Friday, April 16, 2010

The potential Chinese Gold Market will now be reached

This week GM’s Chinese operators there announced a 300% profit. Such growth in the car market evidences the growth in disposable income.   Within a decade we expect 2/3rd of China to be living in cities and earning far more than they are today. Their savings will go into the main banks and attracted to the products available for investment. To date investment choices have been extremely limited with straightforward savings leading the way. Carefully tailored gold products may well be attractive to such people.

New gold products will have to be tailored to the banking/savings environment and for home consumption. The branches of this bank reach into the far corners of China and will bring an existing distribution system to the world of gold, there.

This project has the potential to ‘mature’ the gold world in China and help to raise the per capita gold holding from the lowest in Asia [at 0.26 grams per capita] to close to the norm in places like Hong Kong.  This will involve at least a potential growth of up to 10+ times the present holding. Success will take the Chinese gold market on a rising slope from the current 347 tonnes annual demand to the world’s main gold market, overtaking India [peak – 850 tonnes] in the medium term [we think less than 5 years – it took the gold Exchange Traded Funds three years to build to 1,300 tonnes].

In China there are already Yuan, US. $, Yen, AU $, HK $, € deposit accounts so a ‘gold’ account at the local branch is a small extension for the saver there [thanks Professor!] in your regular local bank savings account.   We could see Chinese gold Exchange Traded Funds too, but the average saver in China is not a financial product/stock exchange knowledgeable individual, so simply understood products will lead the way.

Expect products that are bank controlled, lower purchasing costs, held in the bank for the investor. The main client base will likely be an existing I.C.B.C. client.  Gold demand will, therefore, grow in line with the growth of these towns and cities and the Chinese Middle classes. Just extending current growth levels into the future tells us such gold account growth will be dynamic and rapid.
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Gold - New Chinese Products to make it the leading world gold market?

We have long maintained that China’s gold market needs to be developed across the country and not just in the main centers. The elimination of the premium on the gold price ‘in the sticks’ compared to the main centers will evidence that their gold market is maturing. A simple press statement last week from the World Gold Council hides what we expect will bring about countrywide interest in gold right down to the middle-class rural centers.
 “The World Gold Council and the I.C.B.C. will explore and jointly develop new gold investment products tailored to the Chinese market, and conduct surveys and studies on the domestic retail gold investment market, facilitating financial innovation and product diversity.   In addition, W.G.C. & I.C.B.C. Precious Metals Business Department(s) will set up an I.C.B.C. /W.G.C. Gold Business Strategy Board to discuss and plan strategies for their cooperation, as well as an Action Team to oversee the implementation of the decisions and initiatives adopted by the Strategic Group”,

They remain tight-lipped about what these products will be nor do they give out any information on potential products. At the moment the W.G.C. are saying that the partnership came about as a ‘meeting of minds’ between the W.G.C. and the I.C.B.C. and a "shared vision". The products are under development right now.
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How to manage long term forex positions

When we discuss somethings about long-term forex trading,we often get asked by forex traders like titled question.The trader was in a long-term trade, was in profit, and then let the trade turn against him and take him out at a loss. You need to have a trading plan, follow your methodology and, most importantly, protect your profits. However, the term “profit” varies from trader to trader.  When most traders are in long-term trades, a mistake is often made by letting their losers run too far and cutting their profits too short.A currency pair we are currently watching (and in a long-term trade) is the AUD/USD. Although this pair may not overwhelmingly be the crowd favorite, the AUD/USD pair is a currency pair worth watching, researching and, if done correctly, trading.We have 17 technical parameters we look at and analyze when trading currencies. While we cannot go into our complete methodology in this article, we will go over some basic technical analysis to help determine potential entry, target areas and stop-loss prices.

After initial research, we determine the overall trend appears to remain bullish. Because this is long-term trading, we turn to Elliott wave analysis to help us determine where we are in relationship to the currency pair.

Developed by Ralph Nelson Elliott in the 1930s, the Elliott wave theory takes into account what we refer to as the “herd mentality” – movement revealing mass psychology swings from bullish to bearish and back again, which translates into specific wave patterns in price movements. Without diving too far into it, Elliott wave theory basically states the financial markets move and unfold in specific patterns.

Utilizing Elliott wave theory and formulas derived from Elliott wave principles, we can review the last upward swing on the hourly chart, starting from early February 2010 and calculate potential target and stop-loss prices.
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Friday, April 9, 2010

Tips and Resources for Forex Trading Success

The first one that would pop on top of anyone's head is the impressive amount of liquidity volume. An awe-inspiring sum of about 2 trillion dollars is being speculated everyday. That's a lot of money that changes hands and it, in turn, generates more money, similar to a snowball effect. The market is therefore very stable and it allows the traders to get the money in and out without any problems at all.

Then, there is the time table which is very convenient. The company offers an around the clock and very dynamic market. The trading begins on Sunday at 3 o'clock PM EST when New Zealand begins operating. It lasts until Friday 5 PM when EST when San Francisco closes operations. You can practically work in any time zone you desire.

It also has the advantage of a low initial investment. This is another appealing factor to people who consider starting trading. You will actually need a far smaller amount of money to get you on your way than in any other existing market. As little as 300$ can get you started. This basically means an absolutely minimum investment risk.

Then, you can trade from anywhere in the world and this is another important advantage. Worldwide trading allows you to make your trading offers from anywhere in the world, and all you need is a computer with and an internet connection. Your trusty laptop is all you need even if you plan your dream vacation but you still want to be able to do some trading in between two cocktails.

The market's specialization results in the majority of transactions being made in the most important seven currencies. This means that you will get good at it much faster than usual, and you will manage to get the feel of it in no time.

These five important advantages are what determine most people to consider starting a trading business. The risks involved are also worthy of attention, because if you are not aware of them, it's better that you stay away. It's not easy, but once you become an expert, Forex trading can turn into an impressive money making machine.
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A suggestion for beginners to the automated forex trading system

The forex market is, despite the popular impression, a composite of several contrasting markets, each of which sustains its own rules and regulations, with no one centered market in which all currency trading takes place. The major markets, the U.S., London, and Tokyo, open during different hours because of the different time zones. When the New York market opens, and while the European markets are still operating, is when trading is heaviest and nearly two thirds of the trading action happens during this convergence.
An individual exchange rate for a given currency does not subsist since there is no centred market. The bid and ask rates for a currency whilst normally reasonably close to each other, can, because of the over-the-counter (OTC) nature of the markets, deviate among dissimilar geographic markets and market makers.

Three letters express an international currency code for every currency and because the price of a currency must be applied in reference to another currency, it is displayed in the form XXX/YYY. The price of the British Pound in U.S. Dollars is recorded as GBP/USD, for instance. Acknowledged as the base currency, and the securest currency when the pair was made, is the first in the pair while the other currency is known as the counter currency. Presented in decimal form the real prices themselves are normally rounded to the nearest ten-thousandth of a unit.

Close to $2 trillion is exchanged each day in the forex market and it comprises the largest market in the world. With more than three quarters of deals surviving less than a week forex trading is, for the most part, a high-risk, short-term market. It is a highly fluid market, a good deal more so than equities, with the many traders worldwide and the very high daily turnover rate. The top ten most active traders, however, are responsible for nearly three quarters of total dealing volume. The trading activity that happens within the interbank market, which is formed by international banks, provide the market with bid and ask prices that are far closer than retail customers can get.

In 1972, at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, forex futures contracts, that are derivatives, were introduced and now make up around seven percent of the all foreign exchange volume. Something else that has also taken hold and is another popular hedging strategy is foreign exchange options. Investors often buy these derivatives, which are contracts to purchase currency at a certain price on a future date, to counterbalance the decline in the price of a currency and any possible losses they might endure.

An additional means by which traders are capable of mitigating risk is through an exchange, in which both parties agree to switch one currency for another for a set period of time, and will then reverse the transaction after the period runs out.
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Monday, April 5, 2010

Some special reasons why people resort to refinance loans

One of the main reasons why people resort to refinance loans is because the heavy installments they have to pay are a burden. It often happens that at the time when the house is being bought, the interest rates are high. Thus, we end up paying large amounts as interest in addition to the monthly payments on the loan. In the course of time, interest rates will decrease sometime in the future or another. At such times, it might be a good move to go shopping for refinance loans that charge lower rates of interest. This would help us to actually reduce the amounts that we pay every month toward the repayment of our loans. However, we must also take into consideration the refinance fees. The question we should be asking is whether, even with the lower rate of interest, if the refinance fees make the loan a more expensive one. If the answer is "no", then it would be smart to get this loan.

A lot of people look to refinance loans if they are looking at a faster repayment option. Even with the same monthly installment, a person can pay off larger chunks of their loan because of the lower rates of interest. This would lead to a great reduction on the term period of the original loan. If one has recently got a salary increment, it might be intelligent to try to get out of the burden of debt sooner by availing of a refinance loan that offers a shorter term period.

A refinance loan can also be used to consolidate one's miscellaneous loans. Home equity loans are a good choice for debt consolidation. Such a loan supplies yet another way of decreasing our debt burden as this allows us to pay off a single loan at a single rate of interest. Moreover, refinance loans such as home equity loans provide aid in avoiding the dangers of bankruptcy. Even if one is unable to pay the loan, the house acts as security.
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Finding ways to Reduce Student Loan Debt

The student loan debt and other financing needs such as for a car can couple with numerous late or unpaid credit card bills and make for quite a significant amount of debt, which becomes tougher to handle upon graduation and when entering the workforce. Even after they get a job and income starts flowing in, they find it is flowing out even faster since most of it goes into repaying the loans. The worst part is that despite all this they don't seem to make much difference in the outstanding debts. They still have loads of unpaid student loan debts. Therefore, it is better to take steps to manage student loan debt efficiently before leaving college.

The only solution to all their loan problems is Student Loan Consolidation, which is, as the name suggests, putting all types of loans under one cover. When a students secures a student loan consolidation program, then all their outstanding debt is packaged together into one lump sum. This sum is then paid off by taking a single loan, which can then be paid back in the form of regular monthly installments.

By consolidating their student loan debt with a student loan consolidation programs, students can save up to 60% on their monthly payments. An additional benefit of going for a student loan consolidation program is that it can rid the tension of keeping track of a large number of payments and their due dates. Under a student loan consolidation program, only a single loan repayment is made every month.

On the other hand, the interest rates for most student loan consolidation programs are much lower than what you would generally be paying on credit card payments and other loans. Thus when consolidating student loan debt, with a student loan consolidation programs, finances get streamlined while students save a lot of hard earned money that was earlier going towards hefty interest payments.

Fourthly, consolidating student loan debt with student loan consolidation is an easy process. It is free, and you are under no obligation to apply, and there is no credit check either. There are plenty of student loan debt consolidation companies that would like to do business with you. So, you have the freedom to compare and choose the one that meets all your requirements.
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Let your home work for you with HSBC's Home Equity Loan. (Bangladesh)

 HSBC's Home Equity Loan - an opportunity for you to release some of the value tied up with your home. Whether you want to renovate your home or expand your own business, you can potentially receive cash against the equity in your home.
Features:
  •      No personal guarantee or cash security
  •     Wide range of loan amounts -
         - Minimum: BDT500,000
         - Maximum: 60% of the apartment/building value (subject to a cap of BDT 7,500,000)
  •   Loan facility against your residential apartment or building
  •     Competitive interest rates
  •      Interest is calculated on monthly reducing balance
  •     Low processing fees
  •     A wide range of loan purposes - purchase of land, apartments, office space, renovation, extension or construction of houses, shops etc, education expenses for children and many more
  •     Clubbing of income is allowed for immediate family members i.e Husband-Wife, Father-Child, Mother-Child etc.
  •      More flexibility with a loan tenure of maximum 10 years
  •     Options for partial prepayment and early settlement

Eligibility

  1.      Age: At least 23 years
  2. Professional Experience:
         - Salaried: Employed for at least two years by a well-reputed company
         - Self-employed: Business establishment for at least two years (with adequate proof)
   
    3. Minimum Monthly Income: BDT50,000


Requirements

    * The concerned apartment/house must be occupied by the owner
    * Age of the property must not be more than 20 years
    * Property valuation and vetting cost must be borne by the customer
    * Registered mortgage in favour of HSBC and original title deed
    * Irrevocable General Power of Attorney (IGPA) in favour of HSBC
    * Property insurance covering fire, earthquake, flood, and cyclone
    * Documents stated in the Application Form

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Student Loan from HSBC is available in Bangladesh

Whether it is about securing your child's future or you getting a graduate or postgraduate degree or completing a professional degree while you are still working, requires a considerable amount of investment. Some features of this loan is below:
  1. No personal guarantee or cash security.
  2. Loan amount ranging from BDT50,000 to BDT750,000 or a maximum of four times of your monthly income, whichever is lower.
  3. If you are an AutoPay customer, you can get six times or if you are a CEPS customer you can get ten times of your monthly income upto a maximum of BDT750,000.
  4. Competitive interest rates. Low processing fees.
  5. You can repay the loan in 12, 24, 36 or 48 months.
  6. Loan against partial security is also available.
  7. Facility for opening a student file is also available.
  8. To open a student file, the student has to provide a copy of the college/university admission paper and proof of formal acceptance by student along with other documents.
[All the above conditions are subject to change] Learn more
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How much possible?-Bad Credit Home Loan Refinance

If you really have a bad credit history, most lenders will try to avoid giving you a loan. This is a well known fact and also a very normal situation as lenders these days are careful with whom they wanted to lend the money to. They will definitely be more willing to give loans to people with good credit rather to those who have poor credit ratings because of the higher risk involved in dealing with poor credit people. You will then ask whether there are any other options that you can avail to help prevent the foreclosure of your home. Of course there are and now you can avail the bad credit home loan refinance option widely available in the market these days. Because of the bad financial crisis around the globe, there are thousands of homes that were foreclosed in the past due to people not able to pay for their monthly instalments. As a result, many people lost their homes and also starting to have bad credit ratings. In order to prevent more foreclosures and in trying to help people in times of financial crisis, help are given in the form of bad credit home loan refinance options.
  • What You Can Do With Such A Loan
With such a refinancing loan, it can help you repay your current home loan and hence prevent a foreclosure. Such loans are taken at terms and conditions that can be more easily managed than your previous home loan.

  • What Should I Do To Get Such Loan
Before getting a bad credit home loan refinance option, it is better for you to get the help of loan brokers. These professionals are more familiar with the market and are able to help you get the best refinancing loan which suits your requirements best. They are also be in a better position to advise you on the refinancing loan and can also recommend you ways to repairing your bad credit standing.
If you have difficulties in getting a refinancing loan to prevent the foreclosure of your home, you should opt for a bad credit home loan refinance plan today.
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Understanding The Various Types Of Home Mortgage Loan

The first type of loan is the Fixed Rate Loan. If you are planning to buy a home and stay in it until you pay it off, then you will probably want a fixed rate home loan. With this type of loan, you will be assigned a fixed interest rate, and that rate will not change for the life of the loan. If interest rates do skyrocket, yours will remain the same. On the other hand, if they plummet, you will be paying a higher rate. The second type is the adjustable rate mortgage or the ARM. This loan's interest rate basically goes up and down with the market so if the interest rate is low, so will yours; and if high, your home mortgage rate will, too. One disadvantage of this type is that the interest rate on a home mortgage loan affects the payments so you will never know what your monthly mortgage payments will be so this type won't be right for everyone.

To make good use of an ARM loan, individuals usually plan to sell a house quickly that they purchased for investment purposes so they may take advantage of the low interest rates especially if it looks as they may go lower.Another reason to use an ARM as a home loan is if you are buying a home in a time when interest rates are on the decline. You can take out an ARM, and then have it changed to a fixed loan once the interest rates bottom out.

The balloon home loan is the third type of loan and with this type, for a fixed amount of time with a fixed interest rate, you will do monthly payments. But in this type, you are to owe an unpaid balance in one lump of sum at the end of the payment schedule. So interest rates in this type of loan are much lower than the other two previous types. The only drawback of a balloon loan is at the end, you have to make a huge payment but if you plan to keep the house for only a short period, this can just be the right loan for you.
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Tips for cheap Home Improvement Loan

Cheap home improvement loan is a perfect choice. Through cheap home improvement loan you can finish improvement works at low cost. Bad credit people also are fully eligible for cheap home improvement loans. Cheap home improvement loan means that loan is offered at cheaper rate of interest. This cheap rate is approved for the borrower who offers some security of the loan to the lender. The security may consist of a valuable asset like the home of the borrower.
Cheap rate of interest can easily be availed if the borrowed amount is kept below equity in the property placed as collateral as it secures the loan more. Usually lenders approve £5000 to £75000 as cheap home improvement loan. The rate of interest can go down for a borrower who has excellent record of timely paying previous loan. So if your credit history is excellent or good you are sure of getting a cheap home improvement loan at cheap rate of interest.

You can choose to repay cheap home improvement loans in larger duration that ranges from 5 to 30 years. So on opting for larger repaying duration your monthly payment for the loan installments gets reduced substantially and you repay the loan easily as cheaper rate has already reduced the repayment burden. Bad credit is usually no problem in getting cheap home improvement loans but the rate of interest may be a bit higher. However the rate will still be cheaper as compared to any unsecured loan as you take the cheap home improvement loan against your property. Compare different lenders for interest rate and apply online for fast and cost free loan approval.
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Friday, August 28, 2009

Home mortgage rates ticked lower

Home mortgage rates ticked lower after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank will continue to keep interest rates low.The average 30-year fixed mortgage slipped to 5.55% from 5.58% the week prior, and the 15-year fixed fell to 4.89% from 4.93%, according to the weekly national survey from Bankrate.com.Recently rates have been "yo-yoing as corporate earnings announcements and economic data toy with investor sentiment," the report noted.

On Wednesday Bernanke gave his semi-annual congressional testimony on the state of the economy, saying the central bank will "likely keep interest rates low for an extended period of time," the Bankrate report noted.A separate Thursday report showed sales of existing homes disappointed again in June, rising just 3.6%.

Current mortgage rates remain much lower than last year's levels, when the average 30-year fixed was 6.77%, according to Bankrate.com.At the current rate of 5.55%, the monthly payment on a $200,000 mortgage would be $1,141.86, or about $158 less than the monthly payment at last year's rate.
Adjustable-rate mortgages is given as  ARMs "continue to post mixed results," the report said, with the average 1-year ARM rising to 5.23% from 5.22%, and the 5-year ARM falling to 4.93% from 4.98%
source:cnn.com

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New home sales blast past expectations

Sales of newly constructed homes leaped unexpectedly in July to hit their highest level since last September.New homes sold at an annualized rate of 433,000 during the month, according to a joint report issued by the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development.That far exceeded analysts' forecasts and was up 9.6% from the revised 395,000 rate recorded in June. A consensus of industry experts surveyed by Briefing.com had predicted July sales of 390,000.The news followed other positive housing market reports earlier this month, including a spike in existing home sales, home prices and affordability."There are many economic conditions that led to the surge," said Bob Walters, chief economist for Quicken Loans. "But certainly low mortgage rates, huge price reductions on the high inventory of new builds, and the first-time homebuyer tax credit have been instrumental in getting consumers to take the plunge into the real estate pool of opportunity."Plus, the psychology of the market is changing, according to Peter Morici, an economics professor at the University of Maryland. "The notion that prices will drift down forever is gone," he said. "Now people are thinking the window of opportunity will not be open forever.""Home shoppers visiting builders' model homes are more likely to purchase than earlier in the year," added Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate research and consulting firm.They are also canceling fewer contracts. Of the 10 markets where Hunter examines cancellation rates, most are running at substantially lower levels. In Phoenix, for example, the cancellation rate lately has been about 4% compared with 7% late last year.It certainly is an attractive market. The median price of a new home declined again last month to $210,100, down only slightly from June but off more than 11% from July 2008.
source: cnn.com

Different currency types in the world

We all are probably familiar with the currency codes in SAP (e.g., United States dollars [USD], euro [EUR], Japanese yen [JPY]). These indicate the specific currencies used to record transaction values. Currency types control the specific currency codes in which financial transactions are recorded. In SAP, a single financial transaction is recorded using multiple currency types. A minimum of two currency types is used to record all financial transactions in General Ledger Accounting (FI-GL), document currency, and company currency. Different currency types may map to the same or different currency codes for a specific transaction based on the data input (e.g., company code, cost center, document header currency).When performing the basic configuration for all financial modules, the term “currency type” inevitably crops up. It’s a key choice you make early in finance configuration that can be difficult to change later on.

Configuring General Ledger Accounting (FI-GL) or Special Purpose Ledger (FI-SL) to store values in multiple currency types enables you to track a single transaction in multiple currencies, referred to as parallel valuation. This allows you to perform reporting quickly in different currencies. For more about parallel valuation with the new General Ledger (G/L), see “Streamline Your Parallel Accounting with the New G/L Ledger Solution,” by Aylin Korkmaz in this issue.Consider a UK company, with local currency (also known as company currency in SAP) of British pounds (GBP), that is a subsidiary of a French company with local currency euro (EUR). For local reporting, the UK company produces reports in GBP, while for group reporting the corporate head office needs consolidated reports in EUR. Storing transaction values in both GBP and EUR allows you to meet both reporting needs quickly. If transaction values were stored in GBP only, the GBP values would have to be converted to EUR whenever consolidated group reports were required, slowing down the process.

We can also use currency types to store transaction data at different valuations. For example, when you make an inter-company sale using a transfer price, you (the selling company) make a profit. However, this intercompany profit can not show on consolidated group reporting. Storing transactions with both legal and group valuation allows you to produce both local company accounts, with the intercompany profit, and consolidated group accounts, without intercompany profit, quickly.I will explain what a currency type is and how it affects financial reporting. I use values found in SAP R/3 Release 4.7, although the information and steps I give apply to all SAP R/3 releases from 3.0 to mySAP ERP Central Component 5.0. You will have the information you need to determine the currency type configuration suitable for your organization.

US bank stocks on a roll, but for how long?

 It's been a banner year for long-beleaguered US bank stocks, but now investors have to worry if the shares will flag.
After two years on life support, bank stocks and broader industry indexes have enjoyed strong gains in 2009, including a 3 percent rise in the sector's major index and a several-fold spike in share prices for the biggest US banks since a March bottom.Many analysts say the industry is resurgent, like the banking boom in the 1990s that followed the commercial real estate crash, but others are skeptical."There will be some price gains and losses short-term, but this is very similar to the performance I remember in October 1990," said Jeff Davis, senior research analyst at FTN Equity Capital Markets.
"If you went back to October 1990, it looked like the world was going to end. It was a lousy two or three more quarters, but then the banks went on this two- to three-year run."

Investors, both individual and institutional, are becoming more comfortable investing in financial stocks as the industry stabilizes after a credit crisis that claimed two of the nation's largest banks and more than a hundred smaller ones, some analysts said.The KBW Bank Index is up 3 percent this year, closing Tuesday at 46.65. The index bottomed on March 6 at 18.62, down 84 percent from its July 2007 peak, but has been rebounding ever since.JPMorgan Chase & Co's (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) stock price has nearly tripled from $14.96 on March 6, closing Tuesday at $43.58. Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) stock has spiked 600 percent since a March 6 bottom of $3.14, closing Tuesday at $17.75.Michele Garren, an Atlanta-based Invesco Ltd (IVZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) portfolio manager, said the asset management firm's $8.2 billion global equities portfolio is underweight banks. The firm is building positions in select banks with strong future growth prospects, but is cautious about the wider sector, she said."We feel like the system wasn't really cleared, that there wasn't the creative destruction needed for a strong rebound, but there are positive trends at work in the industry," said Garren, noting a favorable yield curve and some banks with strong capital bases for acquiring weaker rivals.Yet the short-term outlook remains uncertain, as investors contend with a weak economy and the prospect of rising credit losses.Some analysts say bank stocks have become too expensive, buoyed by hope rather than banks' current performance.Banks have not demonstrated an ability to produce earnings similar to pre-2007 levels and are still dogged by credit problems, Richard Bove, veteran banking analyst with Rochdale Securities LLC, said in a research note.
Investors, he said, are now buying weak bank stocks that used to be the high fliers of the industry, with the expectation that they'll return to their pre-crisis performance. Bove views that as unlikely."If there is any lesson to be learned from the movement of stock prices over the past decades, it is that expectations drive stock prices far more than fundamentals," he said in a research note. "Psychology trumps reality every time."

Toyota to cut capacity to match sales

Toyota Motor Corp will cut its global production capacity to match lower sales, a company source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.The Nikkei business daily said Toyota planned to cut its global capacity by 10 percent, or 1 million vehicles, as early as the current financial year to March 2010, but the source said the extent and timing of the production cuts had not yet been set.Toyota, the No.1 carmaker, has begun restoring some production cut in the wake of the global financial crisis, as inventories shrink and government stimulus efforts kick in, but it has yet to announce whether it plans permanent cuts in factory capacity.Many car plants around the world are idle or running below capacity as the industry tries to work out how much sales will recover after the crisis passes and how U.S. firms General Motors Co and Chrysler Group LLC emerge from their deep woes.

Toyota has decided to halt a production line in Japan for about a year and a half from next spring and is considering halting a line at a UK plant, said the source, who declined to be named because the matter was not public.
Toyota has said it will decide this month whether to pull out of New United Motor Manufacturing Inc (NUMMI), a California joint venture with General Motors.Those three moves would cut capacity by 700,000 vehicles, based on Toyota factory data, from Toyota's annual output capacity of 10 million vehicles.The Nikkei said Toyota would cut capacity to 9 million cars in a bid to return to an operating profit in fiscal 2010, but the source said decisions had not been taken on such deep cuts.
Toyota forecast this month a slightly shallower annual loss, relying on deeper cost cuts and government-backed sales stimulus around the world, but there remain doubts about a sustainable recovery in demand.

Stocks end week on downturn

The market ended the week with a downturn on a selling spree by investors. Market observers said investors were piling up for subscribing to upcoming IPOs, especially the long-awaited Grameenphone issue.On Wednesday, GP published its prospectus where it announced that the IPO subscription would open on Oct 4 and end on Oct 8.Thursday's trading left more than 70 percent of the traded scrips down on the previous day's close.Dhaka Stock Exchange's benchmark index shed almost 24 points, while turnover slumped to Tk 5.10 billion from the previous day's Tk 6.16 billion.At least, six IPOs and a couple of mutual funds are expected to float within two months, he said.Meanwhile, brokers blamed recent volatility for Thursday's downturn."Investors are quite nervous due to the fluctuating nature of the market," said an official of brokerage house Royal Securities.Trading fell into negative territory on the opening bell. It recovered losses in the midday session but fell sharply towards the end.Mutual funds lost after Wednesday's highs, although banks closed mixed with prices moving slightly.

Non-banking financial institutions (NBFI) also witnessed a depressed trend after rising Wednesday on the news of regulatory moves to double its capital base.Insurers continued to fall with fuel and energy shares following.DSE's benchmark general index, or DGEN, shed 23.88 points, or 0.79 percent, to close at 2977.72.The all-share index or DSI lost 20.11 points, or 0.79 percent, to close at 2501.70.The DSE-20 blue chip index fell 13.57 points, or 0.63 percent, to finish at 2108.74.Losers outnumbered gainers 171 to 53, while eight issues held steady.Beximco, the turnover leader, saw shares worth Tk 339.083 million change hands, losing 1.39 percent to close at Tk 282.Off-dock service provider Summit Alliance Port Ltd followed with a turnover of Tk 313 million, crawling down 0.05 percent to Tk 2250.25. Bex Tex's turnover reached Tk 216.413 million, closing at Tk 63.40, down 2.31 percentAftab Automobiles fell 3.27 percent to Tk 1629.25, with a turnover of Tk 208.123 million.Summit Power lost 2.22 percent to close at Tk 1282.50, seeing Tk 198.894 million worth of shares change hands.
Among other scrips on the turnover board—Beximco Pharma, AIMS 1st Mutual Fund and AB Bank lost.ICB 2nd NRB Mutual Fund and Bay Leasing & Investment Ltd rose on buying pressure.

Trade revives as Palestinian cities reconnect

Businesses in normal countries take getting around for granted. They can distribute, export and attract workers and customers from wide areas.In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, access to more than half of the land is restricted. Israel has ultimate control of roads, energy, water, telecommunications and air space.An Israeli barrier of fence and concrete wall now seals off much of the West Bank. At a handful of crossing points, freight heading for the Jewish state is screened for security.A decade of what the Palestinians call "closure" created higher transaction costs, uncertainty and inefficiency.But violence has fallen significantly. The Palestinians have established an effective security force, with American help.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that in addition to the classic, top-down peace process, he can build peace from the bottom up by boosting the Palestinian economy.This northern city was the West Bank's commercial hub until the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000 when it was virtually sealed off by the Huwara checkpoint, known for years as one of the toughest in the occupied territory.In the past five years 425 companies left for Ramallah to escape the economic siege, according to Omar Hashem of the Nablus Chamber of Commerce.The economy of this volatile city, where Israeli settlers occupy homes near a Jewish religious site under army protection, shows little sign of improvement, say some local businessmen.This city is the envy of the others. As the administrative capital close to Jerusalem in the biggest conurbation of the region, Ramallah benefited from the sense of remoteness felt in cities like Nablus closed off behind Israeli checkpoints.People have moved in and it has grown. There are two international hotels under construction, including a Moevenpick which was mothballed for years after the 2000 uprising began.Under what the World Bank calls the "extreme closure" of a tight Israeli blockade, the Mediterranean coastal enclave where 1.5 million Palestinians live is now all but divorced from the economy of the West Bank.

Its public sector is paid from foreign aid cash trucked in by security vans. It gets much of its food and energy in United Nations and European Union aid, and some it brought in commercially under Israeli inspection.Most other goods are supplied by a smuggling industry running tunnels under the border with Egypt.Gaza is controlled by the Islamist Hamas group hostile to the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and resistant to Western demands that it accept Israel's right to exist and forego armed resistance.Israel launched a military offensive against Hamas last December to stop its forces firing rockets into Israeli territory and over the course of three weeks inflicted enormous damage on the enclave and killed more than 1,000 people.International donors have pledged some $4 billion for Gaza's reconstruction but a ban on the import of cement and steel has prevented the work from starting.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Internet speeds down in Bangladesh due to Typhoon


Bangladesh has been experiencing slow internet speeds after Typhoon Morakot damaged undersea cables in East Asia this week, a senior telecoms official said on Thursday.

Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines and Singapore are facing most trouble because of the damage to the Asia Pacific Cable Network-2 (APCN-2), BTCL managing director Khabiruzzaman told bdnews24.com.

"Repair work has begun, we have been informed by Singtel of Singapore, and the net speeds will be back to normal by Friday," Khabiruzzaman said.

Reuters had earlier reported that up to 90 percent of all voice call and Internet services from parts of East Asia were disrupted after Typhoon Morakot damaged the undersea cables.

A senior official of Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest telecoms company also said services would be back to normal by Friday.

Chunghwa Telecom, a former state-owned monopoly, shares APCN-2 with other operators in East Asia.

TF Leng, president of Chunghwa's International Business Group, said they were working with other affected telecommunications companies in the region to use alternative routes to restore connectivity.

"We see that most Internet and voice connections should be back to near-normal levels by the end of Thursday," he said.

"The typhoon didn't destroy the cables all in one go, which would have led to a sudden outage of services. It slowly destroyed some of the cables, which is why it took a few days before users were affected."

The last time Internet users in Asia experienced an Internet outage as a result of a natural disaster was in 2006, when an earthquake off the coast of Taiwan damaged the undersea cables.