve been trading the EUR/USD pair in the Forex market, start out by trading this as a binary option. The switch here will be as painless as possible and you will find that you will be more successful at first by doing this than if you were to try trading something that you didn’t know. However, something that a lot of new binary options traders forget is that time is important too.

If you were a Forex position trader, odds were you didn’t make 100 trades per day. With binary options, this mistake is pretty easy to make since 60 second options are becoming so popular. If you only made a few big trades per day, stick to this method.

Going from a meticulous plotted out approach where you make five trades per day into a strategy where you’re making 50 trades per day with 60 second or five minute options is not going to be profitable. So stick with the assets you know, but also trade the timeframes that you know, too. Read more about getting into Binaries.

2. Pick the best times.

If you trade the USD/JPY pair regularly in the Forex market, you know that this particular pair is going to see the most amount of movement during the Asian trading day. So why would you make a bulk of your trades during the European business day? The big thing about binary options is that they move in real time, yet a lot of brokers don’t advertise trading volumes within their platform. This leads to people forgetting that some times are better than others to make trades.

Pick the time periods that make the most sense for you just as you would when trading Forex. If your asset will move most during the Asian trading hours, make sure you’re awake and ready when this market opens and closes so you can hop on when your asset is at its highest volume and predictability.

3. Capitalize on the trades with the biggest potential.

You wouldn’t trade a currency when you expect a move of one or two pips only, so why would you commit to an option with the same amount of information? If you stop trying to find tiny bits of movement and instead put more money into trades that have a higher probability of success with more expected motion, you will find that yes, you are making fewer trades per day, but the big payout will be that those few trades that you make are more likely to be correct.

Bettering your correct trade rate is more important to a binary options trader than making a ton of small trades with only modest profits. Think about it like this: if you can make five trades in a day and make $500, this is much better than making 20 trades per day and making $200. The former is more profitable with less effort on your behalf.

4. Branch out when you feel comfortable.

There’s a lot more to the binary options market than just trading currency movement. Someone with a firm grasp on what currency prices are doing is likely to be pretty good at reading other types of assets, too. Continue reading here to find out which brokers offer the most assets to trade. Obviously branching out requires more research on your behalf, but there are a lot of things that you probably already can predict well with little extra work.

For instance, the U.S. dollar and the price of an ounce of gold usually move in contrary ways. When one goes up, the other usually goes down. If your just trading currencies, you would miss out on this easy money maker. Also, a firm grasp on what a nation’s currency is doing says a lot about its major stock indices—which can also be easily traded from your binary options broker’s platform.

5. Never be complacent.

Just because you’re a good trader doesn’t mean that trading is easy. People with experience know that a good trader never rests on their laurels but is always learning more and studying to improve their techniques and ideas. Trading is an ongoing process and it is one that you will never fully master, no matter how much effort you put in.

Occasionally, you will be wrong, but you can also always learn from your mistakes so that you don’t make them a second time. This page will describe some common mistakes that are made by most traders.

Binary options are a great way for a Forex trader to supplement their income and increase diversity. A good Forex trader will likely be a good binary options trader if they remember these skills and apply them to their trading.

 

Hungary to cut rates again if inflation remains on target

By www.CentralBankNews.info     Hungary’s central bank, which earlier today cut its base rate for the seventh time in a row, said it would consider cutting rates further if the outlook for inflation remains in line with its 3.0 percent target and the improvement in financial market sentiment is sustained.
    The forward guidance by the National Bank of Hungary is exactly the same as in previous months. Since August 2012, the central bank has cut rates by 175 basis points with the rate now at 5.25 percent.
    “In the Monetary Council’s judgement, the economic data becoming available in the past month suggest that weak demand continues to exert a strong disinflationary impact on prices, and therefore companies will have limited ability to pass on higher production costs into prices,” the bank said.
    In addition, favorable financial market conditions may lead to a sustained fall in Hungarian asset prices which means that the bank’s inflation target can be met with looser monetary conditions.
    Hungary’s economy contracted by more than expected in the fourth quarter of 2012, the bank said, adding that it expects growth to resume this year, helped by better exports.
    “However, external, and domestic demand factors in particular, point to only modest growth in the period ahead,” the bank added.
    Hungary’s Gross Domestic Product contracted by 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, the fourth quarterly contraction in a row, for an annual drop of 2.7 percent, up from the third quarter’s annual decline of 1.5 percent.
        Last month the International Monetary Fund said in its annual review that Hungary’s economy was estimated to have shrunk by 1.5 percent in 2012 following a 1.7 percent expansion in 2011.

    The IMF also said that further rate cuts by Hungary’s central bank should be “considered very cautiously” as rate cuts are unlikely to have a material impact on aggregate demand, given the difficult operational environment for banks, and the foreign currency exposure of private and public balance sheets remains significant so any sizable currency depreciation could be destabilizing.
    Hungary’s headline inflation rate slowed more than expected in January, the bank said, attributing the decline to a wide range of goods and services, along with a marked slowdown in underlying inflation which may reflect the “stronger-than-expected disinflationary impact of weak domestic demand.”
    The inflation rate fell to 3.7 percent in January, down from December’s 5.0 percent but still above the central bank’s 3.0 percent target. Hungary’s inflation rate jumped last year due to higher indirect taxes, which triggered price hikes, a depreciation of the forint plus higher food prices from bad weather.
     The central bank said global risk appetite had remained strong over the past month, but the contrast between improved investor sentiment and the modest outlook for global growth remains a risk, a warning the bank also issued last month.
    The success of Hungary’s foreign currency-denominated bond issue had also reduced financing risks for the country and cooperation with the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund “might contribute to a further reduction in financing costs,” the bank said.

Italian Elections Weigh Heavy on Euro

By Richard Wiltshire – Chief of Foreign Exchange Dealing at ETX Capital

Total disappointment, bordering on total disbelief, in the Italian elections saw investors run for cover and widespread cutting of major “risk positions” in the euro and its crosses. Despite some stabilisation this morning, where the euro has tried to stage a fight back, the prevailing penchant to sell any rallies remains.

A timely reminder perhaps that the Euro Zone is far from out of the woods, with the lack of enthusiasm for austerity and reform (and Spanish and Greek debt problems rearing their ugly heads again of late) adding to the high level of political uncertainty and likely to cause wider and more volatile government bond spreads, thus weighing on the single currency in the coming weeks/months.

EURJPY was the catalyst as it collapsed circa 5% at one stage as “risk” trades, funded in the Yen, were unwound causing stops galore to be triggered and order books at large market making banks to be “cleaned out”.

Today’s market has a nervous, uneasy feeling that is being played out through knee-jerk reactions on  thinner than usual liquidity and a tendency for wider spreads , as can be the case after such disorderly moves.

So, to Italy, where Mr Berlusconi’s most popular election promise of offering to refund the property tax imposed by the previous Monti government, threatened at one point, to bring about one of the most unlikely comebacks.  What we have, in fact, is most likely the worst possible outcome.  No party is able to form a government, more elections are likely to be in the pipeline and uncertainty (the thing risk takers and markets seem to like the least) reigns.  Coalition(s) will need to be formed and deals will have to be done – with Signor Bersani more likely to favour an alliance with Grillo than Berlusconi, but Grillo stating co-operation with Bersani  is not something he would consider, and Berlusconi just glad to be back in the limelight and the thick of things and likely to be open for a hook up with anybody!  And all this in a country that is the third largest economy in the Euro zone, and where politicians have not exactly covered themselves in glory in the past.

All of a sudden, the new found “OMT” optimism towards the single currency of early January seems a lifetime ago, with Euro firmly back in the spotlight and “safe havens”  once again being actively sought out.  Expect many column inches to once again be dedicated to subjects such as “peripheral yields” and be wary of comments emanating from the European powerhouse Germany regarding the need to continue down the austerity and reform path that won’t exactly be met with open arms south of the Brandenberg Alps.

For EURUSD 1.3700 seems a distant memory and those who were getting excited about 1.40 and beyond, will be cursing their luck and now talking about 1.20, such is the nature of the market.

In reality 1.3000 is likely to be a key pivotal level and with the FED likely to remain on the dovish side of the tracks, talk of re-testing last summer’s lows seem to me to be premature.  Expect to see intraday stops filled on any break above 1.3130 but meet fresh sellers on any upticks to 1.3200/50 area, with a break below 1.3000 opening up 1.2910 and possibly leading to a test of 1.2840 support area, which may be deemed to offer “value” and be well defended.

Buona fortuna!

About the Author

Richard Wiltshire is Chief of Foreign Exchange Dealing at ETX Capital – a spread betting provider company in London.