Sunday, December 18, 2011

Dos and Don'ts - An insider's cheat sheet for trading binary options

Do you know the secret ?
With binary options, it's important to come into the trading process knowing some of the tips for things you should and shouldn't do. This will make your trading experience a much smoother one and allow you to get more from the binary trading process. First of all, you should consider the asset that you want to trade. The binary options trading process involves looking at a specific asset and predicting what will happen with that asset over time. Will it go up or down in price? The better that you know the assets and the more familiar you are with the asset, the more likely you'll be to make that prediction correctly. Think about whether you know gold, silver, stocks, FOREX or another field best and stick to that asset.  Only you know what is in your best interest and what items you know the best.  Use this information to make the best choices for your binary options trading.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

All I want for Christmas is these ten perfect gifts for any binary options trader

Everytime I look around and see the winter blues on people's faces, it reminds me that too many of us take the holidays too heavily.

Don't forget to stuff your stockings with stocks and binary options
Sometimes we just need to lighten up a little, and keep things in perspective.

One of the best ways I know of doing that, is to do a little smart holiday shopping.

If you're anything like me, you probably can't stand waiting in line just to pay out your hard earned money so you can give it away in the form of some product you'll never enjoy, to a person you may not even like. But hey, it's the holidays, and gift-giving is part of the tradition. Love it or hate it, you know you have to participate in it this year.

So, to make life a little more interesting, and a lot more efficient, I dug up some great tips on what to get any binary options trader this holiday season.  This way you can save yourself the time of having to research these ideas entirely on your own.

I didn't put the list together, but I know that the gifts presented are some of the best low-cost luxury and lifestyle presents that I would love to receive, and I can't think of any of my friends who wouldn't want them.  (n.b.: Ol' Franklin the Hermit who doesn't like any human contact, doesn't count in my survey. Sorry Franklin, you're just too far out of the statistical graphs for me to include you, but don't worry, you know I always find the right oddity to give you).

Anyway, for the rest of us, may we all have a happy holiday gift shopping, and I wish you all continued success with your binary trading efforts.

-- The Binary Trading Tipster

Monday, December 5, 2011

Tip #906: Enjoy your binary options trading

Mountain Joe loves the time it takes to stroll his way up to the top
Binary options online are quite enjoyable for the investor. Today, there are many binary options sites where you can invest in an asset and make a prediction about what will happen with that asset in a given amount of time.  One of the great things about these binary options sites is that they offer a number of tutorials. They explain the many types of binary options investment choices offered to the investor. They offer tips and advice for the investor and they are a great resource for anyone who is thinking of starting to invest in this way. The binary options websites are a great resource for the novice, or for the experienced investor as well! And, of course, they are a vehicle that allows the investor to get involved with binary options quickly and easily.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Advice for binary options affiliate program members


These are not binary colors, nor traded

Circles Of Affiliated Confusion
GeoPolitics today is such that instability is the name of the game. Of course, for smart marketers and investors, this is the ideal trade to get into the mix and reap the rewards of doing the Yeoman’s work at crunch time. You won’t find too many lazy people signing up to become an affiliate program promoters, and the reason is simple. It does in fact take work. Sure, you can sit around and just do the most basic things, like signing up to an affiliate program, and setting up the required page for your audience to
visit. However if you don’t put the time into it that is required to make your promotion a success, then who will ever know about it and how will that further your goals of financial independence and phat asset management?

Thursday, November 24, 2011

An entirely new and fresh way of investing

Gold bullion - and not the soup cubes
When you trade binary options, you have many choices at your fingertips. You can choose what asset you want to watch; you can choose what time frame you want to focus on; you can choose how much you want to invest with the binary trading process; and you can then choose what you think will happen with the asset in that set period of time. All of this creates a very exciting platform for investing, since it allows you as the investor flexibility and a great deal of choice. And, it means that each time that you invest can be an entirely new and fresh process since each investment may look so different. While you may decide to do a Range investment on oil over a 24 hour period one day, you may look at a Touch investment with gold in a one hour time frame the next day.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Biggie Smalls Portrait

Notorious BIG - Biggie Smalls - Christopher Wallace
I have mentioned in the past that I like to draw while trading binary options. I have started recently to get into drawing portrait of stars and actors, specifically ones that died and this one of Biggie Smalls, AKA Christopher Wallace, AKA Notorious BIG. As an excellent word smith with rapping ability, he has become an icon and symbol for the violent world of gangsta rap. This portrait is a tribute to the man and the legend. I drew this while trading binary options on optionsclick.com and want to give them a plug here.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

The Binary Options Abstract

Brain Synapse While Trading Binary Option
Taking a break from the tips here on Binary Options and going to share with you an interesting creation made by a trader of binary options. This abstract artwork is a shadow of how actual brain waves work, but still an interesting item to look at to better understand binary options trading, even if ever so slightly.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

How shall I trade binary options?

Rise in the sunny binary options trade.
One of the biggest obstacle for many traders regarding binary options is that they are not 100% sure what is a binary option. They might understand that it is a yes-no type of decision that needs to be made when trading assets, but that is about it.
To answer the question of "how to trade binary options",  would recommend that traders get involved in trading and even make a few swaps of binary options on their own to get the feel for how to do it. By investing a mere $200 in binary options and then making at least 20 trades, you can really better understand how binary options trading works and how you can use it to make money. You can't know until you try, and that is certainly the case when you trade binary options.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The tip of the iceberg, binary options trading and what lies below the surface.

Artist Rendition: The surface of a binary option trade.
The binary option is a unique financial investment vehicle in that it only requires the user to lay his eyes upon the surface of the behemoth, like with an iceberg, it is what lies under the surface that holds the full potential of its magnitude. Rather than simply looking at the graphs and trying to extrapolate and determine how it will progress, it is important to remember that it is a living trade being participated to by thousands of other investors interested either in the asset (which drive the price via demand) or even in the same binary option. Once you are able to internalize the actuality that the binary options your are trading it is better to make more accurate and more informed decisions.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Let The Sun Shine

Let the Sun Shine:
This is a drawing that is of the insensitivity created by the blaring bright ball of light in the sky. I used opposing gradients to make the feeling that its a pulsating glow and not just a solid color. This one was created, as like all my art, while trading binary options and using my artistic skills as a distraction from the neurotic thoughts that my mind thinks about when trading binary options.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Myron Scholes predicts 'golden age' for quants

Myron Scholes, emeritus professor of finance at Stanford University and co-creator of the Black-Scholes option pricing formula, says that because the fundamental assumptions of dominant pre-crisis theory have been challenged, many lines of research are now open to exploration. His ideas and concepts have become very useful in the world of binary options trading and other form of financial instruments and predictions

"I'm bullish on the future for quants," he says. "One thing about a crisis is that it shakes old opinions and you start learning new things. I hope we do – it should be a golden age for risk modelling and management.

In particular, Myron Scholes singles out the returns from market-making and client business – a concept he dubs 'omega' – as an area in which quants can add value. "The most important thing in the coming years will be intermediation – and modelling is a big part of that. How much capital do we want against a given strategy? What kind of capital structure should we have? How can we risk-manage dynamically, taking account of changes in the risk factors, changes in the risk appetite, the cost of adjusting the portfolio?
 

"The effect of intermediation is to correct prices, so it brings mean reversion into the processes – which one can attempt to capture with models. The idea is that you have a belief in where prices are going to revert to, and how fast they will do so, and this determines strategy. For example, if you have a lot of volatility you might want to go into your position sooner because mean reversion might occur more quickly," he says.

However, he warns against over-reliance on models, and concedes they had a role in the crisis. The example he uses is the 'gaming' of structured credit ratings, through which issuers did the bare minimum required to obtain a AAA-rating.
 Myron Scholes
"The rating agencies' model became an inventory transition mechanism. Their models did not take account of the fact that others would reverse-engineer their assumptions and place just enough good mortgages in the pool to achieve the desired rating. They didn't realize people would figure out how to make the AAA grade and game them."

"One of the problems we have is that we have to make assumptions about what the equilibrium will be and how that changes dynamically. You look at the economics – the capital flows in the market that determine the dynamics. That's where the expertise comes in – your technology shouldn't be a black box," he says.
But the common-sense reaction – embracing intuition, and rejecting the use of modeling and quantitative techniques – is also flawed, he argues.
"A model is a description of reality, so if it doesn't reflect reality then it's not going to work. If you think the model error is basically second-order and it's not, then the terms you neglected are going to come to the fore and the model will fail. That doesn't mean you're going to do any better with intuition – presumably you used your intuition in picking the model, and intuition can fail, too," he says.

An interview with Scholes, in which he discusses this issue at greater length, as well as how changes in regulation will affect markets, the computational limits of quantitative finance and the collapse of his hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, will appear in the September issue of Risk.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Binary Trading Tip #673

Be in a positive mood while you trade binary options and draw something if you get bored. Whatever you do, don't trade binary options when you are bored, better to draw and wait till a good looking graph comes across your screen.


Binary Options Trading Art
doppler effect on ovals from binary trading

Artwork that was created while trading binary options online

Download this binary art from these sites:

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Tip #8884 - don't have a hair style like this guy.

There are many point I can interlude to provide you with some content on how to trade binary options, but the first and foremost is to not have a hair cut like this guy. Found this on a binary options trading article:

Binary Trading is WAY easier now than it might have been in the 1970's



You can download this cartoon of a 1970's style binary options trader at the following links:

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Top Ten Super Tips for Binary Options Trading

Get you paws on as much as you can
Top Ten Super-Tips for using the Black-Scholes Valuation formula to gain large profits with online binary options trading:

These tips are called "super-tips" as the regular tips we give are designed for novice traders. These tips are designed for more advanced users who are willing to forego some excitement and risk in exchange for dull, boring, and more consistent profits.

  1. Trade only in small amounts till you have a much stronger grasp on that specific commodity, stock or indice.
  2. Utilize "closable" options to hedge the rise so that you can make very quick 20% to 40% gains rather than drawn out 85% gains that carry a risk of 100% loss.
  3. Be technical analytical and review the graphs for patterns and predictability. Only trade in graphs of options you feel comoftable predicting. 
  4. Better to not trade for a half hour than loose durring that half hour.
  5. Don't hedge your risk by trading in opposing option. The profit of 85% comes at a risk of 100%, so hedging like that will result in an across-the-board 15% loss.
  6. Remember: Its important to avoid losses as much as it is to achieve gains.
  7. Don't let losses or gains effect you overall strategy. Emotion are your enemy in this game. 
  8. With currency related binary trade, compare different currencies to narrow down which ones are actually falling and which ones are only relativity falling
  9. Avoid trading binary options at the beginning of market open unless specific events in the news provide a window of predictability.
  10. Learn from your mistakes. Binary Options Trading is an aquired skill. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but do avoid repeating them.

 We hope you've enjoyed these tips. Please feel free to leave comments or questions. These tips are based on Trading Binary Options on OptionsClick.com - not sure about any other sites.




Monday, August 22, 2011

Tips for trading binary options online:

Think before you click. Trade Binary Options Smart
Tips for binary options trading:
  1. Trade online, only use binary options trading platforms that have real-time updates and don't charge a commission.
  2. Use sites that offer binary trading with the possibility of closing your position before it expires and still making a solid return - utilize this capability to hedge your risk and make lost of small, profitable trades.
  3. Do not start making large trades when you are below your starting point with the hopes of re-couping your losses.
  4. Do not trade if your mindset is not that of a small-gains and reserved approach.
  5. If you loose several trades in a row, then stop trading for a few hours. Do not try and regain your losses quickly.
  6. Analyze graphs and only trade on positions you have a clear picture of. Utilize the various forms of options for different market behaviors
  7. Don't be afraid to take chances, but don't take the chances with large wagers.
  8. Practice reading graphs, review the trades that end in loss so that you can learn from your mistakes.
  9. Keep up to date on the news, especially for political events that effect the price of oil and the stock markets.
  10. Learn the graphs of the financial data and learn to differentiate between a correction and a trend.
Don't be left in the cold. Learn before you trade



Obviously these tips alone are not going to enable you to suddenly become a wealthy binary options trader. But by learning the trends and patterns that keep winning overall, you can be in a better position than starting out cold. Educate yourself about financial betting and general binary options trading and enable yourself to succeed in the volatile marketplace. Don't be discouraged if you have a few losses, the main thing is to learn how to read the market and apply it when it counts.








binary options trading tips - source

Top Ten Reason trading online is better than in-person:

Click and Trade - Online Binary Options Trading
Top Ten List of The Top Reasons that Trading ONLINE is better than In-Person.

Top Ten Reason trading online is better than in-person:

We have all heard and seen the hype about trading online binary options, but we may have forgotten why it is so appealing. This entertaining list reminds us.


Top Ten Reason trading online is better than in-person:

  1. 3 words: Much Shorter Commute
  2. In-person trading: pants mandatory. Online trading: pants optional
  3. Binary trading from home gives you a bit more free time to tan your pasty white thighs.
  4. You can trade your binary options even while you get called in for jury duty.
  5. Less focus on commute, more focus on lunch
  6. Always fun to answer "where do you live? and "where do you work?" questions with an identical reply.
  7. You can't watch TV at the office.
  8. Better trading patterns when you sleep late everyday.
  9. How else are you going to become a binary options trader?
  10. Because you only do online binary options trading so that you don't have to go to work.




We hope you have enjoyed this top ten list. Please visit back regularly to check out the latest news and updates about online binary trading the world around it.





Sunday, August 21, 2011

When will gold pop already?
The higher gold climbs the more intense the debate between bulls and bears, those who think the yellow metal has a long way to run and those who say this is a giant bubble that is going to pop, and soon.Here are five reasons the bears are calling the current run of gold -- up 27 percent since Jan. 1 -- a bubble, and thus something to avoid.

1. Basic economics. The World Gold Council in a recent study said that in the second quarter total global demand for gold declined 17 percent, on a year-over-year basis. But despite that decline the price of gold rose about 25 percent. At some point supply and demand have to come back into balance, say the bears, and when they do it would be best to be out of gold.

2. If it looks like a bubble ... "People believe that gold is a hedge against uncertain times. In the long run, gold prices have kept pace with inflation. People are flocking to it", says Lloyd Thomas, an economics professor at Kansas State University. "But in 2000 the price of gold was $300 an ounce. It has gone up six-fold since then, and it might go up higher than what it is right now. It's gone up too fast -- it's a bubble." 
Thomas compares the current gold market to the U.S. housing market. People believed, as they believe now for gold, that the housing prices would continue to increase. But ultimately, they fell more than 30 percent in most 
American cities.


"The same thing could happen to gold; it's not risk-free. In the last 10 years it's gone up 17 percent a year, but the price of things we purchase has only gone up 3 percent a year. That's unsustainable. It's my own opinion that gold prices will collapse -- I just don't know when", he says.

3. Soros has left the building. Billionaire George Soros as well as Eric Mindich cut their holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange-traded fund, in the second quarter as prices rallied. You may not understand algorithms, econometrics or 200-day moving averages, but almost anyone can imitate winners.
Major professional money managers are also starting to get worried. Wells Fargo is warning its clients, including wealthy ones, that gold is grossly overbought, a "bubble that is poised to burst." Said Wells Fargo analyst Dean Junkans: "We have seen the economic damage" of past bubbles and "feel compelled to ring the warning bells."
"There could be substantial risk to gold once the fear that the world is coming to an end subsides," Junkans told Reuters in a telephone interview from Minneapolis. "We are worried about the downward risk."

4. Investor naivete. "Trees don't grow till heaven. I think buyers need to be beware we are in a 'caveat emptor' market," Jeffrey Rhodes, global head of precious metals at INTL FCStone, a brokerage, told Reuters.
"My problem is that people are buying gold and they don't understand why they are buying gold and that's a big problem and that is a classic symptom of a bubble," said Rhodes.

5. What is your pain tolerance? Even if you don't think gold is a bubble, it certainly is a bull market, and bull markets often end dirty and messy, and take years to recover from. Think the U.S. real estate collapse and all the attendant carnage that erupted in 2008 and still hasn't been repaired, among homeowners or bankers. The same could be said of property markets in Ireland and Great Britain.




Want to hedge against the Gold Standard? Try trading binary options.  


Thanks to the source for the article on Gold Ready To Pop

Investment Quotes top 10 list

We found this list of top-ten funny investment quotes on the web. Seems that most of the people trying to make money are very NOT FUNNY and sort of stuffy, and those that have lots of money already seem to be pretty funny and jocular (except for Bill Gates, but maybe that is just because the humor part of his brain has some kind of DLL error) - Below is a top ten list of hilarious quotes about money and investment. Enjoy!

Top Ten Funny But True Investment and Money Quotes:
  1. Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells. ~ J. Paul Getty
  2. When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is. ~Oscar Wilde
  3. We live by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules. ~Buzzie Bavasi
  4. When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. ~Voltaire
  5. Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair. ~Sam Ewing
  6. When I have money, I get rid of it quickly, lest it find a way into my heart. ~John Wesley
  7. A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. ~Bob Hope
  8. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell. ~John Templeton
  9. Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. ~Woody Allen
  10. Money will buy you a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail. ~Henry Wheeler Shaw
If you found yourself laughing at any of these, please share a comment on which one chuckled you.


Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Top-Ten Funniest Explanation of What are Binary Options

Hysterical Binary Options Trader
List of Top-Ten Funniest Explanation of Binary Options

Binary options trading is the hottest thing since margin-investing and CDI's - except way more legitimate and totally legal. Not everyone is 100% sure what is a binary option or what it means to trade them. Below are the funniest explanation that we have gotten so far. Enjoy.





 

Top Ten Funniest Explanations of
What are Binary Options:

10) Stocks that perform magic by using confusing math.
9) Commodities that make you money when they loose money

8) Investment instrument that let you pry open the markets value
7) Piggy bank for those that have science degree in math.
6) It is the equivalent of Diet Coke for the investment community, all the fun and no calories.
5) It's that thing them investment-boys are doing these days.
4) I don't know, I can't even figure out how to use Facebook.
3) Is that trading stocks in Morse code?
2) Binary option is when a person trading stocks has to think like a computer.
1)Have no idea what it is, but sure have fun trading them.




Laughing Binary Options Trader






We'd like to thank this site for the top-ten list of funny explanations for What Are Binary Options




Sunday, August 14, 2011

How To Trade Binary Options:

One investment platform that has become very popular in the online trading community – especially with beginners – is trading binary options. The benefits are so great that beginners and pros alike are trading binary options and learning how to trade this financial instrument.

Learning the ins and outs of binary option trading is relatively simple. Here, we will talk about how to trade binary options and learn about navigating these powerful instruments.


The Basics of Trading: Where and How
Does the Dalai Lama Trade Binary Options?
Becoming a binary option trader first means knowing where you can trade them and how they work.
The best way to trade in binary options is to go through an online brokerage. An online brokerage writes contracts for various binary options, which are offered on the value of financial assets such as currency pairs, commodities and stocks. These contracts come with a purchase price, an expiry (the time at which the contract expires), and the conditions for profit (usually a strike price or barrier price).
To participate, you simply need to find a broker that deals in the contracts that you prefer – most online brokers deal in multiple types so you can trade both stock binary options and forex binary options with the same options broker, for example.
Once you register and deposit funds, you choose between two general types: above/below options and touch or barrier options. Some binary options brokers also offer range or boundary binary options as well.
Above/below options basically allow you to take a position on whether an asset’s value will be above or below the current value when you buy it, by the expiry. A touch or barrier option requires that an asset price reach or surpass a certain price or value at least once before the contract expires. Range or boundary binary options mandate that the asset’s value be in between two specific values or prices at expiry.


Being “In-The-Money”
Make sure you come out ahead of the other traders.
How do you know you are in-the-money? The conditions of the contract will give you the targets you need to hit, and these differ by the type of option.
Let’s take XYZ Corporation, which has shares at $10.00. An above/below option says that XYZ will rise by the end of the trading day. If you purchase a call option, you are taking the position that by the end of the trading day, XYZ will be higher than $10.00. If it is at $10.01, you are in-the-money.
With barriers or touch options, the contract may say that XYZ has to be at $12.00 or higher at least once by the end of the trading day. If you buy a call option, and XYZ is at $12.00 or higher at least once before trading closes, then you are in-the-money. If the highest value it reaches is $11.99 before the contract expires, though, you lose.
With range or boundary binary options, the contract may stipulate that the value of XYZ stock has to be in between $11.50 and $12.00 by the close of trading for the day. If XYZ is trading at $11.90, you are in-the-money. If it’s trading at $11.54, you lose your investment.


Payouts
Payouts differ depending on the type of option you choose. Above/below options and range binary options pay out typically 70-85% of the original investment. Barrier options are riskier, so they pay out as much as 300% or more of the original investment.
The payout is your profit. Of course, if you do not meet the requirements, you will lose 80-100% of your original investment.


Conclusion
Learning all about binary options means understanding the key concepts, and knowing where to go to trade them. As with any financial instrument, there is risk involved – but the upside potential, as well as ease of use, makes them attractive options for beginners and pros alike.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Some common info on what are binary options:

Binary option (From Wikipedia)

In finance, a binary option is a type of option where the payoff is either some fixed amount of some asset or nothing at all. The two main types of binary options are the cash-or-nothing binary option and the asset-or-nothing binary option. The cash-or-nothing binary option pays some fixed amount of cash if the option expires in-the-money while the asset-or-nothing pays the value of the underlying security. Thus, the options are binary in nature because there are only two possible outcomes. They are also called all-or-nothing options, digital options (more common in forex/interest rate markets), and Fixed Return Options (FROs) (on the American Stock Exchange). Binary options are usually European-styleoptions.
For example, a purchase is made of a binary cash-or-nothing call option on XYZ Corp's stock struck at $100 with a binary payoff of $1000. Then, if at the future maturity date, the stock is trading at or above $100, $1000 is received. If its stock is trading below $100, nothing is received.
In the popular Black-Scholes model, the value of a digital option can be expressed in terms of the cumulative normal distribution function.
Click here to read the full Wikipedia article on Binary Options




A binary option is aBinary Options Trader - Worried and stressed fixed return option because there are only 2 possible outcomes which are fully realized at the onset of the contract
A binary option is a contract which gives the buyer (known as the owner) the right, but not the obligation, to buy an underlying asset at a fixed price within a specified time frame.
The items being traded are known as underlying assets and they could be a range of products: currencies (e.g. USD/JPY), commodities (e.g. Oil, Gold), stocks (e.g. Microsoft, Coca Cola) or indices (e.g. Nasdaq, FTSE 100). The fixed price at which the owner buys or sells at, is known as the strike price.
When trading binary options, the buyer of the option chooses whether he thinks the underlying asset will hit the strike price by the selected expiry time – this could be at the end of the nearest hour or the end of the day, week or month.
The owner places a call option on his binary option trade if he thinks that at the expiry time the option will be higher than the current price. He places a put option if he thinks that at the expiry time the option will be lower than the current price.

Want to try and trade binary options on your own, visit http://optionsclick.com

Thank you to this source for the info on Binary Options

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

S&P balks at SEC proposal to reveal rating errors

* S&P fears SEC will dictate error disclosure policy
* S&P says SEC should not define “significant error”
* Letter comes three days after U.S. debt downgrade
* Letter comes after Treasury accused S&P of major error
By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Standard & Poor’s, whose unprecedented downgrade of U.S. debt triggered a worldwide stocks sell-off, is pushing back against a U.S. government proposal that would require credit raters to disclose “significant errors” in how they calculate their ratings.
S&P, which was accused by the Obama administration of making an error in its calculations leading to Friday’s downgrade, raised concern about the proposed new corrections policy and other issues in an 84-page letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, dated Aug. 8.
The SEC is weighing sweeping new rules designed to improve the quality of ratings after their poor performance in the financial crisis.
The 517-page proposal includes a requirement that ratings agencies post on their websites when a “significant error” is identified in their methodology for a credit rating action.
The letter was sent three days after the U.S. Treasury Department accused S&P of miscalculating — by some $2 trillion — the U.S. debt in the next 10 years. That calculation was in a draft press release announcing a downgrade in the government’s credit rating from AAA to AA-plus.
S&P vehemently denied it had made an error, but acknowledged that it changed its long-term economic assumptions after discussions with the Treasury Department. It switched to another economic scenario that resulted in a debt load $2 trillion smaller by 2021. But it said that did not affect its decision to downgrade the U.S. debt. [ID:nN1E77725M]
S&P’s criticism of the “significant error” proposal is part of a broader concern that the SEC’s reforms prompted by the Dodd-Frank financial oversight law could give the U.S. government undue influence over its ratings decisions.
S&P in particular is facing a tense relationship with Washington. Its downgrade sparked a Click here to read the article backlash from Administration officials and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. A Senate Banking Committee aide on Monday said the panel has begun looking into S&P’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating. [ID:nN1E7771XF]
Click here to read the full article



Fed promises to keep rates low at least 2 yrs

I came across this article today, I really wonder if the US Gov't will keep the interest rates "near zero" for the duration of time that they claim to do so, which is 2 years, and, if they go back on their word, what will that do to their rating?



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve, in an unprecedented move, said on Tuesday it will keep interest rates near zero for at least two more years and is considering further action, bolstering battered stock markets.

The Fed's policysetting Federal Open Market Committee, in a 7-3 vote, overcame internal discord in the first triple dissent against a policy decision since 1992.
Investors were still unsure whether the Fed's even stronger promise to maintain rates at rock-bottom lows until mid-2013 would be enough to revive a flagging economic recovery.

But the decision sparked a rally in equities that pushed the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 400 points. Short-term Treasury yields fell to all-time lows. The gains came after a rout that stemmed from Standard & Poor's historic downgrade of U.S. credit quality last Friday.

 Click here to read the full article on Money Control




Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Oil prices plunge, but motorists not getting much relief at pump




By ROD WALTON World Staff Writer


Crude oil futures fell to their lowest level in nearly a year Monday, but Tulsa gasoline prices are still clinging to an average that was charged when a barrel cost close to $20 more.



"With markets the way they are, it's anybody's guess on what they're going to do," AAA-Oklahoma spokesman Danial Karnes said. "It's all over the board."

That board is making a steep downhill run at the moment. West Texas Intermediate crude oil for September delivery dropped $5.57 on Monday to settle at $81.31 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The closing crude price is the lowest since it settled at $80.05 on Aug. 31, 2010. The one-year high for WTI was $114.83 per barrel on April 29.

Tulsa retail gasoline, meanwhile, is not falling by the same leaps and bounds. The Tulsa average reported by AAA is $3.44 per gallon, but it was closer to $2.50 when domestic crude oil was last around $80.

"Gas prices aren't always logical," Karnes said. "But logic tells us if oil continues to fall, then gas prices should continue to fall as well."

The price at many QuikTrip stations in Tulsa was $3.39 on Monday afternoon. The QuikTrip price at the end of last August - the last time crude oil was anywhere near this low - was $2.46 per gallon. 


click here to read the full article 

 

Monday, August 1, 2011

Compared: Casinos and Binary Trading Sites

Are binary options like gambling?

 

I have heard several times from people that when you are buying and selling Binary Options, your are basically gambling. While this maze be the case for some people who have addiction issues, they are both quite different. 

Casino games are based on luck and binary trading is based on real market conditions. This is not to say that casino's don't also involve skill or that binary trading doesn't experience luck, but the basis for the trades and exchanges of the two are very different. 


The thing is that casino games are designed for users to win in order to keep them entertained and binary trading are based on which ever direction the market swings, So not sure which one is better.