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Archive for December, 2011

Yearly Review OpenBook Roundup

Posted by admin On December - 31 - 2011

As 2011 comes to a close, we decided to look at our top traders this year and how they have performed during the choppy last few months of this year.

Trader: waleed0987 is a favorite on OpenBook. He has grown in popularity since our last review of his trading style. He has grown from 174 copiers in October to 1933 copiers at the time of this writing. He has over 7000 followers as well, quite an impressive feat in a few short months. Reading through his trading feed, we see fair share of admirers and some critics. No one said being a top trader would be all praises. But our top traders like waleed0987 are skillful traders and know when to tune out their critics and focus on their trading.

We have liked the diversification in this trader’s portfolio which includes a mix of EURUSD, AUDUSD, GBPUSD and commodities such as Oil and Gold. The trader has an average gain of 7.7% on EURUSD and 5.4% on GBPUSD. The trader uses high risk in approximately 22% of his trades and medium risk on 64% of his trades. Despite using high risk strategies, the trader is very good at managing risk on his account and knows when to cut his losses. The trader has returned over 3300% in the last twelve months and has returned 28% in the month of December. The trader has closed 82% of his trades in a profit with an average hold time of 14 hours. The trader is a technical trader and is comfortable placing both buy and sell trades on the same pair in a given time frame.

 

Since we reviewed this trader in October, he has had a blockbuster run and has gained 600%. As the AUDUSD traded in a range between 1.0300 and 0.9700, the trader was able to take advantage of the move up and down since he looks for opportunities on both sides of the market. Looking at his trading history, the trader has managed to squeeze profits on both directions on multiple currency pairs despite the fundamental outlook of the currency pair. This is the reason trader: waleed0987is closing this trading year with 3300% returns. Looking at this trader’s P&L graph, we see that this trader’s returns have been on an uptrend for the last 6 months and he continues to make higher highs. This traders’ biggest drawdown in the last 3 months was in the beginning of December when the trader dropped to 150%. However the trader has skillfully reversed his losses using his strategy.

Trader NMarijus caught our attention early on because of his stellar performance and his number of copiers. At our last review of him, this trader had 601 copiers which has now grown to 2978 copiers! This trader also has close to 12,000 followers on OpenBook. We can say that trader: NMarijus has captivated the attention of traders on the OpenBook platform. The trader has continued to focus on the EURUSD pair which have given him an average gain of 2.4% on each trade.

The trader uses medium risk strategies on 100% of his trades and has not deviated from that. The trader has returned over 500% in the last twelve months in very choppy markets. The trader lost 26% in the month of December and has attracted criticism and praise from his numerous copiers and followers for his bullish EURUSD positions in the month of December. Overall the trader has 99% of his trades closed at a profit with an average hold time of 16.5 hours. We believe the trader is a long term trader because the trader holds on to his opinion despite short term moves in the market and even pressure from his legions of copiers and followers.

 

Since we reviewed this trader in October, the trader had amazing returns in the month of November. He doubled his account size in these two months and returned almost 100% in the two months. As the EURUSD continued to plunge from highs of 1.4250 towards 1.3000, this trader was bearish on the pair and gained on his trades. We see the trader shorting the pair all the way from 1.4000 to 1.3300 with no hesitation. However after December 12th, the trader became bullish on the EURUSD and starting taking long positions. The trader sees no fundamental reason for the EURUSD to keep declining and expects the EURUSD to make a comeback in 2012. Looking at this traders P&L graph we see that the traders returned are in a range between 35% and 45% in the month of December. If the trader is right on his bullish stance on the EURUSD, we can see the trader breaking this range and headed towards over 100% returns once again.

Trader: babczyk is another top trader who has skyrocketed in popularity this year. The trader has grown from 184 copiers to 1059 copiers, a remarkable achievement. The trader also has over 6000 followers on OpenBook. This trader primarily communicates in German in his trading feed but that has not stopped him from attracting copiers and followers. This is a testament to this trader’s performance. The trader has continued to primarily trade the EURUSD in 95% of his trading portfolio with an average gain of 4.2%.

The trader uses medium risk strategies in 60% of his trades and low risk in 40% of his trades. The trader has closed 99% of his trades at a profit with average hold time of 4.5 days. This trader likes to trade much longer time frames. The trader has returned 171% in the last six months and 33% in the last three months.

 

The trader is a fundamental trader and has been heavily short the EURUSD in the last couple of months. The trader shorted the EURUSD with sell orders from 1.3750 to 1.3050. Not a single buy order was placed on the EURUSD despite retracements in the pair. Looking at this trader’s P&L graph we see that the trader had his biggest drawdown in the last week of October. Looking at EURUSD graph in the same week, we see that the pair enjoyed a brief rally up to 1.4150 at that time. This tells us that trader: babczykgot caught off guard shorting the EURUSD and resulted in losses to his portfolio. After the EURUSD started dropping, this trader’s returns recovered from the drawdown and they are now in a range between 12% and 35%. If the EURUSD continues to slide in the first quarter of 2012, we can expect this trader’s P&L graph to continue in the range.

Trader: UKTradercaught our attention because of his heavy trading in GBPUSD which is known as a difficult pair to trade. The trader has not been able to achieve a surge in copiers and followers as his performance took a hit in the last three months. The trader lost 44.6% in the last three months since we reviewed him. While the past three months have been difficult for this trader and his copiers and followers, he is nonetheless closing 2011 with 217% in profit.

The trader has continued to allocate 35% of his portfolio to GBPUSD and another 35% to the EURUSD. This trader also trades EURCHF and USDCHF. The trader suffered an average loss of 1.8% on his GBPUSD trades and average loss of 2.1% on his EURUSD trades. Given that 62% of his portfolio was buy trades and the average hold time is 3 days, this trader is a fundamental long term trader.

 

 Looking at this trader’s P&L graph we see his biggest drawdown when the GBPUSD plunged from 1.6550 towards 1.5400. This tells us that the trader was bullish on the GBPUSD. While the trader is a fundamental trader, he chose to ignore the negative news out of the U.K. economy and more so from the euro zone (Britain’s trading partners) and held on to his bullish view. Losses are part of trading and this trader was skillful at preserving his capital despite being caught on the wrong side of the market. We like the fact that this trader continued to use medium risk in his trades despite his losses and did not try to take unnecessary risks to get back his lost profits. After his drawdown in October, the trader P&L returns have continued to trade in a range between 10% and 25% return. Looking at recent history we see that the trader is now comfortably booking profits shorting the GBPUSD. We can expect great returns from this trader in the first quarter of 2012 if he continues to implement the lessons learnt in 2011.

Another top trader who has had a difficult end is trader: wizardale82. The trader gained some copiers and followers in the last few months but lagged behind other top traders. The trader lost 33% in the last three months and is ending the year down 31%. The trader took a huge hit on his Gold positions. With 27% of his portfolio allocated to Gold, the trader suffered an average loss of a whopping 23% on each Gold trade.

The trader also suffered losses on USDCHF positions with another staggering loss of 23% on each trade. The trader’s average hold time is 21 days which tells us that trader is bullish on Gold on a longer term basis. The trader has several open positions on Gold with buy prices from $1880 to $1640. The losses on these open positions are on average around 65%.

 

Since we last reviewed this trader, Gold prices have dropped from $1880 towards $1540 an ounce. With so many positions open on Gold at various prices, it looks like the trader continued to add to his loosing positions instead of cutting them. The lesson we learnt from his trader is that it is not a good idea to add to loosing positions and it is best to have stop levels in mind before entering a trade. Looking at this trader’s P&L graph, we see the trader returned between 0% and 50% in October and November. As gold prices plunged further in December, the support line was broken on December 13th and the P&L curve is on a downtrend. It has continued to make lower lows in December. We expect markets to be quite volatile in the first quarter of 2012 and trader: wizardale82should use more stringent risk management.

We reviewed top trader: heathrow666 because of his preference for trading gold. The trader is one of the few traders on OpenBookwho prefers trading Gold. This trader also had a dismal performance in the last three months and lost 28%. The trader lost some copiers since we last reviewed him. However the trader is closing 2011 with a 200% return.

The trader uses high risk in approximately 40% of his trades and medium risk in 47% of his trades. This high risk magnified his losses when he was going long on Gold as prices plunged. The trader places 97% of trades in the buy direction and hold trades for 24 hours on average.

 

In our previous review we noticed that this trader continued to buy gold during a drop in prices and this hurt the trader in the last three months. The trader had several long Gold positions with open prices from $1700 to $1600 which he closed in the month of December at huge losses. Looking at this trader’s P&L graph, we see that the worst drawdown was in November. The trader lost in November and December as Gold prices tumbled towards $1570. The trader has continued to trade in a negative territory for most of December loosing an average of 20% or breaking even. The lesson learnt from this top trader is that those looking to hold positions long term should use low risk to minimize draw downs.

We would like to wish all the very best for 2012 to the traders we have reviewed this year and all of our traders on OpenBook. We look forward to reviewing more gurus and top traders in the New Year.

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(eToro Blog) When discussing the use of a small world network as collaborative information infrastructure, we can now proceed to the analysis of the largest eigenvalue of such networks, and compare it to what we already know about the network topology of other models of communities.

In order to do so, we shall recall one of the ways for generating small world networks, which is to gradually and randomly rewire the edges of a regular network as can be seen in the following chart:

Small-world networks have the global properties of a random network (i.e., short average path length between the elements) while at the local level they resemble regular networks with a high degree of clustering among neighbors. In fact, we can imagine a continuous line, where at its left end, which we shall call p=0, are regular networks; and at its other end, which we shall call p=1, completely random networks. Using this metaphor, small world communities would be placed somewhere along this line, and not too close to either of its ends. This will also give us a measure for how “regular” a small world community is or, in other words, how close it is to the left end of the line.

An interesting study of the behavior of the eigenvalues of communities along this line was carried out by Sinha (“Complexity vs. stability in small-world networks,” Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2005). The following example demonstrates the eigenvalue distributions for networks with p = 1 (random networks, represented by squares), p = 0.1 (regular networks, represented by crosses), p = 0.01 (regular networks, represented by diamonds) and p = 0 (regular networks, represented by circles) for networks of 800 members:

We can see that as the network becomes less random, it has increasing probability for having higher values for its largest eigenvalue. A similar observation is presented in the following example (from the same Sinha paper), showing the largest eigenvalue plotted against network size N for regular (p = 0) and random networks (p = 1) networks :

This implies that, as the regular network increases in size, the tail of the eigenvalue distribution gets longer, while the bulk remains fixed in size, similar to random networks. Also, more and more eigenvalues migrate from the complex plane to the real axis, keeping its density constant even though the system size (and hence, the total number of eigenvalues) is increasing:

The eigenvalue plain for regular (left) and random networks (right) with 1000 members

The immediate implication of these observations is that small world networks should perform better than random networks and slightly worse than regular networks. However, it is worth mentioning that “pure” regular social networks are extremely hard to find, and so small world networks seem like a good strategy when looking for efficient topology for a collaborating trading community.

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The current bull market in precious metals is set to hit new heights in the coming years (although maybe not in 2012), but many financial types still do not fully grasp the implications of what is driving the rise in gold and silver prices. In order to understand the nature of this market, one has to not only examine economic fundamentals, but also the identifiable trends in social mood and sentiment.

Both the fundamentals and psychological underpinning for gold and silver remain excellent.

The Federal Government is continuing on a path to quasi-bankruptcy and the Federal Reserve has proven that it is more than willing to recklessly print money and hold interest rates at zero in order to help finance the Welfare/Warfare state. Of course, these “policies” are also designed to stimulate economic growth and stoke some semblance of “recovery,” but in that regard they should be viewed as short-sighted, failed, Keynesian political tools as well.

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Eurozone Unlikely to Benefit from China’s Investment Drive

Posted by admin On December - 28 - 2011

(eToro Blog) Likely to the chagrin of Eurozone governments and investors like, analysts are predicting that 2012 will yield no discernible benefit to the cash-strapped Eurozone, and that Chinese investment funds will continue to flow to Africa and Asia. Over the past several months, and as the debt crisis has escalated, the Eurozone’s leadership has been actively courting $3.2 trillion cash-rich Beijing in the hope of currying favor.

China is seen as likely to contribute to the IMF’s special funds, but “direct” investment in the Eurozone’s various governments will be exceedingly selective. Beijing has been notoriously careful in choosing their investment vehicles, and very few of the Eurozone’s governments will be deemed as “worthy” of their largess. The Eurozone may be China’s largest export market but direct investment has lagged tremendously, and is estimated as less than 0.2%.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the Eurozone will be entirely neglected. It was recently reported that China’s Three Gorges Corporation bought a 21% stake in the Portuguese utility company, Energias de Portugal (EDP) SA, providing a much needed capital injection of some $3.5 billion for the financially troubled Eurozone nation. The sale of EDP by the Portuguese government was required in accordance with the terms of the E.U./IMF bailout agreement.

Analysts suggest that opportunities exist in the Eurozone’s technology and consumer products sectors, which could enable China’s private sector to build domestic market share. However, analysts point out that certain roadblocks exist, the largest of which is obtaining Beijing’s regulatory approval for investment. One analyst cites as an example the recent attempt by private Chinese investors to buy a stake in Swedish car maker Saab which was quashed by the Chinese government.

It is believed that Beijing is trying to keep political backlash to the barest minimum, thus denying any requests that they deem politically risky. The European Union’s leadership is currently in the process of designing a more protectionist trade policy which would counter-weight what they believe is a skewed playing field which favors foreign companies.

Asian markets closed slightly lower in trading thinned by the Christmas holidays. The Nikkei closed down 0.2% while the Hang Seng closed down 0.6%. Traders on eToro’s OpenBook platform are predominantly shorting the AUD/USD pair, which is higher at 1.0161.

Copyright 2011 eToro Blog

 

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(eToro Blog) In a previous post we discussed a type of network called a “Small World” network. Small world networks are defined as those in which the typical distance L between two randomly chosen nodes (i.e., the number of steps required) grows proportionally to the logarithm of the number of nodes N in the network, that is:

 

When studying small world networks, one might be curious about the mechanism which can generate such a network and which is usually used in order to carry out various numeric simulations. When discussing random networks, it is obvious that large numbers of different networks can be generated by simply flipping a coin (of probability p) for each potential edge, or alternatively, selecting a random K pairs of nodes. For scale-free networks, we have mentioned the “Rich Get Richer” model for network generation.

However, when it comes to small world networks, another method must be developed. After all, most of these real-world networks are neither entirely regular nor entirely random. The reality is that people usually know their neighbors, but their circle of acquaintances may not be confined to those who live right next door, as the lattice model would imply. On the other hand, cases, like links among Web pages on the World Wide Web, were certainly not created at random, as the Erdos-Renyi process would expect. Aiming to describe the transition from a regular lattice to a random graph, Watts and Strogatz introduced an interesting small-world network model (“Collective dynamics of ‘small world’ networks”, Watts, Strogatz, Nature, 1998), that can be described as follows:

Begin with the nearest neighbor-coupled network which consists of N nodes arranged in a ring, wherein each node i is adjacent to its neighbor nodes, i = 1, 2, · · · , K/2, with K being even. Then, randomly rewire each edge of the network with probability p; varying p in such a way that the transition between order (p = 0) and randomness (p = 1) can be closely monitored.

The following example is taken fromComplex Networks: Small-World, Scale-Free and Beyond“, by Wang and Chen, IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, 2003:

In this completely regular friendship network (left picture), people are friends with only their four nearest neighbors. The network is highly cliquish, and any two people are, on average, many degrees apart. Rewiring some of the edges at random, a small-world network is received (middle picture), where people still know four others on average, but a few have distant friends. The network is still highly cliquish, but the average degree of separation is small. Continue the random rewiring process we finally get a random network (right picture), where everyone still knows four others on average, but friends are scattered; few people have many friends in common, and pairs are, on average, only a few degrees apart.

Now that we know what small world networks are, and how they can be generated, we can proceed to discuss how well they can be used when acting as an infrastructure for trading information sharing.

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Now that 2011 is drawing to a close, it is time for investors to begin to think about their strategy for 2012. While the last year has been hardly fruitful for most, the markets, thus far, have avoided a complete meltdown. Given the state of the global economy and the intensifying European debt crisis, this in itself should evoke feelings of at least temporary relief.

While a cautious approach in the New Year appears to be the prudent course of action, some of the dislocations in global financial markets that have occurred in 2011 may be offering up opportunities. In particular, it may be useful to look back on the performance of various global stock markets and attempt to draw some conclusions about which are attractive and which are not.

The first stop is the United States. Year-to-date, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is down a little less than 2%. Frankly, this is a relief. It would not be hard to imagine a situation where the S&P was down 10% or even 15%. While it has not been a profitable year, it hasn’t been a total disaster either. More losses may be on the horizon in 2012, however.

The American economy is just not growing at a sufficient rate to make investing in domestic stocks appear wildly attractive – but it is important to juxtapose this view against the extremely low yields in the bond market. The 10-year yield on U.S. Treasuries is sitting at 1.98% and there just isn’t much to get excited about in bonds. It’s actually kind of frightening.

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Wall Street Extends Rally Ahead of Holiday

Posted by admin On December - 23 - 2011

(eToro Blog) New Home Sales figures in the United States rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 315,000 in November in line with market expectations. This is the highest level seen since April. The rise was led by growth in the Southern and Midwest States. The median prices of new homes fell to $214,100 in November.  This week also saw release of the existing home sales data that fell below expectations to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.4 million. The building permits and housing starts data this week showed that construction of multi unit apartments is on the rise. The NAHB housing market index which measures home builder confidence rose for the third month in a row to 21.

November Durable goods orders rose 3.8%. The gain was led by transportation equipment orders which rose 14.7% with a 73.3% gain for nondefense aircraft and parts. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders rose 0.3% in November. Orders for core capital goods fell 1.2%. Economists are worried about the decline as investment in capital goods shows future growth momentum of businesses. Shipment of durable goods fell 0.4% in November.

Another report showed that personal income and consumer spending posted modest gains. Personal income rose 0.1% and consumer spending also gained 0.1% in November.

Wall Street rallied today as we head into a three day holiday weekend for U.S. markets. Markets celebrated the Durable goods data and the Congressional approval of a two month extension of the payroll tax cuts. The Dow rallied 90 points, the Nasdaq rallied 14 points and the S&P 500 rallied 8 points by midday trading in the U.S. session. Traders on OpenBook are primarily long the Dow (DJ30) with average limits at 12,350 and stops at 12,200.

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Weekly Review OpenBook Roundup

Posted by admin On December - 23 - 2011

(eToro Blog) This week we will look at OpenBook trader: salah2ldin and analyze the trading history and performance of the portfolio. The trader has returned 146% in the last six months and 30% this week. This trader has built his portfolio by copying eToro top guru’s such as NMarijus, Moksel1972 and KENT1668 to name a few. As a result of this, trader: salah2ldin has diversified trading activity across most major instruments. The trader trades GER30, Oil, Gold and Silver in addition to currency pairs such as EURUSD, AUDUSD, GBJPY and EURJPY.

The trader uses medium risk strategies in 72% of his portfolio. This portfolio does place a large number of trades (1000 trades in over six months) and so far 97.9% of the trades have been profitable. Followers and Copiers evaluating this trader’s performance should also be aware that this trader has open positions at the moment.

Looking at trader: salah2ldin’s P&L graph, we identified several interesting aspects. The trader started trading in June on the OpenBook platform. Between beginning of July and end of September, the trader’s P&L was in a range between 5% and 15%. During the same period the EURUSD, which is used as a proxy for risk sentiment by traders, also traded in a range between 1.4100 and 1.4500. In the beginning of October, the trader’s strategy failed to perform and the trader’s P&L graph reached an all time low of a loss of 28%. Interestingly the EURUSD also reached a low of 1.3200 breaking through the support of its range. The trader changed his strategy after this and we see his P&L graph making high highs until it reached an all time high of 150% on December 13th. The trader used strategies and copied other traders that took advantage of the 1000 pip rally and subsequent retracement of 1000 pips on the EURUSD by December 13th. The trader was prepared for both bullish and bearish sentiment in the markets with his new strategy. The trader’s P&L curve dropped another 50% by December 18th but the trader has managed to recover most of it by the close of trading on December 22nd.

The Bank of Japan kept rates on hold between 0 and 0.1% earlier this week. The BOJ painted a bleak picture of the economy and said that economic growth had stalled due to a slowdown in the global economy, the strong Yen and the recent floods in Thailand. With negative inflation rates, the BOJ said that no change in monetary policy was planned until prices showed medium to long term stability. The USDJPY traded in a range between 77.70 and 78.20 for the week and the BOJ rate decision did not affect the pair much. The Trade Balance report agreed with the BOJ outlook and showed that trade deficit in November grew to 684.7 billion Yen from 273.8 billion Yen. Imports rose by 11.4% and exports dropped 4.5%. Traders on OpenBook are primarily long on the USDJPY with average limits at 79.00 and stops at 77.70.

The European Central Bank announced that it had offered 489 billion Euros in an auction to regional banks. The loans know as Long Term Financing Operation (LTRO) are part of the ECB’s efforts to inject liquidity into the financial markets. The fact that so much liquidity was demanded by banks in the region did not help bolster confidence for the Euro and the pair slumped after the announcement. ECB President Mario Draghi in his statements earlier this week reiterated the need for tighter fiscal union and noted high economic uncertainty in the region. Draghi refused to come to the rescue of the sovereign debt markets. EU Finance Ministers announced that an agreement had been reached to provide 150 billion Euros to the IMF. Traders on OpenBook are primarily long on the EURUSD with average limits at 1.3250 and stops at 1.2950.

The U.S. reported a host of economic data this week. The United States third quarter GDP was revised down to 1.8%. The weaker than expected GDP was attributed to decline in health care spending. Initial jobless claims fell 4,000 to 364,000 in the week that ended December 17th. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey printed at 69.9, showing an improvement in consumer confidence over October’s survey. The NAHB Housing Market index survey of home builder confidence printed at 21, which was an improvement for the third month in a row. Housing starts and building permits data pointed to rise in the construction of apartment buildings.  Americans are turning to renting as tighter requirements at banks have made it difficult for most to qualify for mortgages. Existing home sales in November were reported slighter better than expectations. The Dow (DJ30) has gained 300 points this week.

New Zealand reported third quarter GDP growth at 0.8% which came in higher than market expectations of 0.6% growth. The strong growth in GDP was attributed to the Rugby World Cup held in the third quarter that attracted a large number of visitors. Finance Minister Bill English expects growth to continue in 2012 despite global economic uncertainty caused by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. New Zealand continues to benefits from the elevated commodity prices. Traders on OpenBook are primarily short on the NZDUSD with average limits at 0.7650 and stops at 0.7800.

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European Bazooka Proves to be a Dud

Posted by admin On December - 22 - 2011

Despite the European Central Bank’s best efforts, equity markets rolled over in early trading on Wednesday, as stocks traded lower after experiencing a tremendous run on Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded about 0.50% lower, while the NASDAQ’s loss was almost triple that. A decline of nearly 14% in Oracle’s stock may have been contributing greatly to the NASDAQ’s loss.

Oracle reported disappointing earnings on Tuesday, and tech investors may have become spooked by the industry leader’s disappointing results. Benzinga Pro’s subscribers were alerted to Oracle’s earnings miss in real-time.

Still, Oracle’s loss alone cannot so easily explain the bearish activity in the broader market.

On Tuesday, the Dow rallied over 300 points. In retrospect, that move may have been a vicious short squeeze rather than a legitimate confidence-fueled buying session.

On Wednesday, bids for the ECB’s Long Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) came in better than anticipated. This could be bullish for the market, as it may buy more time for European sovereigns to get their financial houses in order.

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U.S. Q3 GDP Revised Down

Posted by admin On December - 22 - 2011

(eToro Blog) The United States revised estimates of the third quarter GDP to 1.8% from 2.0%. The weaker than expected growth was attributed to a decrease in health care spending. In October the third quarter GDP was estimated at 2.5%. In November the figure was lowered to 2.0%. The revisions are done as more data is available for analysis. Today’s print was below market expectations which were for a no revision to the previous estimate of 2.0%. The United States economy has grown at an average rate of 1.2% in 2011, far lower than the 3% average seen during good economic times. For the fourth quarter, analysts are predicting a growth of 3%.

Initial jobless claims, another benchmark used by economists, fell to the lowest levels since April 2008. Initial claims fell 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 364,000 in the week ended December 17th. The four week average of initial claims fell 8,000 to 380,250. Companies have reduced layoffs as strong retail sales have left companies with extra cash. While the news is a ray of hope for the millions of unemployed, there are concerns that millions will lose out on federal unemployment insurance payments which are set to expire by the end of February 2012.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey improved for the fourth month in a row. The sentiment survey hit 69.9 in December compared to 64.1 in November. While consumer sentiment is steadily improving, it is nowhere near the levels seen in 2007. In 2007, the sentiment survey averaged around 87.

Wall Street rallied on the sentiment and labor data with the Dow up 0.3%, the Nasdaq up 0.6% and the S&P 500 up 0.5% by midday trading in the U.S. session. Traders on OpenBook are primarily bullish on the Dow (DJ30) with average limits at 12,250 and stops at 12,200.

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