StockWeb

How to invest in gold.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:16:00 +0000

Gold is of these assets which are mostly used for hedging against falling equities but also used as a safe heaven for political, economic or other kind of crisis. This has been seen during current financial crisis and global economic recession. The gold prices topped all time high $1000 this March when stocks found their bottom. The bottom at least for now.

There are several ways how to invest to gold. One of the possible investment is in physical gold ownership. The gold can be purchase as bullion bars, coins or as a numismatic coins.

Investment without interest in physical ownership are based and on exchange traded products. Here is the list of the most liquid Gold ETFs (exchange traded funds):

SPDR Equity Gold (GLD) - Fund tracking performance of gold bullion prices.
Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX) - Fund follows performance of AMEX Gold Miners index. ADRs with biggest share included in this index are Barrick Gold (ABX), Goldcorp Inc (GG) and Newmont Mining (NEM).
iShares COMEX Gold (IAU) - In fact the same structure like GLD. Also with the same performance.
PowerShares DB Gold Double Long ETN (DGP) - This ETN reflects double performance of Deutsche Bank Liquid Commodity index. Keep in mind difference between ETF and ETF.
ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL) - Double performance of gold bullion prices.

Except of ETFs you can use gold futures or other derivatives for your investing to gold. It is the riskiest asset you can use. With ETF you can get usually up to 3 times leverage investment where with futures there is no limitation. On the other side there is bigger potential return on your investment.

For safer play with mutual funds I list here the biggest funds underlying gold assets.
List of precious metal (gold) mutual funds
The best ways to buy gold from MSN - precious metal mutual funds

On top of that there are other possibility how to invest in gold like buying jewelery, gold certificates, shares of gold miners or other gold trading companies and so on.

On latest gold trading analysis like "Energy Fields...and Gold?" you can sign up right here.

New Beta Blogger template for anniversary.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:56:00 +0000

It is being now two years since I started with blogging. StockWeb is my first blog and would still call it as a flagship blog. Recently I begun new financial related blog which is dedicated only to emerging markets and is called Emerging Index.

Blogger template which I had been using was built just by me from scratch. Up to now at StockWeb I made only small adjustments to this template but finally I have decided to switch to new blogspot template. After 2 years. Today I uploaded this new template which you can see right now. I hope it will be easy to use and navigate though the blogsite.

Another milestone in my blogging experience was one year ago when I discovered INO. INO offers interesting tools for traders and investors. Here I list the most useful which you can try:

1. Get Analysis for your tickers. Here you can type as much tickers as you wish and you will receive via email analysis for all selected stocks. No limitations it is for free.
Click Here

2. Have a look for example at Market commentary feature. After accessing the page you can see latest headlines. At the left side bar you have box for free subscription. If you subscribe you'll receive daily for free only top market analysis via email.

Check it out here:

3. Another product is INO TV. After signing up you can receive 4 free trading seminars about investing.

INO also offers affiliate program for bloggers. If you are interested in trying this program you can use this link for signing up. I am here to answer all your questions and help you with set up and optimization.

P/E ratio for global stock indexes.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:47:00 +0000

I have written already several posts on the topic of fundamental screeners, historical fundamental data for stocks or global equity markets. Here you can have a look to some of my articles with interesting tools.

Historical P/E ratio displayed at charts for US stocks. Provided by Bar Chart website.

Fundamental stock screeners US stocks and ADR, ETF, CEF. Available indicators like P/E, P/BV, Dividend yield, P/Sales, P/Cash flow and others.

Fundamental historical data. This articles includes 3 interesting web sources for fundamental historical data.

Until the end of 2008 there was nice functionality at official Standard and Poor's website where you could see main fundamental indicators for all global stock markets. Unfortunately this function has been switched off and I was researching another source. P/E ratio for global equities indexes you can retrieve at Finacial Times official website at World Equities section. There is so called equity tables in print. You simply choose "Ratios - Yield & P/E by country".

Buffett, Rogers and Soros portfolios.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:37:00 +0000

Recently Warren Buffett has been interviewed by CNBC where he provided his prediction for economy and stock markets. He can see stabilizing economy but not significant signs of economic recovery. As he mentioned financial crisis is over. He still believes in attractive valuation at the stock markets. In his opinion stocks are definitely better for next 10 years than government bonds. Among the industries he prefers Consumer goods and Financials. His portfolio holdings are Coca Cola (KO), Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) and Wells Fargo (WFC)

Jim Rogers is neutral right now. No short, no long positions. He considers Canadian dollar as currency with good future against British Pound or US dollar due to increasing level of government debt in US and Great Britain. His outlook is positive with soft commodities.

George Soros is bearish with US dollar as well as Jim Rogers. He is exposed mainly at Oil & Gas and Utilities industries. His current portfolio includes companies like Energy Corp (ETR), Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP) and Walgreen Company (WAL).

For all stocks you can receive free trend analysis. It is enough if you type ticker here.

Trading analysis: S&P500 and USD/CAD.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Adam provides his video update analysis on S&P500. He predicts movements based on MACD and setting timing for buy/sell based on Fibonacci retracement tool and Welles Wilder parabolic SAR. This clip provides very easy explanation how this use analytics and indicators and make simple technical analysis.

Second video is focused on Forex trading. It shows long position in US dollar against Canadian dollar. The best in this video is INO's Triangle method which basically simplifies the whole technical analysis. Based on the calculation of indicators, movements it gives just assessment to go long or short.

Henry hub natural gas seasonality.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:10:00 +0000

Natural gas usually follows closely crude oil prices. But the evolution of recent weeks argues against this statement. Main reasons for sharp decline in natural gas prices as well as crude oil prices in second half of 2008 were due to the economic slowdown and recession. In case of natural gas producers the output has not been decreased in similar way like for crude oil and increasing inventories caused still falling natural gas prices. But recent numbers shows lower inventory levels of natural gas and with the signs of economic recovery could be right time to become bullish with natural gas. In addition to that seasonality plays important role in price determination. Usually end of summer is start point for price rebound. The picture below shows price trends for natural gas prices in Henry hub from 2004 till 2009

source: Official Nebraska Government website

Asset class performance.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:35:00 +0000

It is important to keep an eye on different class assets performance. It gives you insight where the money flows. There are some good quality websites which bring you performance for example on weekly basis. Good one is StockCharts. You can see bar chart below showing performance of different assets for past week.

Currently US stock markets offer such a wide range of investment products and derivatives that easily cover all different classes of assets. In fact it is enough to trade Exchange Traded Funds at NYSE to cover all of them. US, foreign, emerging stocks and bonds, REITs, commodities, TIPS and cash. I have listed below all kinds of asset classes and their relevant ETF.

High Yield Bonds	iShares iBOXX High Yield	(HYG)
TIPS	iShares Barclays TIPS	(TIP)
Emerging markets bonds	iShares EM bonds	(EMB)
Cash	SPDR 3 month T-Bill ETF	(BIL)
US bonds	Barclays agg. Bond fund	(AGG)
Foreign Dev Market bonds	iShares Intl. bond fund	(IGOV)
Commodities	iShares GSCI commodity	(GSG)
Emerging markets stocks	iShares MSCI EM Index	(EEM)
US stocks	iShares Russell 3000	(IWV)
Foreign Dev Market stocks	iShares MSCI EAFE Index	(EFA)
REITs	Wilshire REIT Index	(RWR)

For all ETFs you can receive free trend analysis. It is enough if you type ticker here.

Commodity investing with ETF.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Commodity index The Reuters / Jefferies CRB, a global commodities benchmark is tracking 19 kinds of commodities, which are mainly traded in the U.S. This index surpassed the performance of index S&P500 this year, 10.24% vs. 3,16%.

The recent rally in commodities has been pushed by the weakening dollar, as well as increasing confidence in the economy recovery. These facts clearly resulted in increased demand and higher prices for commodity contracts.

Top ten best performing commodities included in CRB index are calculated from the beginning of 2009 to 3.6.09 (YTD). Commodities are linked with respective ETF.

1. Gasoline (unleaded Gas) 79.06%. U.S. Gasoline Fund ETF (UGA)

2. Copper 56.88%. Power Shares DB Base Metal ETF (DBB)

3. Oil 48.25%. Power Shares Dynamic Oil Shares ETF (PXJ)

4. Orange juice. Market Vectors Agribusiness (WTO)

5. Silver. iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV)

6. Natural sugars. iPath DJ Sugar including (SGG)

7. Coffee. iPath DJ including Coffee (JO)

8. Soybeans. PowerShares DB Agriculture ETF (DBA)

9. Fuel oil. U.S. Heating Oil Fund ETF (UHN)

10. Nickel. iPath DJ Nickel Total Return ETF (JJN)

Start thinking about natural gas.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Price of natural gas is currently being the lowest compared to the crude oil prices since the fall of the Soviet Union. Gas prices, after falling by 31 percent since the beginning of the year, are with the worst performance commodities.

During the last 11 months the price of gas has plummeted by 72 percent. Mainly due to the worst economic depression in the U.S. over the last 50 years and also because mining companies were unable to respond quickly to slowing demand. Because of this stock levels of natural gas are about 22 percent more than the five-year average. Moreover, the gap between the price of gas and oil prices is increasing. Currently oil 18 times more expensive than natural gas. This is the biggest difference since 1992, after the fall of communism has stopped supplies from Russia.

Currently, mining companies have slowed down the exploration and production of gas. The number of operated drilling rigs in the U.S. declined during the past nine months by 56 percent, the largest decline for the last two decades. But this occurs at a time when arising signs of improving global economy.

Fundamental historical data.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:32:00 +0000

This article is a continuation of my previous post about historical fundamental data in chart. There is no problem to find historical data for technical analysis. But issue arises with fundamental. For example if you are looking for historical P/E ratio, EPS, sales, revenue etc. I have searched several times on Internet good sources for historical fundamental data and have found couple of sources which I would like to share with you.

Standard & Poor's official website

It used to be better site before they implemented changes at the end of 2008. Because before it provided information like P/E ratios for all global stock markets. Now you can get P/E history, P/BV, dividend yield, P/Cash flow for S&P 500 if you follow the path:

1. Equity Indices
2. United States
3. S&P 500
4. At Data tab choose "Earnings"
5. S&P 500 Historical Average Price to Earnings Ratio

or

4. At Data tab choose "Index level fundamentals"

and you get 5 years historical fundamental data.

Additionally you can price and total return performance for all global stock markets or sector indices. You have to follow the path

1. Equity Indices
2. Global
3. S&P Global BMI Indices
4. Index Data Platform
5. Go to "Global BMI" tab

Robert J. Shiller

Robert J. Shiller is professor at Economic Yale University and has maintaining historical track of S&P 500 index since 1871. Monthly historical data contains price, dividend, earnings, CPI.

It is just simple spreadsheet file where one sheet has data and other sheets are drawing charts price vs. earnings and P/E ration vs. long term interest rates.

Finance Yahoo historical data

And the last way which I will publish for today is small "hack" how to retrieve data from Finance Yahoo site. This is really neat way how to download stock data like EBITDA, EPS, estimated EPS, PEG ratio, P/B, P/E and much more.

Counter party risk with ETNs.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:14:00 +0000

ETN (exchange-traded notes) has its origins in the ETF (Exchange Traded Funds). ETNs are following main stock indices (S & P500), as well as the sectoral indices (Goldman Sachs Commodity Index).

ETNs are technically debts of the company that issues them. That structure gives them some potential tax advantages which cannot find with ETFs. Yet although their performance is contractually tied to whatever index they're intended to track, ETNs don't have any assets, other than a claim against their issuer for payment according to the terms of the contract. This introduces counter party risk for ETN. ETFs lacks this credit risk as holders can liquidate actual assets if the ETF issuer went bankrupt.

In addition to the annual fee, 0, 75%, ETNs offers zero deviation from the index. Bonds (ETN) can be traded or leave it to the maturity date. The biggest ETN issuer in the UK is Barclays Bank PLC, which has 300 years history, assets over 1.5 trillion dollars and AA credit rating from Standard & Poor's. Despite this seemingly steadfast position, are known examples where the same large institutions have liquidity problems. Examples from the nineties is the Barings Bank, which had similar characteristics as the venerable Barclays Bank, but it led to the bankruptcy after huge losses caused speculators, employed by the bank.

Barclays offers including eight which are linked to commodity indexes (Goldman Sachs Commodities Index (GSCI), Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index), or directly monitor the various commodities (Goldman Sachs Crude Oil), or exchange rates (iPath ® EUR / USD). Purchase
of EOTN or ETF is a significant portfolio diversification and saves buying individual commodities, as well as fees associated with investing in a mutual fund.

Stocks alerts from Jim Cramer.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:07:00 +0000

For some of us Jim Cramer is clown and for others financial guru. Almost anybody who is watching CNBC knows Jim Cramer's daily show Mad Money and his investment picks. Now there is a tool to follow his investments before official release at Mad Money. You get direct access to Jim Cramer current portfolio positions.

This subscription letter is emailed to you even before Jim makes his trade. It is good because it has 14 days trial and you can actually test it first without paying penny.

You can get Cramer's best stock picks & his latest bestseller FREE right HERE.

This letter comes directly from TheStreet .com which is website co-founded by Jim Cramer

Outlook for stock markets.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:44:00 +0000

Financial markets are going through the one of top growing period last years, recorded a sharp increase in risky assets such as shares and commodities. Over the past two months, stock markets rose in the range of 20 - 50% and commodity markets strengthened by 25%. The optimism and increased appetite of investors have several factors. This is essentially a very cheap price of shares and commodities, cheap money and last but not least some signs of stabilizing economies. The question remains whether it is sustainable growth, or just a short break.

Before the beginning of the current growth rally, the ratio of the share price and earnings per share (P / E) is the lowest over the past 10 years (P / E be in the range of values 11), also the rates on the interbank market began to decrease, 3M Libor fell close to the level of 2002. Signs of stabilizing economies supported investors in stocks purchases. Together with some government officials announcing the economy bottom and global recovery.

All these factors caused a significant decrease in the risk aversion. Investors seeking high yield began to beat the risk-adjusted assets and insert your money into commodities and shares. The decline in risk aversion to shows such as the volatility index (Vix) and the TED spread. Volatility Index Vix (given the volatility of the S & P 500 index) dropped to the value of September 08 (before the biggest sell off), similarly with TED spread (difference between the value of 3M LIBOR and yield on three-month Treasury bills).

Pic1: TED spread chart

Confidence in markets and the risk aversion is at the similar level, as it was before market sell off on September and October last year. Very optimistic mood in the markets is also improving investor confidence, the German ZEW index rose to its three-year maximum.

Pic 2: P/E for Dow Jones Industrial Average Index

Due to massive growth rally the ratio P/E for Dow Jones is at the value of 21,5 (most since 2003). It is a combination that suggests the possibility of aggressive sale on the stock markets because we are still heading very poor GDP of individual countries and ever-growing unemployment. At present it is not the growth of equity markets supported by the fundamentals of the real economies. What, on the contrary can speak for the continued growth of equity markets, is the price of money - interest rates on the interbank markets are currently at record low levels (in the markets is reflected in the massive pumping of liquidity into the economy).

Jim Rogers still likes China and Sri Lanka.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:03:00 +0000

Jim has travelled extensively around the world and has written some of the best investment books available for traders. His latest book is a Bull in China, a book about the Chinese stock market.

The well-known investor Jim Rogers, who founded Quantum Fund with George Soros, consider investment in China and Sri Lanka as a much more attractive than those in India. His opinion did not change either the Indian elections in recent days. Rogers believes that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was able within a short time to make all the necessary and promised reforms. In Sri Lanka, on the contrary, after long war he sees a number of promising investment opportunities. Also potential in Myanmar, mainly thanks to good position in relation to China and India.

S&P 500 technical picture.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:21:00 +0000

Index S&P 500 is caught in triangle right now. This is basically neutral pattern in technical analysis. But still as resistance level is longer lasting we can consider breakout as a more difficult.

Shorter support level has been formed since March index lows.

Have a look to the full video analysis of S&P500 index.

Valuation of European stocks.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:45:00 +0000

PE ratio of the index Dow Jones STOXX 600 is at 22.3, which is 55 percent more than is PE ratio of the index S&P 500. This difference is the largest since 2003. Macroeconomic situation, however, is more favorable for US shares. It is highly expected that recessions in Europe will go on at least one year. In the U.S. There may be recovery already at the end of this year. International Monetary Fund expects that losses from bad loans can grow twice as fast as in the United States.

Confidence in global economy is growing.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:07:00 +0000

Confidence in the global economy is growing at the highest level over the past 19 months in response to mention central bankers in the features of economies and the recovery stress tests of banks in the U.S. to some extent reassure investors. This is based on latest Bloomberg research.

Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index rose in May to the value of 38.72 points compared with 21.20 points in April. It is the largest increase in the level of the index since the beginning of the survey in November 2007. Given that the number is below 50 points, it means pessimists still prevail over optimistic.

Fed Chief Bernanke, B. and ECB President Trichet are among the policy makers (makers of monetary policy), which signaled that a recession may have already weakened. While unemployment is still a record and maintain a trend of increase, the company gradually felt signs of increased production and a fall in stocks. This whole process has enabled the index MSCI World Index rise by 37% of its annual minimum in March.

Economists from companies in the Standard Chartered in Singapore (regular participants in research) expressed the hope that the world economy may have the worst behind and is also reflected in a major recovery in the stock markets. We need, however, more evident confirmation of the sustainability of the overall reorganization and if this happens, it will be a very slow process.

Research Bloomberg took place on 4 - 8.5.09 with more than 1300 users of the system. Just before the preceding overview of the U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner said that the U.S. financial system is strong enough to support economic recovery, the ECB cut interest rates to the record level of 1% and in Japan we can see indicators showing a tailing off recession.

Data obtained between the U.S. index of participants shows that confidence in the world's largest economy rose to 34 points from the previous 23.90 points. Sentiment also improved in Japan (growth of confidence from 22.2 to 29.6 points) and Western Europe, reinforced from 23.7 to 14.2 points.
Progressive aggressive Fed actions to create conditions for a relatively long and arduous journey back to restore positive momentum in the markets and further improvement can be expected. The crisis in the autumn of last year was very serious.

Bullish on British Pound.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:02:00 +0000

Have a look to the picture above. It is 12 years chart of currency pair EUR/GBP. You can see that the worst recession in UK history since Second World War sent British Pound to 0.97 against EUR.

But with the signs of bottoming currency pair is traded now around 0.90 with declining triangle pattern. If support level for EUR (0.88) will be crossed the pair is heading to support range 0.80-0.77.

Another stop would be 0.72.

Bullish signs for Pound based on technical recovery. On the other hand any downside correction for equities will push Pound lower.

3 trading videos: Bank stress test, Pound, Crude Oil.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sun, 10 May 2009 16:59:00 +0000

Today I am coming to you with 3 new videos published by Adam Hewison. The first is analysis for S&P 500 index and the impact of bank stress test.

The second video is about currency pair GBP/USD. After steep decline in second half of 2008, there are signs of stabilization in last months. Based on Fibonacci retracement first level of 23,6% has been crossed over and British Pound is ready for substantial move up.

The last trading video gives you a little bit insight and update on crude oil prices. Commodity price is analyzed on ETF Crude Oil (USO). Here is the crude oil analysis.

Inflation, stagflation or deflation?

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:49:00 +0000

According to the OECD, in March inflation rate across global economies is at the lowest level for past 38 years. Consumer prices of thirty OECD countries increased during the twelve months ending on 31 March by 0.9%, the lowest level since 1971. In contrast, even in July 2008 the inflation rate within the OECD countries at 4.8%, which was the biggest jump over the past 11 years.

Recent numbers support the view that the main threat for the world economy remains deflation - situation in which there is an absolute decline in the price level. While short-term deflation is not in principle problematic - it is good news for consumers (but not for manufacturers, which pushed the margin), fall into deflationary spiral is negative news for the whole economy - usually including increased uncertainty affects the allocation of capital and wealth between debtors and creditors, etc. The massive monetary stimulation of the U.S. economy and some other developed countries, but increases the likelihood of increasing future inflation (if it manages to revive the world economy), or even stagflation (e.g. sharp rise of commodity prices) - a combination of high inflation and economic stagnation. And as shown by the latest numbers in OECD countries since June last year to March 2009, the situation is changing very quickly.

The dilemma regarding the future evolution of prices also apply to individual countries - already are differences within the OECD noticeable. At this time, Iceland continues to hold by far the highest annual inflation rate to 15.2%, while Ireland is at the opposite end with prices falling by 2.6%. Prices are according to the OECD report also lower than the year before in Japan, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the USA.

Is it right time to buy commodities?

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:03:00 +0000

World recession and the decline of banking activities, which will still last probably a year and a half. This will result in a major deflationary pressures. With the purchase of commodities is therefore necessary to wait. How to develop crude oil, gold, copper and corn?

Some economic indicators showed a slowdown in global US decline, which arose some reasons for optimism. On the other hand, some other continue to surprise market with decline, which is seen on U.S. GDP data for the first quarter, which fell by -6.1%.

Equity markets have seen the biggest monthly gain since 1991. We would like to see the bottom of course, but economic activity continues to decline, albeit at a slower rate than at the end of last year.

It will be important to monitor the index of new orders to obtain evidence of a change in economic activity, while these indices do not offer many reasons to celebrate. Particularly important is whether the reserve bank, part of the money stock, which is now accumulating in the commercial banks are used to something. This would be a turnover. We saw that the lending activity, at least in the U.S. is reduced for six months, therefore, that this can continue for at least 1 a half years. Usually during recession lending activity is reduced at least two years.

On the basis of that, I believe that buying commodities at this time as a protection against inflation is far too early and the risk of deflation is much higher.

Oil continues to be trading around $ 50 a with a smaller volatility, which decreases each day. The current band, which is defined by the trends of this year's high and low, points to the zone between 47.50 USD and 54.70 USD. The risk of decline is greater with a probability of return back to 45 USD.

The outbreak of swine flu has some implications for travel and can be a serious problem, since the season for car traveling in the U.S. begins at the end of May. At present, however, these negative messages, which appear in addition to the economic crisis had only limited influence, if stock markets rose and the dollar weakening things went the opposite direction.

Gold this week has been pushed below the growth in global stock markets, when the pig flu failed to stimulate the momentum up. It was the first time the loss lasted two months in a row, from April 2008, mainly due to investor lower demand when their attention turned to other asset classes.

We should be careful to use gold as a hedge against inflation because we expect that in the near future will be a major problem of deflation. Technically, the business of gold futures for delivery in June to continue trading in the channel down to the band, which is currently located between 865 USD and 915 USD.

The divestiture of copper over the past two weeks, apparently impressed a strong demand for the July futures trades back to the level of $ 190. Month ago long large purchases of Chinese State Bureau (STB) moved prices above and purchases have now become visible, when the London Metals Exchange (LME) noted that in Asian stores are the lowest level of stocks in four years. Falling stocks level with growing equity markets declined somewhat concerned that the economic downturn will reduce demand for metals. Technically, it appears that the July copper will buy slightly below $ 200, with a view to 210 USD, followed by 216 USD, which is 200 days moving average.

Markets in the U.S. grain and oilseeds during the week ranged. The first outbreaks were heavily damaged by swine influenza, then there was a strong recovery when the delay in planting this season because of wet weather. Soybeans were supported, moreover, when Argentina fell estimate the size of its production.

Next week could become very interesting for the industry, because corn and soybeans are near important resistance levels. July corn could break the long-term trend down, and rise above U.S. $ 417, and then be directed to 447 USD. July soybeans tested 200 days week moving average and closing above 1064, which is trading at the time of drafting this report, and could have a goal in 1076 and the 1135.

There are only few changes in total commodity performance. Copper is still in front with a yield of 50%, while natural gas is firmly held by the bottom and in 2009 has lost 39%.

New website about emerging markets.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:13:00 +0000

In last month I have started new (second) website about stock markets and investing. Up to now my only one blog StockWeb covered all finance topics. And I have decided to make a split a little bit.

On StockWeb I will still publish analysis from US and other developed markets for stocks, funds and other investment products. But on new website Emerging Index I will publish only articles from emerging markets.

Become MorningStar * * *

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Today I sign up free membership with one of the top financial sites Morningstar . And right now testing what are the useful functions you can use. Morningstar was founded in 1984 and according to latest Nielsen survey among top 25 searched financial sites.

I like Morningstar especially due to very good tracks on mutual funds and ETF. I would say that from all financial web sites they have the most advanced information central for funds. It includes funds screener, analysis, new released funds, real time data and others functions.

Now some statistics about clients of Morningstar. Right now they have already more than 6 000 000 registered members managing on average portfolio of $870 000.

First of all there two types of memberships. Free and Premium.

Free memberships includes stocks and funds financial data and real time quotes, portfolio manager, articles, analysis, videos and others.

You can give a try also to Premium membership which offer 14 days Free trial. And additionally offers Portfolio-X Ray, Free report Where to invest in 2009, independent analyst research, picks for today's market. Coming back to focus on funds, here with premium membership you can receive full research on 2000 funds and ETFs.

Finance Yahoo & Google without development.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:34:00 +0000

It has been long time since I was blogging last time about finance portals from Yahoo and Google. Actually it was on September 08 right before deep sell off on stock market had started. And since that time there is no progress on new features neither for Google Finance nor for Yahoo Finance.

Finance Google (GOOG) released functionality for its Android and launched and launched ads on Google Finance. Nothing interesting, nothing important.

Finance Yahoo (YHOO) is even behind Google. If you check their blog about Finance Yahoo site, you can find out that except some Facebook portfolio application there in no new single release. And it is being so half of the year.

It seems like big search giants focus on core business and cost cutting rather than developing new functionalities for its secondary units.

International online money transfer.

vld2czech@googlemail.com (Vlada, Czech Republic) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:58:00 +0000

As a frequent traveller I often face the problem how to fund my costs abroad. You can use PayPal or MoneyBookers for international online money transfer. But this option is rather useful if you stay longer abroad and have there local bank account. Then you can easily withdraw money against it.

iKOBO is a service offering non-cash transfers. Money are sent to a destination (destination address abroad) in form of prepaid VISA card.

How it works.

1. You register yourself. Then you fill in to whom you want to send money, address and contact details.
2. This person will receive prepaid VISA card (usually it is delivered by FedEx). The card holder will receive also the PIN (by email).
3. After that the card works like a normal VISA card only with the difference that it does not need a bank account and payments and withdrawals are possible only to the amount of credit. Credit can be supplemented at any time by bank transfer to iKOBO account.

How much does it cost? Only $8 for funding up to $1000 which makes less then 1%. Neither PayPal nor MoneyBookers will offer you cheaper way.

Why the service is interesting? So, especially concerning the VISA card issued by a U.S. entity. And therefore it can be used in the U.S. eshop where foreign cards are not accepted.

Another benefit is that you can use it even without having bank account.