U.S.: Unemployment Rate Topping?

In the U.S., retail sales came out worst than expected. However, the underline numbers are pointing to recovery, as discretionary spending has been up-trending for over two months. In Europe, concerns are mounting over the creditworthiness of some member states, while the Eurocurrency stays under pressure for now.


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U.S.: imports to increase further?

The economic recovery is underway in the United State with some drawdown here and there. Unexpectedly, retail spending declined 0.3% in December (+0.4%), after having increased 1.8% in November and 1.2% in October. Motor vehicle and parts fell 0.8% compared to the gain of 1.2% registered the previous month. The poor weather conditions might have played a role in December. In addition, consumers have been used recently to do their Christmas shopping earlier in the year, so to take advantage of pre-holiday discounts. Consumer spending remains overall bumpy with the job and credit markets remaining weak. However, quarterly data confirms that the uptrend has already begun, as discretionary spending has been in green for two consecutive months. The jobless rate appears to stabilizing at current levels. Jobless claims rose slightly for the week ending January 9, but the four-week moving average declined to 441,000 from 450,000.


Angelo Airaghi is a Commodity Trading Advisor, registered with the National Futures Association and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He has been an active professional since 1990 working for major international financial companies. In the past 10 years, Angelo Airaghi has been an analyst and commentator for national and international media.

This article contains the following sections:

U.S.: imports to increase further?

EUROPE: Some nations under tight scrutiny

The Forex Market

The Forex Market

For the last three decades Foreign Exchange market, - briefly Forex or FX, had integrated into the world's biggest financial market. The volume of daily transactions is about 1-3 trillion of US dollars. The trading instruments on this market are the currencies of different countries, so the fluctuation of currency's rates allows to gain a real profit.

Of course monetary assets of different countries exchanged since the term money appeared as well as an idea to obtain profit from currency's rates difference. Now it is not a new idea, but the transformation of foreign exchange market to the modern stage with an opportunity to conduct conversional operations of such volumes arose only after an introduction of floating rates regime by the state-members of IMF. Within this regime's framework the rate of one currency to another is defining only by the supply and demand on the market.

Presently Forex market is a global telecommunication network of banks and different financial organizations. It does not have any fixed trading place and time restrictions - the trade starts on Monday morning in New Zealand and closes on Friday evening in USA

The advantages of Forex market are:

Round-the-clock trading access: the ability to trade for 24 hours a day;

Liquidity: the market works with a huge money and gives the customers complete freedom to open or close their position of different volume;

Leverage: an ability to use leverage. It decreases requirements to the sum of the initial deposit (margin trade). So in case you deposit 10 000 USD into your account you'd have an opportunity to work with 1 000 000 USD (leverage 1:100);

Objectivity: no exterior regulated structures, so the currency's rate is establishing in accordance with current supply and demand on the market;

Globality: everyone can become a market participant irrespective to the living place, as trading requires only your skills and Internet access.

At present mostly all the operations on the market are conducting only to obtain profit. With the development of Internet and other means of communication this sector of the financial markets becomes more accessible and attractive for the investors of different levels.