Weekly Ramblings of an Australian Stock Trader – incorporating ASXweekendtrader.com

By the time you finished reading this article, you will  hopefully will have gained a good working knowledge on how CFDs work, what makes them extremely profitable,plus you will also understand the costs involved when you trade CFDs.

The acronym CFD stands for Contracts For Difference, which of course is a derivative product, whereby you profit from the changes that occur in the prices of stocks and shares.

For example, if you bought a CFD on a stock that’s $5.00 and the price rises to $5.50, then you would  then obviously profit from that change in price. So if you bought 1000 CFDs, then your profit is $500. That is, the value of the CFDs mirror the underlying stock prices, and you can profit on this movement.This large increase in profit was bought about by applying leverage.

The major reasons why CFDs have become such a  very popular trading instrument is because: [Read more →]

Was anyone really surprised at Myer’s [ASX:MYR] recent profit downgrade?

Instead of losing $16 million in the second half of the financial year, CEO Bernie Brooks reckons the firm will lose $24 million.
As the share price tanked on this news, The Australian wrote:

‘That is an effective 13 per cent cut in forecast second-half earnings and, if it is as bad as Brookes fears, will push down earnings before interest and tax to about $225m this year, about 17 per cent below 2010 year levels.’

Importantly, the article also notes ‘Myer has not grown sales per square metre for more than a decade and in the past two years these have fallen so the latest blip is not exactly a surprise.’

Clearly, this was something shareholders forgot when they forked out $4.10 a share when Myer floated back in 2009. [Read more →]

I hope you didn’t buy shares of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB). The valuation was always too aggressive.

And increasing both the price and amount of Facebook stock at the last moment ensured that both underwriters and retail investors ended up with far more shares than they bargained for.

In fact, the Facebook fiasco reminds me of another deal that marked the peak of the dot-com boom.

No, not the ineffable and rather sweet Pets.com – their IPO was far too small a deal to have genuine market significance.

Instead I’m talking about the AOL and Time Warner merger announced on January 10, 2000. [Read more →]

There are Four basic stages that a stock will go through at some time other in their trading history. It would be very prudent to recognise what these four stages entail as it could quite possibly save you from getting your fingers severely burnt and having a negative impact on your wallet.

Stage One.

This is the stage right after a stock has been experiencing a prolonged down trend. The stock which had previously been heading downwards begins to level off and now has begun starting to trade sideways forming a base a resistance line. What is now happening is that the sellers who once had the whip hand are now beginning to diminish because  buyers are beginning to get more numerous. Usually what happens now is that the stock just drifts happily sideways without indicating any clear trend either up or down. [Read more →]

The uncertainty looming around worldwide economies sent oil prices sinking below $90 a barrel, a level not seen since October of last year.
The decline came on the heels of several weeks of slipping oil, sparked by a plethora of less than stellar economic reports. The concerning data mostly involved Europe’s ongoing sovereign debt saga.

Oil gained 0.5% in early afternoon New York trading Thursday, but the reasons for the rally were unclear.

“You don’t know if this is just a short-covering rally or the start of a more significant rally,” Andy Lebow, an oil analyst with Jefferies, told The Wall Street Journal. Lebow said that progress in the talks between Iran and Western powers about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions could have spurred Thursday’s price reversal.

If the gain isn’t maintained, however, prices could head closer to $85 a barrel. [Read more →]

Greece is frozen in a political stalemate. Youth unemployment is running at over 50%. And there has been a $1 billion run on Greek banks.

From near and afar, there appears to be no easy way out, especially now that the Eurozone is heading back into a recession.

It’s times like these when investors pour into the U.S. dollar for its “perceived safety.”

With commodities priced in U.S. dollars, this spike in the greenback has sent commodities-including gold prices into a tailspin since early March.

That has many doubters asking: “Has the commodities super-cycle ended?” [Read more →]

Your editor spent yesterday morning at the Platts LNG Forum in Sydney.

The audience contained a mixture of industry professionals and investment analysts.

Anyone who turned up hoping for a healthy dose of ‘China will spur growth in the Asian energy market for years to come’ was sorely disappointed.

In fact, we walked away even more convinced of what we had already started to think – that China (and India) won’t have the same influence over the global energy market as they’ve had over the metal markets.

But if that’s so, what does it mean for natural gas, oil, and Aussie energy stocks?

Despite what you may think, we’d say it means a very bright future indeed. And with the recent hammering taken by energy stocks, we’d say now could be the best chance you’ll ever get to buy energy stocks on the cheap. Here’s why… [Read more →]

Any one who has already embarked into the share market would already have an idea what Forex is.

So what Is Forex?

FOREX stands for the extremely popular Foreign Exchange Market.

Essentially simply put the Foreign Exchange Market is where people go to trade currencies. Traders buy and sell these currencies and hopefully try to make a profit while doing so..

The Foreign Exchange Market and the trading as we know it today started way back in the 1970’s.The foreign exchange market can now be found wherever there is a financial centre where people trade in the buying and selling of various securities..

Why Are People Trading in the Foreign Exchange Market?

Increasingly people are turning into forex trading now than ever before. The major attractions are that there are no hard-and-fast requirements to join the market. Anyone can enter it and learn how to trade. Some even study in advance to be prepared for the big trading  that lies ahead. [Read more →]

This article is contributed by Pinnacledigest.com. One of the TOP sites for up to date information on the Canadian and US Stock Markets. For more information  subscribe to their free newsletter.

Dear member,

Over the past few weeks deflation has taken hold. This is to be expected considering there has been a run on the banks in Greece. And there are fears this trend will spread in other European countries.

Did you know that Greek savers withdrew at least 700 million euros on Monday alone?

For the short-term, expect deflationary forces to prevail. After all, contrary to what the Fed tells us, inflation has been on a rampant surge-up for the last two years.

With a run on the banks in Greece underway, expect politicians and central banks to take drastic measures to promote growth and stability back into their respective economies. At this stage in the game, the only path to ‘growth’ for countries like Greece, Spain, Italy and soon France, will be to print.

Timing when inflation will start fighting back will be a calculated guess. It could reverse tomorrow or in 6 months. But in the end, it will return and in the big picture, this deflationary moment in time will look like nothing more than a blip on the radar. [Read more →]

The only certain thing if Greece leaves the Eurozone is the uncertainty that will certainly follow.

Unable to form a coalition government during May elections, Greece has been forced to hold a second vote on June 17.

In the balance is the future of the Eurozone itself as a “Grexit” looms large.

So much is riding on the outcome that U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders of the G-8 have conveyed their optimism that Greece will remain in the Eurozone when they convened for a summit on Saturday aimed at keeping Europe’s economic woes from stretching around the globe.

“All of us are absolutely committed to making sure that growth and stability and social consolidation are part of an overall package,” President Obama said. [Read more →]