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What’s Your Trading Blood Type? -#AnirudhSethi

Have you ever wondered what your trading blood type is? What about the type of trader that best suits you? What’s Your Trading Blood Type? will help answer these questions and more. It provides a personality quiz that identifies your trading style, as well as an in-depth explanation for each one. The quiz also compares your results to other common types of traders. It’s never been easier to figure out what kind of trader you are!

##What is a Trading Blood Type?:

The ability to observe the experiences of different traders is one of my greatest luxuries. I have learned that it’s possible for brokers in this business, over time, to match certain? blood types? with their correct trading diet. This isn’t meant medically but more figuratively; there are many variables that come into play when dealing with trades and we’ve found a way around these elements by matching blood type (in its metaphorical sense) with trader profile so that they can adopt an appropriate approach without wasting valuable capital or risking too much risk suddenly closing out profitable positions prematurely as well as holding on blindly through losers until all hope seems lost.

“Can’t tell what type of trader you are? That’s ok! It doesn’t take a magician to determine blood types based on personality. This is all about determining your capital, experience level, and risk profile so we can prescribe the perfect diet for just you.”

With the help of a trained expert, it’s not too difficult to prescribe an individual with their best trading type based on their personality. This is done by identifying what they have more success at and then prescribing them food that’ll work for this specific person as well as taking into account factors like capital, experience level, risk profile, and schedule.

##How to determine your blood and diet type?: (more…)

Copper and silver prices spike as governments decarbonize

Money is flowing into the markets for such materials as copper, silver and aluminum on growing demand thanks to a shift to renewable energy and electric cars.

The trend was triggered by solid demand in China, which brought the COVID-19 pandemic under control ahead of other countries. Now investors around the world are trying to get ahead of the curve on the so-called green cycle poised to lift the commodity markets over the long term.

Three-month copper futures on the London Metal Exchange, the global benchmark, hit a seven-year high earlier this month. With the price at $7,984.50 per ton as of Friday, copper futures have risen about 80% from a low in March when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in China.

Ever since the spread of infections settled down there, the Chinese government has been propping up the economy through public works investment and other steps. “In China, there is a shortage of many industrial products, and this is spreading to materials,” said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at Japanese commodities consultancy Market Risk Advisory.

China’s monthly imports of copper ingots and related products are well above year-earlier levels in volume terms. Meanwhile, many mines in South America and elsewhere have been forced to cut output due to COVID-19 infections. (more…)

Why Africa is now the biggest new market for forex trading

Forex trading is on the rise in Africa

FX
In recent years there has been a significant rise in demand for forex trading in Africa, with the majority of the estimated 1.3 million traders in Africa residing in South Africa and Nigeria.

Not only is the number of traders and investors across Africa increasing, but the number of foreign investors is also on the rise, strengthening Africa’s currencies as well as the economy greatly.

With the South African Rand being one of the top 20 most traded currencies in the world at the moment, Africa offers one of the largest markets for forex trading globally.

Some of the world’s largest forex brokers, such as FXTM and HotForex, have become regulated with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) of South Africa, one of the most respected financial authorities in the industry.

With the increase in forex trading in Africa, the FSCA has responded responsibly and enforced a new licensing regime known as the Over the Counter Derivative Provider license (ODP).

The ODP forces all brokers with a local presence to provide transaction data such as price, instrument type, leverage ratios as well as the name and residence of the investor, to the FSCA to ensure safe and legal trading practices.

The FSCA allows these brokers to offer services not only in South Africa, but also to other African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.


The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) enforced new restriction laws on the maximum leverage ratios allowed for European traders, forcing traders to look to other markets.

These new restrictions only allow leverage ratios of 30:1 for major currency pairs, 20:1 for non-major currency pairs and gold, and 2:1 for cryptocurrencies. Leverage ratios as low as these have a massive negative impact on potential profits.

Added to this, the provision of bonuses, promotions and binary options was also banned.

The FSCA allows brokers to offer unlimited leverage ratios, which can potentially maximise funds greatly, and has led to more residents being prompted to start trading the African markets.

Although there are minor restrictions in some African countries to prevent fraudulent activities, there is no complete forex trading ban in Africa, which allows nearly anyone to profit from these ever-growing markets.

Recent lockdown measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting unemployment have prompted people to explore new opportunities to earn money.

The forex market is easily accessible, holds endless opportunities to make money with little required capital and traded 24 hours, five days a week, allowing people to trade either full-time or part-time.

Where forex trading was always expensive and originally done by large companies and high net-worth investors, it is now more affordable than ever, with some brokers charging no minimum deposits and minimal banking fees.

Another incentive to enter the world of forex trading is the multitude of free tools to ensure success, such as trading courses, demo accounts and webinars that educate beginners on how to trade, use strategies and analyse markets.

Trading is made easy with the internet becoming more accessible across the African continent. All one needs is a smart phone, pc, laptop or tablet, and a good internet connection, to trade from anywhere in Africa and the rest of the world.

The Richest Man in Babylon Rules

the richest man in babylonThe Richest Man in Babylon is a great little personal finance book set as an ancient fictional tale that explains the ‘The Seven Cures to a Lean Purse’ and ‘The Five Rules of Gold’.

The Seven Cures to a Lean Purse:

  1. Start thy purse to fattening. Pay yourself first. Save money before you pay any bills.
  2. Control thy expenditures. Don’t spend every penny you make or you will be broke no matter how high your income becomes.
  3. Make thy gold multiply. Invest capital in assets that go up in value.
  4. Guard thy treasures from loss. Your number one priority is to keep your investment capital safe from loss.
  5. Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment. Buy a home in the right location as a hedge against inflation and to create equity and ownership over the long term.
  6. Insure a future income. Convert your earned income into assets that can create future case flow.
  7. Increase thy ability to earn. Grow your earning power through education, building skills, gaining experience in a field, or promotions to higher levels of responsibility.

The Five Laws of Gold:

  1. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family. Save 10% of your income each time you are paid and convert it to investment capital.
  2. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field. Invest your capital for growth and compounding.
  3. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling. Find a successful model or system to copy for investing your money.
  4. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. Never put money in something you don’t fully understand.
  5. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment. This fastest way to go broke is to try to get rich quick.

Gildead drug Remdesivir flops in first trial – report

Stocks fall on the report

The FT is out with a report. This news has taken down the entire market and USD/JPY.
From the FT, which cites WHO documents that were briefly and mistakenly published on the WHO website.
A potential antiviral drug for the coronavirus has flopped in its first randomised clinical trial, disappointing scientists and investors who had high hopes for remdesivir, according to draft documents published accidentally by the World Health Organization and seen by the Financial Times.The Chinese trial showed remdesivir – developed by California-based Gilead Sciences – did not improve patients’ condition or reduce the pathogen’s presence in the bloodstream. Researchers studied 237 patients, giving the drug to 158 and comparing their progress with the remaining 79.

Indonesia central bank says in discussion with Fed for possibility of swap, repo lines

The dollar squeeze in emerging markets is where the problem is at

Indonesia is one of the EM countries where they have higher dollar-denominated debt than they do FX reserves. That is not a good spot to be in during this kind of market environment.

The swap lines offered by the Fed is good to address the needs by local banks on the receiving end as they start to run empty on dollars.
However, the true value of the Fed’s liquidity measures relies on how banks can also help get these dollars to corporates for their working capital requirements or cash buffers.

How effective is all of this remains to be seen but at least there is no reoccurrence of the dollar panic that we saw a few weeks back so that is something I guess.

Bank of America revises global GDP forecast to weakest since 2009

Thursday note from Bank of America / Merrill Lynch

  • Project global growth for 2020 at 2.8%
  • slowest since 2009
  • Expect China to be weakest since 1990
And …
  • risks are still skewed to the downside
  • Our forecasts do not include a global pandemic that would basically shut down economic activity in many major cities
And, just thinking out loud …. does the coronavirus mean the yield curve inversion was right all along?

What were the financial lessons of the 2010s?

The next decade is often different from the prior one

The next decade is often different from the prior one
“Financial markets tend to base their expectations of the future on the experiences of the recent past”
That’s a part of human nature that has repeatedly led to folly. Nowhere moreso than in financial markets.
We’ve started a new decade with the same enthusiasm that ended one of the greatest decades in stock markets. Yet few people are out there to remind market participants that the S&P 500 had an average annual total return of negative 0.95% from 2000 through 2009.
One is the WSJ’s Jason Zweig who wrote the Heard on the Street column edited the latest edition of Benjamin Graham’s classic the Intelligent Investor.
In a recent article he highlighted how investors (and traders) tend to pile into trades that have worked recently. A parallel from the 2000s decade as the carry trade. Buying NZD/JPY was a spectacular trade, until it wasn’t. In the most-recent decade the market fell in love with the US dollar.
Market patterns don’t reverse in 10-year cycles like clockwork; there’s no guarantee that the coming decade will be the opposite of the one that just ended. But before you bet that the future will be like the past, it’s worth remembering that this decade hasn’t turned out the way investors predicted it would 10 years ago.
Here is how FX returns looked in the past 10 years:
FX returns from the past decade
What that doesn’t include is emerging markets. The South African rand lost 48%, the Russian ruble 52%, the Brazilian real 56.5% and the Turkish lira 75%.

Morgan Stanley fires four FX traders after concealing $100-$140m loss

Traders may have mismarked emerging markets trades

Morgan Stanley has fired or placed on leave four FX traders suspected of mismarking trades linked to emerging market currencies, Bloomberg reports.
The New York and London-based traders are part of a probe into mismarked trades that concealed a loss of $100-$140 million and is related to options trades.