Blogs

At an early age I learned a lot about politics and business from my auntie who I considered to be my mentor or mentoress. She was once a soldier and spent a lot of time in Saudi Arabia. I participated in family debates when I was little and read a lot of her old financial books. I didn't understand much of what I was reading back then but I guess some how that information continued to float around in my head as I got older.

 Today CIBC global markets are predicting $7 oil by 2012. 

Join the International Stocks only contest starting on April 9 and running through the end of the year. Can you manage a winning portfolio of international stocks in this market environment? Join through June 1.

For a more in depth look take a look at the headlines on Bloomberg.com, they do a decent job giving you a brief overview and always check out John Crudele's jobs article in the NY Post.

The economy lost 80k (Street est. was 50k) jobs and unemployment rose to 5.1 percent. Factory payrolls contracted by 48k jobs (st estimate was 35k).

I have launched a simple website to help people browse for different ETFs based on a variety of categories. Check it out at Instant ETF

Tomorrow, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) Gulf of Mexico Region will hold a oil and gas lease sale. In preparation for the sale, 1,115 bids were received from 83 companies. The bids will be made public in a reading tomorrow, after which, the sales will be completed. Never seen a sale? Well, you're in luck, the sale is streamed live over the internet beginning at 9am tomorrow morning.

I just caught the new Google Finance Stock Screener. Nothing earth shattering, but a necessary tool to add to the Google Finance experience. The slide bars are pretty cool as they also show the number of stocks for each measurement along the bar.

I posted some of my thoughts on Green Mountain and McDonald's over at my Five Percent Stocks blog.

I have added this to the Help section and to the Short ticket.

When you are short any position, you must have enough CASH BALANCE in your account at the end of the day to keep that short position open. If your deficit on the short position falls below your cash balance, your position will be covered.

For example:
Day 1: Open SHORT 1 position for XYZ company at $10, leaves me with balance of $5.

Now trading on the NYSE Euronext (NYSE NYX) are five new ETFs (ETNs) to trade currencies just like you would a stock. The new issues are:

1) AUD/USD Exchange Rate ETN (NYSE: ADE) tracks the Australian Dollar
2) CAD/USD Exchange Rate ETN (NYSE: CUD) tracks the Canadian Dollar
3) CHF/USD Exchange Rate ETN (NYSE: SZE) tracks the Swiss Franc
4) EUR/USD Exchange Rate ETN (NYSE: ERE) tracks the Euro.
5) GBP/USD Exchange Rate ETN (NYSE: EGB) tracks the British Pound