Blogging

I have just arrived this morning from Manila, Philippines! Back from a week of holidaying around the Islands: Specifically around the Manila and Cebu cities. The weather was good. Tropical but it was their monsoon, so it was raining heavily every now and then. Except for Cebu. Cebu had perfect tropical weather. Blue skies. Warm air. And now I'm back in this fridge we call Sydney :) It was indeed a well needed break from the markets as well as from reality. Blogging will be back on schedule soon.

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The BHP stock price has fallen considerably over the past week given the dramatic falls in commodity process this week. BHP closed the week much lower at $28.74 compared to last week's close of $31.72. Given the recent price movements BHP still remains my favourite stock to trade because of its liquidity and volatility.

It's important to have some sort of benchmark when you are trading forex or stocks - or any other commodity. Setting a benchmark is like comparing yourself against the average in an exam. If you are higher than the average - you're an above average student. Lower than that mean that you're lower then your peers. It helps motivate you perform your best in your trading as well as keep you focused at what your target should be to make your trading worthwhile.

There are so many scam artists out there, and in the share trading game a lot of people are promoting their 'secrets' and their 'mastery programs' on how to succeed in the markets. I was surfing around recently and I found this article about wealth creation gurus. I don’t claim to be one. I’m my own person, I’m here to prove nothing and I’m here to give some commentary on my thoughts about trading and perhaps give my readers an insight into my trading style. It is important that you do your due diligence before you are pressured to sign up to one of those courses… find out if the company is reputable, who is the founder and why are they selling their strategy? Whenever I do go to these hard-sell seminars - you know those free seminars that they give out, the question that always lies in my mind is that - are they for real? Why are they doing it?

Let's take a some time out from talking about uranium, stocks and Telstra. It's ANZAC Day here in Australia today so the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is closed for the day. ANZAC Day is celebrated on the "25th of April every year to honour the bravery and sacrifice of the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), and of all those who served their country. The ANZAC tradition began during World War I with a landing in 1915 at Gallipoli on the Turkish Aegean coast."

Every order that goes through the CMC Markets system is given a sequential number. I found the numbers interesting because given that it was 11pm at night, and the Aussie Markets were closed (while the US markets were just opening), the difference of both my orders to enter and exit the trade was 1676. That means 1676 transactions in the CMC markets platform was performed in the 30 minutes I was in the market. I wonder how many orders CMC markets process every day?

I personally don't trade the European markets but it seems like they're on the up and up. The ASX recently breaking the 5000 barrier and the Australian dollar falling due to the falling interest rate differential between the Aussie and US rates. Anyway, similar pressures abound the European markets, with interest rates also affecting the market there. Here is the summary of European market indexes overnight: The German DAX 30 edged up 0.4 per cent at 5,914, the French CAC 40 rose 0.6 per cent at 5,180 and the UK FTSE 100 rose 0.4 per cent at 5,959.

Save $18 Use This Ticket To Give You Free Entry into the Sydney Investment Expo (And also the Franchise and Property Expo too): There seems to be an excess of seminars and other events related to this industry occurring in Sydney at the moment. It was kind of dead for the past 3 months, now you've got financial companies coming out giving free seminars about retail trading products and services, giving you the sell on their own 2 day seminars that go for $2,000 or $3,000 a pop. Is it worth it?

I received an offer through the post of 6.40% p.a. interest on any new deposits on top of my current deposits for a three month promotional period with INGDirect. INGDirect's current interest rate is 5.40% p.a. meaning if you invest in this technique you would get $54 for every $1000 you deposit a year. But let's say you got suckered into this promotion and you had a spare $2000 lying in your other bank account. So you log onto their internet banking website and transfer over your $2000, lured by the additional 1% p.a. offering that INGDirect was promoting. Now that additional $2000 over the three month period that the promotional interest rate is valid for will earn you $32. ($2000 x 6.4% x 3 / 12)