Hi everyone

Mike Malpede - Chief Analyst at Easy-Forex USA - shares with us his bright view for 2009.

It is a quick read so if you have some spare time, give it a look and share with us your view

Happy New Year everyone!

Francesc

Mike Malpede - It’s the end of the year. Not the end of the world!

Hi everyone

I just came across thir article published today at FXstreet.com

What’s your opinion about it?

Is the author exaggerating or it is just the real true?

12 Urgent Questions for 2009 by Money and Markets

Francesc

Hi everyone

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Today is Christmas day and I´m going to my mother-in-law place to gather with my family-in-law.

Children will have very much fun with the Tió de Nadal, a very old Catalan tradition that children hit with sticks and piece of wood covered with a blanket while sing a song. Then the wood poops gifts.

To find more info about the Tió de Nadal, nothing better than the Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tio_de_Nadal

Merry Christmas

Francesc

Hi all,

I’ve been notified that the SFBC - Swiss Federal Banking Commission - appointed special investigators for Crown Forex SA.

You can read the excerpt of the Commercial Register dated December 18, 2008 of Crown Forex SA, which is published by the Money House

It’s in French but I’ll translate here the first sentence:

The (Swiss) Federal Banking Commission, by a superprovisional decision of 09.12.2008, has appointed Laurent Winkelmann, from Geneva, in Chêne-Bougeries and Philippe von Bredow, from Lausanne, in Céligny, responsible for investigation of Crown Forex SA.

I’m not sure where this is going to lead us but we will remain expectant for any outcome of the investigation.

Francesc

Hi everyone

For those of you that your family allows you to have some spare time this days to read, here you have an interesting monthly report from la Caixa, one of the three biggest banks in Spain.

http://www.lacaixa.comunicacions.com/se/ieimon.php?idioma=eng&llibre=200812

Francesc

Hi everyone

I’m very happy to announce you all that we have already launched the registration period to participate in FXstreet’s FOREX TRADER OF THE YEAR 2009 contest.

Dates
February 2nd - April 30th for the Demo Contest
and May 4th - July 31st for the Live Contest (real accounts)

Register Here

Everyone can participate in this learning experience. Over 900 traders participate in the Forex Trader of the Year 2008 Contest so I hope we will beat these numbers.

Francesc

Hi everyone

A nice picture of my friend and great Forex Educator Wayne McDonell, owner and leader of FXBootcamp.

I would get mad with so many screens but he seems to be very comfortable

Merry Christmas Wayne

Francesc

An interesting reading for the weekend

Francesc

Global Outlook - Economic and Financial Outlook 2009

• Global: The world economy is currently in its worst recession for decades. We expect the weakness to continue over the coming quarters but for a modest recovery to begin in the middle of 2009. The US should be the first to recover followed by Asia, whereas Euroland will be the laggard (see Global Scenarios, Dec 2008)

• US: The economy will remain in recession through Q1 but the contraction will be milder than the exceptionally sharp drop in activity seen in the current quarter. A fiscal boost is on the cards in H1, which combined with a super boost to real incomes from declining energy prices, will help a recovery get under way. The recovery will nevertheless be relatively moderate by historical standards as the deleveraging in the financial sector, declining home prices and unemployment will continue to weigh on growth through 2009. We do not expect unemployment to stabilise before early 2010, topping at 8.6%. Both headline and core inflation are past their cycle peaks and risks of deflation are rising but remain very limited due to an aggressive policy response. We expect the Fed to keep the Fed funds rate at close to zero throughout 2009 and to continue to conduct full-scale quantitative easing. That could include further purchase of mortgage-backed securities, private sector credit instruments and longer-term treasury bonds.

• Euroland: The economy has slipped into a deep recession which will last until at least mid-2009. Tighter financial conditions and greater uncertainty are reducing demand in both the domestic economy and on export markets. By spring/early summer 2009, the worst should be over as demand should be stimulated by a rapid decline in inflation and a pick-up in the US economy. Furthermore, automatic stabilisers and discretionary fiscal policy responses - although many details remain to be revealed - should stimulate demand. The recovery is expected to be slow and gradual and growth will be below potential way into 2010. Much depends on how the financial crisis unfolds and risks to growth are primarily on the downside. We expect pressure to mount on the ECB to cut rates during the first few months of 2009 and even though the ECB believes that going below 2% would be painful, we think the weak economy will force it to cut the refi rate to 1.5%.

• Japan: The economy has contracted sharply in H2 08 on the back of weak exports and corporate investments. We expect fiscal easing and lower inflation to prevent the economy from contracting further in H1 09. However, the economy will barely grow in H1 09 and there is mainly downside risk to our GDP forecast in early 2009. In H2 the economy should start to improve as the global economy gradually starts to recover. Deflation fears could re-emerge as both headline and core inflation will return into negative territory in 2009. We expect the Bank of Japan to effectively return to some form of quantitative easing by cutting its leading interest rate to 0.1% and possibly even to zero and instead use outright purchase of government bonds and corporate debt as the main monetary transmission mechanism.

Hi everyone

This morning I announced here that for the first time ever FXstreet’s Currencies at a Glance - also know as just CAG - broke the 14,000 page views in a single day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Wednesday data was not completed at that time, so I considered that the new daily high was at 14,483 pv, made on Monday December 15th 2008.

Well, I just checked stats once again and it seems we made a new high on Wednesday December 17th when we reached 15,695 page views.

Congratulations to everyone that made CAG possible.

As I said this morning, I’m very pleased to see that CAG is helpful for the Forex traders community

Francesc

* The recent pullback by the U.S. dollar against certain currencies was probably not a new groundswell but rather only a momentary blip.

* Even after taking into account the colossal budget deficit that the U.S. government will register in 2009, the credit rating of the United States is not threatened, as the national debt has not attained the critical threshold that could hurt the greenback.

* Moreover, the Asian currencies have begun to tumble against the U.S. dollar on a substantial contraction in international trade. The trade-weighted greenback will continue, therefore, to be sustained by the depreciation of Asian currencies next year.

* In 2009, the world economy will most likely record its weakest expansion in 27 years. Under the circumstances, commodity prices are not poised to trend up any time soon. Historically, the greenback’s movements have always been negatively correlated to commodity prices.

* This is the message the Canadian dollar is sending as well. Its lack of reaction to the U.S. dollar’s decline probably speaks volumes about what’s in store for world growth next year. All in all, we expect the greenback to appreciate in 2009.

Forex December 2008 by National Bank Financial