Archives for the ‘The Lighter Side’ Category

New Economic Indicator? Coffee and Donuts

By Kristina Zurla Landgraf • Jul 1st, 2010 • Category: The Lighter Side

Economists are constantly mining data to determine where the economy is headed. A recent Wall Street Journal article showed how increased coffee and donut consumption reflects more than just jitters and jiggly bellies. (Article excerpt below.)



Hurricane Season: What Traders Need to Know

By Aaron Fennell • Jun 4th, 2010 • Category: Book Reviews, Broker Commentary, Educational, Friedman's Futures Forecast, Lind-Waldock In the News, Market Updates, The Lighter Side, Trader Viewpoints, Webinars

by Aaron Fennell
This year’s hurricane season could prove to be an active one. There are some factors energy traders need to keep in mind regarding how the markets will react as any storms develop, and the differences in volatility between various products.
Hurricanes often move through the Gulf of Mexico, which contains [...]



The European Bailout: Is it Enough?

By Aaron Fennell • May 12th, 2010 • Category: Book Reviews, Broker Commentary, Educational, Futures Feature, Lind-Waldock In the News, Market Updates, The Lighter Side, Webinars

by Aaron Fennell
It was a wild first week of May for the markets as investors’ fears about debt problems in the Eurozone intensified. A nearly $1 trillion bailout package quickly brought market stability, but I think it might prove to be just a band-aid for the Eurozone and not a cure.



Rice Feeling a Little Rough? Not for Long

By Kyle McEwan • Apr 7th, 2010 • Category: Broker Commentary, Educational, Lind-Waldock In the News, Market Updates, The Lighter Side, Webinars

by Kyle McEwan
The price of rice has fallen quite substantially from its high. However, the fundamental story for the crop is quite simple; a growing world population means more people to feed, causing a growing strain on supply.  That being said, rice is the primary food staple and source of starch for most of the [...]



Monetary Policy and the Yield Curve

By Aaron Fennell • Apr 1st, 2010 • Category: Book Reviews, Broker Commentary, Educational, Friedman's Futures Forecast, Lind-Waldock In the News, Market Updates, The Lighter Side, Trader Viewpoints, Webinars

by Aaron Fennell
Currently, the yield curve for U.S. interest rate vehicles is particularly steep right now, a unique situation which may lend itself to interesting trading opportunities. The yield curve represents the relationship between interest rate instruments of varying maturities, from very short-term to very long-term. Interest rates are extremely low for short-term interest rate [...]



Value of an Olympic Gold Medal

By Kristina Zurla Landgraf • Feb 18th, 2010 • Category: The Lighter Side

Of course to the athletes, an Olympic medal is priceless. But just what is the value of an Olympic medal? If you are watching the games, you may have noticed the impressive size of this year’s medals, which  are heavier than medals of recent past Olympics. With gold prices near record highs, they are worth [...]



Short Sellers Rule Stocks in January

By Kristina Zurla Landgraf • Feb 10th, 2010 • Category: Educational, The Lighter Side

The Wall Street Journal reported  that short-selling proved quite popular among stock investors in the second half of January at the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market.
“In the exchanges’ latest twice-a-month statistics, for the period ended Jan. 29, the number of short-selling positions at the NYSE not yet closed out, known [...]



Pivot Point Trading 101

By Kristina Zurla Landgraf • Feb 5th, 2010 • Category: Educational, The Lighter Side

By Jeff Friedman
Pivot-trading has been around a long time, and is a favorite technical analysis tool for many professional traders. Learning how to use pivot points helps take the emotion out of trading, and gives you discipline. Pivots are useful in not only helping you to determine price direction, but also as a money management [...]



Introduction to MACD

By Kristina Zurla Landgraf • Feb 2nd, 2010 • Category: Book Reviews, Broker Commentary, Educational, Lind-Waldock In the News, The Lighter Side

by Dennis Cajigas
Moving Average Convergence/Divergence, otherwise known as MACD, was created by Gerald Appel in the 1960s as a way to analyze market momentum and strength. While it fell out of favor in the early 1980s, it experienced a resurgence of popularity with the development of the MACD histogram by Thomas Aspey in 1986. The [...]



Top Five Indicators Traders Use

By Kristina Zurla Landgraf • Jan 27th, 2010 • Category: Book Reviews, Broker Commentary, Educational, Lind-Waldock In the News, Market Updates, The Lighter Side, Trader Viewpoints

by Phil Streible
There are many different types of chart patterns market technicians focus on when making trading decisions, and many ways to interpret them. That is why technical analysis is truly an art. The key is to be able to recognize these patterns, and implement a trading strategy based on what you think the charts [...]