Leverage restrictions begin to take their toll on the online Forex firms
IG Group reports first half results – what did we learn?
By LeapRate
NEW YORK, NY , Jan. 19, 2011 — IG Group, one of the UK and Europe’s largest online trading firms, yesterday announced their half-year results (to November 30, 2010), shocking the market with a net loss of £80 million. IG Group’s shares in London have traded down about 10% since the announcement.
Driving the loss was a £143 million (non-cash) charge against intangible assets. The charge arose from a deterioration of market conditions in Japan, where IG Group’s FXOnline Japan KK has an approximate 2.5% market share. Following recent (August 2010) regulatory changes in Japan reducing maximum leverage on Forex trading to 50:1, combined with a leverage limit of 10:1 on equity indices as of January 2011, IG Group anticipates that “the run-rate of revenue in Japan will now be roughly half what it was prior to the introduction of the first leverage restriction in August.” Making things worse, this coming August 2011 maximum leverage on Forex in Japan will fall further to 25:1, causing IG Group to “anticipate a further fall in revenue at that time.”

Interesting…

Francesc

Citi FX Survey: Crisis Leads Companies to Alter Counterparties, Risk Management Approach
A Citigroup foreign exchange survey revealed that as a result of the financial crisis, many companies have adjusted their mix of counterparties, increased their use of options relative to forwards and changed their approach to credit risk management.
Citi surveyed more than 300 multinational non-financial corporates from around the world concerning their approach to hedging FX risk. It is the fourth such poll Citi FX has conducted.

And the winner is for second year in a row…. Barcelona…. Yupppppiiiiiiii!!!!

What a shame for my city… Shame on you Barcelona’s Mayor and President of the Generalitat for letting this happen… Shame on you both!

Shame for Spain with four spots in the Top10!

Francesc

Global Pickpocket Top Ten (2009 place in brackets)
Compiled by TripAdvisor

1. Barcelona, Spain (1)
2. Rome, Italy (2)
3. Paris, France (5)
4. Madrid, Spain (4)
5. Athens, Greece (9)
6. Prague, Czech Republic (3)
7. Costa Brava (Alicante Province), Spain
8. Lisbon, Portugal
9. Tenerife, Spain
10. London, England

http://www.tripadvisor.com

Note to Trip Advisor: Guys, one thing is Alicante and another completely different is the Costa Brava in Girona, Catalonia. Big mistake.

Hi everyone

I just got an e-mail from Jordi Torra, IT manager at FXstreet.com that made me smile

Here you have

Francesc

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For you to see how old we are getting… Shocking!

Just a few days ago, Marty McFly went into the future in the Delorean...

Jordi

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Hi everyone

Well… the guy got 25 years… I hope this strong sentence will discourage others to steal people’s money.

Thanks to Mr. B. Mayo for sending the article!

Francesc

Ponzi Scammer Headed for Prison
Investors swindled out of $158 million in ‘tawdry and cheap’ scheme
Trevor Cook of Apple Valley, Minnesota, has been sentenced to a long prison term for orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that collectively cost more than 900 investors $158 million.
United States District Court Judge James M. Rosenbaum sentenced Cook to 25 years in prison on one count of mail fraud and one count of tax evasion in connection to the crime. In imposing the sentence, Judge Rosenbaum described Cook’s offense as “wretched, tawdry, and cheap.” Cook was charged on March 30, 2010, and pleaded guilty on April 13, 2010.

Hi everyone

A nice and quite objective article recently published by Los Angeles Times explaining the political situation between Catalonia and Spain.

The article lacks of scratching deeper in the issue, but it is ok

Francesc

Spain’s economic troubles spur Catalonia separatists to take new tack
Separatist sentiment has simmered for decades, fueled by belief the region’s needs are given short shrift by Madrid. As austerity looms, Catalonia’s independentistas are turning to economic arguments.
By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times
August 15, 2010

Tim Booth (James) with the help of Sinead O’Connor recorded this beautiful song “I Defeat” back in 1999.

Just beautiful

Francesc

Hi everyone

August 6th 1997 Los Angeles Times Newspaper sent a couple of reporters to the Death Valley - California - to find out how people was dealing with extreme temperatures.

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Death Valley is a desert located in the southwestern United States of America. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America.[1] Badwater, a basin located within Death Valley, is the specific location (36° 14.5′ N 116° 49.5′ W) of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet (86.0 m) below sea level. This point is only 76 miles (122 km) east of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). Death Valley holds the record for the highest reliably reported temperature in the Western hemisphere, 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913—just short of the world record, 136 °F (57.8 °C) in Al ‘Aziziyah, Libya, on September 13, 1922.
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That day was forecast to be one of the hottest days in the Valley so the newspaper was curious to know what people would do to cope with it.

The day was terrible hot - 123 degrees in the shade - and the journalists were shocked to find a group of early 30s from Barcelona picnicking at 14:00PM… yes!, you heard it right… PICNICKING!

You can imagine that I was part of that group :)… One of the silliest things I’ve ever done in my entire life

Well…, yesterday I just found the article at LA Times and I could not resist to share it with you.

Read and have fun

Francesc

Hot? Compared to Death Valley, It’s Mild
Weather: At 123 degrees in the shade, visitors don’t dawdle.
August 06, 1997|STEPHANIE SIMON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

FURNACE CREEK, Calif. — The yahoo who bought the thermometer for the swimming pool deck here must have been a recent transplant from some halfway human clime.

Otherwise, he would never have picked a thermometer that maxes out at 120 degrees.

Days like Tuesday, 120 degrees sounds sort of quaint. Refreshing almost. Because days like Tuesday, you step out of your car into a dragon’s belch of suffocating heat. Your elbows prickle. Your eyeballs shrivel. Even the ravens pant.

You buy a cold Coke just to rub the can on your forehead. You notice, dully, that your leather watchband has started to ooze brown goo. With about as much energy as a cocoon-snuggled caterpillar, you amble out of the way so the tourists can snap photos of the more appropriate thermometer, the one by the gas station, the one that reads 123 degrees in the shade and has room to record even more blistering highs.

Yes, a Death Valley veteran would have been prepared for days like Tuesday, would have known not to buy a thermometer topping out at 120 degrees. For this blasted desert park routinely registers the hottest temperatures in the country, as it did again Tuesday.

“What are we doing here?” moaned Francesc Riverola, a 30-year-old tourist from Barcelona who had the bright idea of stopping for a picnic in Death Valley National Park at 2 p.m.

Hi everyone

For those of you that have not seen this, this probably is the most beautiful image of the World Cup.

Iker Casillas, Spanish Goalkeeper and Real Madrid’s player, was interviewed by Sara Carbonero, a journalist from Spanish television Tele5.

The interview starts and Casillas gets very emotional, so he decides to end it with a kiss.

Sara Carbonero is also his girlfriend…. She is petrified and does not know what to do.

Francesc

Hi everyone

As a Catalan, this latest days here in Huntington Beach have been difficult as I had to be accepting congratulations from a lot of nice people about the great performance of the Spanish national team in the World Cup when my real feelings are that I just do not care at all if Spain wins or not as I am Catalan and Catalans we can not play - yet - in the World Cup because we are currently part of Spain, even though no one has ever asked us if we wanted to be Spanish or go on our own.

Yesterday Saturday 10th 2010, over 1 million people took the streets of Barcelona to shout loud and clear that Catalonia is a Nation and we have the right to decide our future.

Catalans march to assert nationhood
By Aljazeera
Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in Barcelona in support of the Catalan region’s statute of autonomy after it was challenged by a constitutional court.
Saturday’s protest in the northeastern Spanish city was in response to a June 28 ruling stating that the term “nation” defining Catalonia had no legal value because the constitution only knows one nation, Spain.

More on the subject:
Time - As Its National Team Wins, Spain Takes On the Meaning of “Nation”
AFP - In Spain, over one million rally for Catalan autonomy
BBC News - Catalan protesters rally for greater autonomy in Spain
CNN - More than 1 million protest court ruling in Barcelona
Latin American Herald Tribune - More Than 1 Million Rally in Barcelona Against High-Court Ruling
France24 - One million march to support statute on Catalan autonomy

So, congratulations to Spanish national team as without a doubt has been the best team in the World Cup. Apologies for all my dutch friends, but Holland did not deserved to win.

Congratulations to all Barça and Catalan players (7 out of the 11 players that started the game tonight were Barcelona’s and at the end of the match 6 players were Catalans).

Congratulations to Spain as they are very nice people and the best neighbor we Catalans could ever have, but it is time for us to go on our own as a state inside the EU.

Go Catalonia!

Francesc

note: This RT report from explains quite well the latest goings in Catalonia and its growing desire of independency from Spain:

A touching speach from Catalan musician Pau Casals before the United Nations in 1971… Too many years ago and it still applies…