What I Did on My Winter Vacation

By Ed Ponsi, President, FXEducator.com

If you think I spent the past week chilling on a beach in Rio and enjoying the scenery, you're only half right; I also took the opportunity to catch up on some long-overdue reading. Not all of these books are new, but each of them has something unique to offer. My highly subjective scoring system will rate these books on a scale of one to five pips, with the lowest score equaling one pip and the highest score equaling five. Here we go!

"A Bull in China" by Jim Rogers – Trading legend Rogers is best known for success with the Quantum Fund, which he co-founded with George Soros, and for making the early call on the huge...

Ed Ponsi

AbleSys

As 2009 begins, there appear to be some severe misalignments in exchange rates. However, whereas in 2008 the levels that appeared “wrong” were in the US and Japan, the major misalignments now appear to be within the European currencies.

The extent of the divergences can be seen by the fact that of the five major currencies, two (EUR and CHF) reached their highest levels of the past 25 years during December whilst the other three (GBP, SEK and NOK) reached their lowest levels for 25 years.

At the end of November last year, we established a long position in GBP. We were looking to build up the position on further weakness and December provided ample opportunity to do so. In trade-weighted terms, by the end of December...

Penrich Capital

By David Merkel, greenfaucet.com

Many finger the ratings agencies for a portion of our current problems, and to be sure, they deserve blame. Many of the recommendations call for eliminating the opinions of the ratings agencies from anything that might determine regulatory capital levels. Let the regulators do it themselves, instead.

That's a nice dream, or, for those in the insurance industry, a nightmare. The insurance industry survived such an institution, the NAIC Securities Valuation Office, and lived to tell of it.

It is said that if you can't get work as a credit analyst, go work for the rating agencies. They always need people, because the competent would never stay around due to low pay....

greenfaucet.com