Sterling is pretty impressive! Credible spending cuts key to confidence!

CHFGBP: It's gone from 1.52 a few days ago to 1.574 now.

I nearly sold some at 1.545 thinking: 200 pips is enough for a day!? I'd now be out of 300 pips!

I guess I didn't sell CHFGBP for two reasons:

1. the current government seems to be genuinely doing something big about spending which leads to 2.

2. S&P have given the thumbs up, green light to the new strong spending cuts....

Now if the US can do something as convincing as the UK, the world economy is going to exhale a huge sigh of relief and the markets will be off to the races!

BTW: Did you see that chinese IPO the day before yesterday on the Nasdaq. The two leads UBS and Credit Suisse must have made a killing on that one (+60% on the open)! Also the two yesterday were pretty decent coming in with +5% gains....I think Q4 is going to look pretty good compared to Q3! IPO pipeline is always a good gage of markets. And it's full.

Offtopic: Mentally challenged...

So I have this friend right, she works in an old peoples home. This place is about 20min drive from the city. Among other things it has a cafeteria where people can eat.

Well yesterday, as on many evenings, they had a mentally handicapped guy, who lives round the corner of the home, eating with them. Now this guy is about 6'2 tall and has a very strange habit. He wanks off before and after each meal (and several more times a day). So we agree he's special.

But yesterday he came back to the table with his trousers still half undone, his fly open. Not a picture the young women working in the home should be seeing while eating, nor the other inhabitants. So one of them tells him that he must go to the bathroom and "re-dress". He doesn't want to. Finally she decides to accompany him to the bathroom and to wait outside. He still doesn't close his fly though, so she tries to do it.

And what did the guy do? He went home to his mum and told her he'd been sexually harassed. Poor girl who tried to help him explained the situation to the mother who is siding with her son 100% and says she's going to press charges! The girl in tears of course and shaken since...

How relevant is US unemployment rate for the world or equity markets?

So the yellow line in the chart is the unemployment rate in the US in the last 50 years or so. This is what all the bears are looking at and concluding that we're in for weak times in stock market performance, as such high unemployment caps growth of companies.

They're probably right in principle. But what I miss is the global context. You have a completely new animal in the game - well four or five animals actually; Brasil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China.

Now any company doing business with those is bound to do pretty well. And of course looking at multinational companies with earnings across the globe, you will certainly find that a lot of them can compensate or even grow despite high US unemployment.

Now the big risk going forward would be if the emerging markets suddenly started contracting. But I've not seen anyone putting that argument forward. Have you? I hear and see China is cooling from +30% to +24% growth rates or similiar.

TV Show Review: The Only Way Is Essex

I've been watching all the episodes of the "reality" show "The Only Way Is Essex" and must say it has one character named Mark who is just like a broker I use to work with!

1. He talks exactely like him

2. He physically looks like him (-15years)

3. He acts like him

a. chasing girls

b. keen on expensive gear (cars, watches)

It's not a clichée !

I recommend the show for the accents. I love them. Just search

"torrent the only was is essex s01e0x" where x is the episode you want - goes till 4!

There's something about people acting immature I really enjoy a lot.

Equities Trading Volume Bonanza

Equities day-trading

So the cash balance going into today for one of the accounts I manage was $1.2 mn.

I was pretty active today in the european markets clocking in turnover of $1.7 mn.

The end of day balance is $ 950k (mind you, that decrease is not due to P&L, but positions now larger than yesterday....)

I guess a Miami based client I had back when I was on a trading desk was right when he said:

"I can tell; you're a flipper!"

The above stats proove it aswell.

I think what I learned today is the following:

Don't follow one stock with your eyes glued to that quote, but rather follow several - in my case today 5 equities - and dart in and out of them.

My new tactic is the following:

1. Have several position I feel comfortable with medium term (remember I need to justify my holding at least once a year, which is nice, as it's not too often right!?)

2. Have bids and offers in the stock, try and gage where support resistance will be, and just wait till something gets hit. Then depending on what I make of order book, general market conditions I'll either sell some more on offer or bid where I just got lifted.

It's great fun, even if today was pretty much zero sum game. Yesterday I was playing this chinese memory game with a girlfriend on her PC, forgot the name (of the game not girl), which is a zero sum game aswell.... Anyway, I'm sorry to say the equity market and having a "bet" on, are much more fun!

I think I'm going to ask a bank to employ me again. I can generate flow for their customers and increase the level of activity, commissions.... Just got to put into more stuck-up language why what I do is so clever and useful :)

IPO Window Opening

It's official, IPOs are back on the table. The window has opened, maybe just a crack, but a draft of fluttering dollars around the world is going to push it wide open, I promise you!

Let me know what IPOs are looking hot in your part of the world!

Atm it looks like Asia and Hong Kong in particular are the place to be?!

Seriously: The Chinas and Brasils of this world need to protect themselves against the toilet paper aka treasuries they bought! And how better to do that than buy know how, market share and technology?

Tell me if I'm missing something here. But I haven't been this excited about the markets since 2006!

QE - Is that going to push stocks up?!

I'm starting to think that this falling dollar has an advantage. As the large overseas funds holdings in US equities are reduced in value due to the USD suffering, a new force comes into play: Companies have large cash piles, as do many investors and TAKEOVERs start looking very attractive! These large cash piles are going to lead to a global merging frenzy as no-one wants to be stuck with lots of paper in the bank when market shares, competitors are up for grabs?!

Note: This is wishful thinking. But the Dow is now more likely to go to 12k than 10k as it's underpinned by the fact that a lot of US companies generate revenues abroad and can export whatever they do produce in the US at a nice discount... ?

*random thoughts*

Terroralert to put people off demonstrating against Austerity

That's what I think is happening at the moment.

Pretty slick move by intelligence agencies.

If they can keep people off the streets, and not protesting the austerity measures I think the whole thing will turn out really well for 2011 and the stock market.

Interesting to see oil ploughed thorugh the USD80 mark. Wonder why brokers like MF Global have been making such a big fuss about USD 80 being the top of trading range. And they're always going on about no demand if not enough jobs in the US.

I think they're missing the picture in the rest of the world to be honest.

*random thoughts*