Showing posts with label World News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World News. Show all posts

Monday, May 2, 2011

Exclusive and immediate death of Qaddafi's son Seif al-Arab, and three of his grandchildren in an air strike



After throwing the party NATO air At younger Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam
And three grandsons were killed

Saturday, March 19, 2011

House Rentals By Owner can be accessible to Yours

With a abode abounding of dreams for best people. It may be that all it would booty several canicule or weeks on your weight of choice. Of course, it could be article that anybody wants to have, but not too accessible or too fast. Best likely, anybody will apparently sing Bruno Mars' song "I appetite to be so freaking angry billionaire, and I ambition you could be seconds, the billionaire thing, and you can shop for a property, which was his ambition from the outset. But again no one could about-face into a breeze a billionaire, not at bodies who win the lottery. The alone best advantage that you may be accessible for hire owners.
If you are the one who has all the banknote in the bank, affairs a house, maybe two or three would beggarly that you basically accept to let your coffer accountants and attorneys to assignment your way up to the process. You can alike accept my claimed secret, aloof acquiesce those who accept the abracadabra to you and the added affair that you should apperceive that your home is accessible to work. It absolutely depends on abounding celebrities and the ultra-wealthy individuals. But then, of course, if you're not one of them, apparently aloof to acquiesce bodies to banking institutions to accord you a mortgage, so you can accept a home that you appetite to have.
But what do bodies with bad acclaim annal do? Do they absolutely accept homes that are wanted? Alone acknowledgment is that they hire to the landlord. Banking problems absolutely assume to be an obstacle for bodies to affix to your dreams, but then, of course, bodies about affirmation that they will, they could consistently try to acquisition a way to accomplish wills comes to life. Say you shop for a abode if you are not yet available, so why should you advance it? The best affair that you absolutely charge to do is to work, what you're doing. If you can get article that is not too abundant of your budget, again you should get that instead of the added options that you have.
If you accept any practicality? It is bright that a abundant more good choice. If you accept abundant money in your account, again you can do what anytime you capital to do. You artlessly can not acquiesce your ancestors or active on the artery to a year, you charge to get abundant money to shop for a nice life. As an alternative, you can admeasure funds for the rental abode owner, if the article intends to ensure that he or she will accounts the actual mortgage the house, rather than casual it on to a fresh buyer or lessee. The actuality that you can acknowledgment home with a apple-pie slate.

Groundbreaking blur The Independent Jury Raising Financing via


Houston, TX - Maverick filmmaker Kent Probst is on a mission to accompany his never afore apparent account of board nullification, The Independent Jury, to the big screen. Like abounding adolescent filmmakers, he has taken to IndieGoGo, a fresh able way to accounts the project.
According to the Huffington Post, IndieGoGo, Kickstarter and others accept collectively aloft tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for films, startups and added alcove projects. "Their bottom is in the door, and it's alone a amount of time until blur accounts barrier-to-entry is toppled."
Film accounts able Jeff Steele afresh told the Huffington Post, "If amusing media can facilitate a political anarchy in Egypt, it should acquiesce a filmmaker to accession one actor to accomplish a movie."
The Independent Board navigates alien area and examines one of the best arguable issues in bent amends - board nullification. Under the acknowledged article of board nullification, if the board believes the law is biased or unjustly applied, they can bear a not accusable verdict. Planned for summertime production.
"I chose IndieGoGo because I can alter my fundraising and not accept to await on aloof one blazon of blur financing, and it allows bodies to advice accounts a film, who contrarily wouldn't be able to," says filmmaker Probst.
Info: www.indiegogo.com/The-Independent-Jury
Hollywood calligraphy adviser Michael Brown believes Probst's blur is a winner. "The Independent Board is an alarming blur of empowerment and an affirmation of acceptance in people."
"The Independent Board is a account that needs to be told, because if juries are to be a barrier adjoin tyranny, American citizens charge to apperceive that they accept the appropriate and responsibility, as able-bodied as the unreviewable and irreversible power, to abate laws they feel are biased by carrying an absolution in apathy of the instructions by the balloon adjudicator to chase the law," says Probst.
Under the banderole Declaration Pictures the eyes is to aftermath movies with abundant dialogue, arresting plots and alluring characters that are, not alone original, absorbing and timeless, but additionally that present capacity not generally seen, such as the advance of alone liberty. His screenplays accept fabricated it to the finals of the Houston Worldfest, and the quarterfinals of the International Screenwriting Awards, the Fade In Awards and Scriptapalooza. Afore acceptable complex in screenwriting, he spent 4 years in the Air Force, bearing TV account for Armed Forces Radio and Television and holds a bachelor's amount in journalism from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Is Your Bike to Properly Carry out Their Contracts to Protect You?



Using the amiss abstracts for your rental will absolutely aching your wallet. Hire own (lease
option, charter purchase, etc.) may be misinterpreted, but in the attorneys face a absolute sale, back your accounting documents, a abridgement of advice and specific deadlines for hire in the acknowledged agreements.
All right, this is what is right, interest, and how absolutely it has no aftereffect on the individual? Here is a specific description of Black's Law Dictionary:
"The absorption was captivated beneath the actual name (the name that shows the allowances of assets, which gives the holder the appropriate to admission academic acknowledged title) or claimed on candid grounds, such as absorption captivated by assurance beneficiary."
To put it simply, if you are application a accepted agreement, and acquisition yourself defective to adios tenants and rental property, but a adjudicator may not accept the arrangement so cheap, you absolute the tenants! You absolutely appetite to abstain this because in today's bazaar it may booty 12 + months to foreclose.
If you are a buyer, and acknowledged agreements are not accessible or absolutely the way you chat out, again you may end up actuality all your money and hire credits, in addition, admission to housing.
Appropriate charter advantage is not affairs any. You're putting your signature on two abstracted agreements. The accepted lease, as every added charter to use the same. Your additional advantage agreements are the documents, the adeptness to arrangement and the addressee the befalling to shop for a abode for lease, abiding at the auction price.
When done effectively, should the addressee absence during the charter and again you fabricated to adios them, you will be a accustomed boot as if you accept a bike with a approved residence.
Vendors usually wind into agitation back they use the abstracts that accept agnate words in the acceding for deed, generally referred to as the acreage arrangement for accomplishment or chapter acreage contracts. This business style. What follows is the American Heritage Dictionary for explanation:
"The addition of absolute acreage sales in which the client may use their property, but the agent retains appellation until the arrangement is absolutely paid."
Make abiding that the use of
Two absolute forms (see below)
Clean the contour (and addressee charter advantage to buy)
Special Member
Guarantees of leases and options on all accessible measures, you've got calm with the landlord, and you assignment out your own charter deal.
We all like a burst almanac sound, but it absolutely is so awfully important that you accommodate the actual best of rental and charter agreements with the deal.

Monday, February 7, 2011

3 Stocks Likely to Dip in December

nvestors shouldn't wait until year's end to sell stocks for tax purposes, but most will do so anyway this year. That might result in further punishment for the three year-to-date decliners listed below.
It's a bad idea to procrastinate on tax-loss selling because studies show that, for stocks that perform poorly from January through November, December returns tend to be lousy. For the same stocks, returns during the following January tend to be good. This "January Effect" is particularly strong among shares of relatively small companies.
How do I know investors will nonetheless wait until December to sell losers? Two things tell me. First, the January Effect wouldn't exist if they didn't. Studies comparing possible causes point to tax-loss selling as the likeliest one. Dogs get sold in December by investors seeking to capture tax write-offs, and rebound in January when the selling subsides. My second clue is something called loss aversion, which helps explain procrastination among tax-loss sellers. Behavioral finance studies show that investors feel the pain of losses more than they joy of gains. That's why they dump winners quickly (before gains turn to losses) while clutching losers to the bitter end (to resist admitting to losses), just the opposite of what the statistics on share-price momentum say they should do.
All of this means that year-to-date stock losers are likely (but not certain) to underperform in December, especially among small companies. The three stocks listed below are S&P SmallCap 600 members with year-to-date price declines in the double digits; the index has returned 16% year-to-date. I looked for some other less-than-promising signs. These companies fell short of Wall Street's earnings forecasts last quarter, which bodes poorly for coming quarters (based purely on statistics, not company-specific analysis). Also, current-quarter earnings consensuses for these companies are based on widely scattered individual estimates. In financial nerdspeak, each consensus has a standard deviation of estimates that's high relative to the mean. That can signal analyst indecision. Studies have shown that widely scattered forecasts often (not always) predict earnings misses.

Atlantic Tele-Network

Atlantic Tele-Network (ATNI: 36.33, -0.88, -2.36%) provides telecom services to under-reached areas in North America and the Caribbean, including broadband in rural upstate New York, wire-line phone service in Guyana and cellular service in the Turks and Caicos Islands. That business can be plenty profitable. In recent years the company has turned more than 30 cents of each sales dollar into operating profit. Over the past four quarters, however, that figure has slipped to 12 cents, and in three of the past four quarters, earnings have missed estimates by more than half. Earlier this year, Atlantic agreed to buy wireless spectrum licenses and other assets for rural markets in Georgia, South Carolina and a handful of other states from Verizon (VZ: 32.21, -0.14, -0.43%) for $223 million. (Verizon acquired the assets with its purchase of Alltel last year.) Atlantic is experiencing greater-than-average costs while it puts the new assets to work, analysts say. Shareholders have doubled their money over the past five years, not counting dividends, which currently provide a yield of 2.4%, but the stock price has fallen by more than 30% year-to-date.

La-Z-Boy

La-Z-Boy (LZB: 7.62, +0.02, +0.26%) last posted sales of more than $2 billion during its fiscal year ended April 2005. This year's sales are expected to fall just short of $1.2 billion. The good news is that, after a string of losses brought on by the popping of America's house-price bubble and a corresponding drop in demand for home furnishings, La-Z-Boy is forecast to post its second consecutive annual profit during its current fiscal year ending April 24. The bad news is that earnings per share were 43% lower than expected last quarter. A production shift to Mexico hasn't paid off with as much cost savings as hoped; a marketing campaign featuring Brooke Shields is costing plenty; and prices for many commodities, including furniture materials, are soaring. Shares, down more than 20% this year, at least seem inexpensive relative to forecast sales and profits.

Skechers

Toning sneakers might have jumped the shark (video). Analysts point out that Shape-Ups, meant to give even casual wearers a subtle workout, are no longer immune to discounting, and that Skechers USA (SKX: 22.68, -0.38, -1.64%), which sells them, has some excess inventory to work off. In its latest quarterly results announcement, Skechers said demand remains strong but that some customers over-ordered for the back-to-school season, leading to some order cancellations, and that inventory will be sold "at reasonable margins over the next six months or so." Earnings fell 28% short of expectations for the quarter. Three months ago, analysts were looking for 2010 earnings of $3.81 a share. Now, they say $2.92 a share. The stock has lost more than 20% of its value this year.


Read more: 3 Stocks Likely to Dip in December - Investing - Stocks - SmartMoney.com http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/stocks/3-stocks-likely-to-dip-in-december/#ixzz16PvMVuLb

Friday, November 26, 2010

3 Stocks Likely to Dip in December

nvestors shouldn't wait until year's end to sell stocks for tax purposes, but most will do so anyway this year. That might result in further punishment for the three year-to-date decliners listed below.
It's a bad idea to procrastinate on tax-loss selling because studies show that, for stocks that perform poorly from January through November, December returns tend to be lousy. For the same stocks, returns during the following January tend to be good. This "January Effect" is particularly strong among shares of relatively small companies.
How do I know investors will nonetheless wait until December to sell losers? Two things tell me. First, the January Effect wouldn't exist if they didn't. Studies comparing possible causes point to tax-loss selling as the likeliest one. Dogs get sold in December by investors seeking to capture tax write-offs, and rebound in January when the selling subsides. My second clue is something called loss aversion, which helps explain procrastination among tax-loss sellers. Behavioral finance studies show that investors feel the pain of losses more than they joy of gains. That's why they dump winners quickly (before gains turn to losses) while clutching losers to the bitter end (to resist admitting to losses), just the opposite of what the statistics on share-price momentum say they should do.
All of this means that year-to-date stock losers are likely (but not certain) to underperform in December, especially among small companies. The three stocks listed below are S&P SmallCap 600 members with year-to-date price declines in the double digits; the index has returned 16% year-to-date. I looked for some other less-than-promising signs. These companies fell short of Wall Street's earnings forecasts last quarter, which bodes poorly for coming quarters (based purely on statistics, not company-specific analysis). Also, current-quarter earnings consensuses for these companies are based on widely scattered individual estimates. In financial nerdspeak, each consensus has a standard deviation of estimates that's high relative to the mean. That can signal analyst indecision. Studies have shown that widely scattered forecasts often (not always) predict earnings misses.

Atlantic Tele-Network

Atlantic Tele-Network (ATNI: 36.33, -0.88, -2.36%) provides telecom services to under-reached areas in North America and the Caribbean, including broadband in rural upstate New York, wire-line phone service in Guyana and cellular service in the Turks and Caicos Islands. That business can be plenty profitable. In recent years the company has turned more than 30 cents of each sales dollar into operating profit. Over the past four quarters, however, that figure has slipped to 12 cents, and in three of the past four quarters, earnings have missed estimates by more than half. Earlier this year, Atlantic agreed to buy wireless spectrum licenses and other assets for rural markets in Georgia, South Carolina and a handful of other states from Verizon (VZ: 32.21, -0.14, -0.43%) for $223 million. (Verizon acquired the assets with its purchase of Alltel last year.) Atlantic is experiencing greater-than-average costs while it puts the new assets to work, analysts say. Shareholders have doubled their money over the past five years, not counting dividends, which currently provide a yield of 2.4%, but the stock price has fallen by more than 30% year-to-date.

La-Z-Boy

La-Z-Boy (LZB: 7.62, +0.02, +0.26%) last posted sales of more than $2 billion during its fiscal year ended April 2005. This year's sales are expected to fall just short of $1.2 billion. The good news is that, after a string of losses brought on by the popping of America's house-price bubble and a corresponding drop in demand for home furnishings, La-Z-Boy is forecast to post its second consecutive annual profit during its current fiscal year ending April 24. The bad news is that earnings per share were 43% lower than expected last quarter. A production shift to Mexico hasn't paid off with as much cost savings as hoped; a marketing campaign featuring Brooke Shields is costing plenty; and prices for many commodities, including furniture materials, are soaring. Shares, down more than 20% this year, at least seem inexpensive relative to forecast sales and profits.

Skechers

Toning sneakers might have jumped the shark (video). Analysts point out that Shape-Ups, meant to give even casual wearers a subtle workout, are no longer immune to discounting, and that Skechers USA (SKX: 22.68, -0.38, -1.64%), which sells them, has some excess inventory to work off. In its latest quarterly results announcement, Skechers said demand remains strong but that some customers over-ordered for the back-to-school season, leading to some order cancellations, and that inventory will be sold "at reasonable margins over the next six months or so." Earnings fell 28% short of expectations for the quarter. Three months ago, analysts were looking for 2010 earnings of $3.81 a share. Now, they say $2.92 a share. The stock has lost more than 20% of its value this year.


Read more: 3 Stocks Likely to Dip in December - Investing - Stocks - SmartMoney.com http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/stocks/3-stocks-likely-to-dip-in-december/#ixzz16PvMVuLb

Important notice: Microsoft Money Plus is no longer available for purchase. All purchased Money Plus products must be activated prior to Jan. 31, 2011. Online services extensions are no longer available for Money Plus.

Important notice: Microsoft Money Plus is no longer available for purchase. All purchased Money Plus products must be activated prior to Jan. 31, 2011. Online services extensions are no longer available for Money Plus.

With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed. After suspending annual updates of Money Plus in 2008, Microsoft ended sales of Money Plus on June 30, 2009.

We would like to thank the many dedicated users who have been enthusiastic supporters of Microsoft Money over the years, as well as our partner financial institutions who helped pioneer a digital vision of financial management.

Microsoft remains committed to helping customers chart a course to financial well-being. The MSN Money Web site will continue to provide personal finance information and advice plus comprehensive market news and quotes. We will continue to evolve and enhance the online MSN offering in the coming months.

Update (9/01/10): Online Banking Services Changing in October
Beginning October 1, 2010, Microsoft Money will disable online banking services for all accounts that use a third party provider. Microsoft Money will continue supporting services with direct connections to a financial institution until online services are discontinued on January 31, 2011. Please see the following KB article for more information on how to identify accounts that may be disabled and instructions on how to proceed: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2390720

Update (6/17/10): Microsoft has released 'Sunset' versions of Money Plus Deluxe and Money Plus Home & Business that do not require online activation. This version will allow you to keep your Money files and transactional history (on current and future machines) but will not allow access to online services or premium services. Full details and links to the Download Center can be found here.

Update (7/15/10): Online Help to be discontinued
The online Help for Money Plus (and some older versions of Money) will no longer be available after July 2010. Microsoft has provided a downloadable version of the help file. To learn more about how to use the alternate help content, check out the support article here, and get the downloadable help content here.

Current Money Plus customers who have questions or concerns can find additional information here.


Additional Content

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Double Bottom Forming on the GBP/CHF

Price action on the GBP/CHF has been wild to say the least recently. The trading has certainly been erratic from a pricing perspective, and we believe that this volatility is set to continue. However, over the past few months, if you've been following the 4 Hourly charts, there seems to have been a double bottom pattern forming which is relatively strong.
The first spike low of the double bottom comes in at 1.5365. This is the candle low of a single four hourly bar. Following this bar, the currency pair put in a solid performance and rallied all the way up to 1.6000 – a strong psychological level.
However, since reaching that level last week, the GBP/CHF has sold off once more, to the point where it is now approaching the low once again. Could this be a double bottom forming in action? We believe that given the strengths of both the GBP and the CHF, there is a high likelihood that indeed the currency will once again reverse and head higher.
There are a number of things which are pointing towards this being the likely outcome. Firstly, the %R indicator, which is almost always a reliable oscillator to use on this currency pair – is oversold. This indicates that the currency pair could indeed be in for a correction in the near term. However, whilst this is certainly a convincing factor, it is definitely not the only thing which is leading us to believe that a trend reversal is about to occur.
Over the past 2 years, double bottoms have formed on almost every currency pair out there. They are simply a fact of technical analysis and they are a very reliable measurement of future price action.
However, if you look at double bottoms from a statistical perspective, you will see that if you had been trading the double bottoms which formed on the GBP/CHF currency pair, you would have had the most success. That's right – when it comes to double bottom chart set ups, the GBP/CHF is definitely the most accurate currency pair to base your trades off.
So – where are we targeting for this currency pair trade in the near future? We believe that in the short term, a bounce up to 1.5700 could definitely be on the cards. If this point is reached, we believe that – depending on momentum – the price could return all the way to the 1.600 high that was set last week, and potentially surpass this also.
To curb risk, we have placed a stop loss order below the first spike low at 1.5320 – which should provide enough space to allow for any "false" breakouts to occur, without it affecting our double bottom prediction.

Euro Sovereign Debt is Still Attractive

Earlier this year, if you asked anyone whether or not they would actively and happily hold on to Eurozone sovereign debt for the long run, the answer would probably have been a laugh and a strong "no". Having just been through a moderate sovereign debt crisis in countries such as Greece and Spain (and these issues are of course continuing) – it would be fairly naïve to predict that people would be overly happy to hold Euro sovereign debt for the long term – right?
Wrong. Apparently, Eurozone debt is just as attractive as it has ever been, only that now investors are being hugely rewarded for holding it. Credit default swap spreads have widened over the past few months to levels similar to those when the debt crises started for these countries, but there is a significant difference this time around.
The difference is that investors do not fear a default by any of the countries involved! In fact, a recent survey of investors found that sovereign debt trading is actually more reliable than currency trading in the current market environment.
This is a big turnaround from January and February of this year. In fact, the turnaround in attitude is almost inconceivable.
So what about the ratings agencies? Don't they have a say in all of this? Yes – of course they do, and their reaction to the whole situation has simply been to downgrade Eurozone sovereign debt over and over again. But investors are slightly cleverer than to simply take the credit rating agencies for their word. They know that whilst a credit rating for an individual country might be bad, the Eurozone is not just comprised of a single country.
Indeed, as we saw in the case of the Greece situation, Germany played a huge – and arguably dutiful – role in rescuing the country. If the Germans hadn't have come to the party, the entire Eurozone would have felt the fallout of the debt crisis.
Therefore, it would appear that whilst the German support for Greece (and Spain) has come and gone, investors believe that the country will still be there to provide financial support for any other Eurozone members who inadvertently fall in to trouble in the coming months. If Greece was able to get a multi-billion EUR bailout, there is absolutely no reason why a similar package couldn't be given to other Eurozone countries.
And therein lays the reason why Eurozone debt is attractive. Whilst not written on paper, Germany has a pact with all member countries that it will not allow them to default. The German insurance policy therefore allows investors to profit from amazing interest rates in some Eurozone member nations, whilst being supported by the main player – Germany – should anything go wrong along the line.

Japanese Yen Waivers on Rumours of Further Intervention

The Japanese Yen was trading significantly lower at the end of last week, as rumours surfaced of further intervention in the USD/JPY currency pair at the end of the week. It was speculated that the Japanese Foreign Ministry was delving in to the currency markets, apparently continuing the intervention that we have seen over the last few weeks.
Whether it is true or not, the rumour itself certainly had a tangible effect on the market, and the Yen was sent lower to close the week approximately unchanged from the open on Monday.
Our belief is that indeed the Foreign Ministry did push a few buttons and attempt to buy the USD throughout the end of the week, albeit in smaller amounts than the past. You will all remember not too many weeks ago when the Japanese central bank came to the party and bought a huge number of USD – which sent the USD/JPY skyrocketing around 300 pips or so.
The same movement seems to have taken place in the EUR/JPY currency pair also. The Yen traded at 112.95 at the end of the week versus the EUR, which was down almost 100 pips from the starting level at the beginning of the week – at 113.75.
Regardless of whether the Japanese Foreign Ministry did intervene or not, it is certainly clear from this recent fall that investors are nervous as to the future of the currency.
The large gains that the Yen has made over the past few months seem to be coming to an end, and the momentum is definitely dying out. However, it is unclear as yet whether or not the definite low has been reached in the USD/JPY pair. As we always say – the market has its own mind, so it wouldn't be at all surprising if having just said that, the market returns to form a new low in the next month or so. If this happens however, it could be rather short lived.
What is clear in this situation however is that the Japanese Foreign Ministry is keeping a close eye on the currency markets, and will no doubt trade more Yen and USD's should the need arise.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

A Powerful Binary Option Trading Strategy

By: Hillel Fuld
We all want to make money, I think most of us can agree about that. The problem is that today’s culture of instant gratification, which is magnified with the Web and social media, people do not have the patience they require to make serious money. Binary trading is no different, if you want to make profits, you need a binary options strategy.

So, now, if you have ever trading binary options, you must be thinking, how can such a simple industry require a strategy and what is a binary options strategy anyway? Good question.

The truth is, binary trading is different than other markets such as Forex in many ways, but when it comes to a binary options strategy, you can look to Forex for some guidance.

The basic principles that make up a good Forex strategy can and should also be applied to a binary options strategy. Here are a few examples:

- Risk VS Reward: When trading binary options, you need to decide how much capital you are able to risk losing. If you need that money to feed your family, as strong as the craving is to try and double it, it is not the kind of thing you want to do. You need to sit down and figure out what you can afford to lose and use that money to trade binary options. That is 101 of a binary options strategy.

- Demo: Just like in Forex, practice makes perfect. You need to familiarize yourself with the binary trading platform and then jump in with real money.

- No Emotion: You need to constantly fight the urge to overcompensate for losses or ride the wave of success for too long when trading binary options. This is an underlying principle for any binary options strategy.

- Limits: Know your limits and do not pass them even by a little margin. Once you let yourself go, it is a slippery slope. Define your boundaries and stick to them no matter what.

- Getting out: Lastly, binary trading just like Forex is not for everyone and every day is not going to be your best day. If you see yourself falling, get out while you still can. Tomorrow is another day and you should always reserve the option to reach the truthful and sometimes painful conclusion that binary options trading is not for you. That is also part of a binary options strategy.

Economic Calendar 2010

The Forex market is not traded on technical analysis alone. The economic calendar 2010 is as important to a Forex trader's daily strategy as any support or resistance line. Although your charts will tell you where to buy and sell any particular Forex pair, these points naturally assume the market is working in a vacuum. In other words, as long as nothing on the outside happens, the support and resistance lines; or the trading range; or even the wave; is legitimate.
The Forex market does not trade in a vacuum. There are hundreds of factors a day that will have an affect which way the market is going to turn. The economic calendar 2010 is a necessary to have on your computer to predict the unpredictable.
Reports for everything
If you take a look at the economic calendar 2010, it will look like you won't have time to trade. You'll only be spending all day, every day, waiting for yet another report to come out. To spend any amount of time concentrating or anticipating the Industrial Orders report in Denmark might not be the best use of your time. The Imports and Exports report in Japan might not interest the Forex trader if he is only trading the EUR/USD pair. The point is, that it's on the calendar; and it's on there with the reports the Forex trader wants to be aware of.
Even though the plethora of reports contained in the economic calendar 2010 may seem like information overload, it can also spark some interest in some trading pairs not otherwise considered. There's nothing wrong with expanding your horizons and seeing when major reports come out in other countries. Even those reports might have some indirect effect on the trading of the pairs in which you're involved.
Search for relevance
The nice thing about having and using an economic calendar 2010 is that you can plan your trading around either using, or avoiding, the time that a major report is coming out. There are certain reports that you can't predict and won't be on the calendar. If a country decides suddenly to change its interest rates, there's nothing any Forex trader can do about that. When something like that happens the market is going to react and that is the reason every Forex trader uses a stop-loss. Of course there will be the occasional time you get caught on the right side of the market and you find yourself riding an unexpected profit. Be happy about that. It doesn't happen often.
Major reports in the United States pretty much affect everything worldwide. These should always be noted. It is a major reason to have and economic calendar 2010 handy. Something like the Jobless Claims report can have an impact on the interest rate of the dollar, which indirectly affects every other country. It is always something to watch. Reports of GDP for any country in any Forex pair you might be trading should be watched.
What to do
There are a couple tactics that can be used when dealing with reports available on any economic calendar 2010. The first thing a Forex trader might consider is staying out of the market when the report comes out. Wait for the market to react and not predict how the market will react. It is certainly a safer way to go.
Another way is to try to jump the gun and keep a close stop-loss. Any Forex trader must remember that once the report has come out, the results are already in the market. The huge financial institutions and banks don't like to be surprised. They know about the report and what is in it before you ever will. In either case, the economic calendar 2010 will always give you a heads-up.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The structure of polyhedra microcrystals

Dr Geoff Sutton, University of Oxford
Virus infections in a number of insect families generally culminate in the occlusion of between one and several thousand virus particles within large proteinaceous crystalline occlusion bodies or polyhedra. Polyhedra are generally less than 7 μm in size, serve to protect the viruses from  harsh environmental conditions and are made from a protein, polyhedrin, encoded by the viruses. Despite their small size, we solved the  structure of polyhedra produced by the dsDNA baculovirus, Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrosis virus (AcMNPV), with data  collected on the Diamond microfocus beamline I24 to 1.8 Å resolution.
    The structure reveals an intricate packing which forms a highly symmetrical, covalently cross-braced lattice. The polyhedrin subunits form tightly packed trimers  which are then linked as dodecamers by disulphide bonds. The dodecamers interlock to form the robust crystal. A flexible adaptor enables this supra-molecular  assembly to specifically entrap massive baculoviruses. Inter-subunit chemical switches modulate the controlled release of virus particles in the unusual high pH environment of the target insect’s gut.
    Surprisingly, the structure of the AcMNPV polyhedrin subunits is more similar to the jelly roll fold of picornavirus coat proteins than to the polyhedrin of a dsRNA virus cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus (BmCPV1). It is, therefore, remarkable that despite sharing little amino acid  sequence identity, both AcMNPV and BmCPV1 polyhedra possess identical crystal lattices and crystal symmetry, however the structures are, at best, distantly  related. The crystalline arrangement must be particularly well suited to the functional requirements of the polyhedra and has been either preserved or  re-selected during evolution. The use of flexible adaptors to generate a powerful system for packaging irregular particles is characteristic of the AcMNPV  polyhedrin and may provide a vehicle to sequester a wide range of objects such as biological nano-particles.
    Insect viruses have developed methods to protect their virions when outside the host organism, a striking example being the sequestration within robust crystalline particles. These occlusion bodies (or polyhedra)  vary in size (typically 0.1-5 µm), often have characteristic shapes and well ordered lattices, and are built primarily by a single protein encoded by specific groups  of viruses including baculoviruses, cytoplasmic polyhedrosis viruses (CPVs) and entomopoxviruses. They act as protective packages allowing infectious virions to survive for long periods in harsh environments, providing a delivery system between hosts by oral-faecal routes and resisting solubilisation until  exposed to the alkaline insect midgut. The fact that these diverse groups of insect viruses all use occlusion as a method to package their virions suggests that  there may be a powerful selective advantage for their survival within insects.
    Baculoviruses are a family of large dsDNA viruses which replicate and assemble within the host nucleus. The baculovirus polyhedra protein, polyhedrin, is one of the most conserved proteins in the virus. Naturally occurring aminoacid substitutions, many of them single point mutations, produce a variety of phenotypic changes to the ranging from large, cuboid polyhedra, which occlude no or  few virions, to overall changes in polyhedra shape.
    We have determined, from in vivo grown crystals, the structure of both virus-containing wild-type and a  virus-empty mutant (G25D) polyhedra from the baculovirus Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrosis virus (AcMNPV). The crystals were derived from  cultured insect cells with the wild-type crystals being usually <5 µm in maximum linear dimension while many G25D crystals attained 5-10 µm. Despite their  small size, we were able to determine the high resolution (1.8 Å) structure for the mutant polyhedra using conventional seleno-methionine labelling to solve the phase problem by taking data on the tuneable microfocus beamline I24. Due to the small size of the crystals and their low solvent content (nominally 21%),  structure determination was challenging; however, the final structure is reliable (Rwork=0.164, Rfree=0.217 from 36.3 to 1.8 Å resolution). Two major  disordered regions are present where the residues could not be positioned; D1 from 32-48 and D2 from 174- 186.
Figure 1
Figure 1 (A) Cartoon representation of the structure of AcMNPV polyhedrin coloured from blue at the N-terminus to red at the C-terminus. Disordered regions D1 (residues 32-49) and D2 (residues 174-186) are shown as dots. (B)  Cartoon and surface representation of polyhedrin trimer aligned to the orientation in (C). Subunits are coloured by chain with one in the trimer coloured as in (A). (C) Dodecameric unit of four trimers linked by disulphide bonds (represented as orange spheres). The unit cell and threefold axes are drawn to facilitate observation. (D)  Schematic of disulphide linked dodecamer, orientated as in (C). Each trimer is represented as a simplified cubic block (with one corner absent), with the C-terminal hooks and pockets present. The disulphide linking the trimers is represented as a dowel. (E) The crystal lattice is built up from repeats of the dodecameric unit, alternately coloured  beech and brown to aid viewing. (F) Light microscopy image of G25D mutant AcMNPV polyhedra.

    AcMNPV polyhedra have I23 symmetry with  one polyhedrin subunit in the asymmetric unit, so that 24 copies of the 28.6 kDa (245 amino acids) molecule are tightly packed in the unit cell (a,b,c=102 Å). The polyhedrin subunit can be split up into 3 parts: N-terminal head, a β-barrel body (which comprises most of the molecule) and a C-terminal tail (Figure 1A). The β-barrel body is reminiscent of that found in the major capsid proteins of picorna-like viruses. The subunits form tightly packed trimers, with the disordered  portions of the molecule grouping at one corner of the essentially cubeshaped assembly (Figure 1B). The jelly-roll β-barrels of each subunit are packed  orthogonal to each other and define  the basic size of the crystal building block. The N-terminal head contributes to the clamping sheet fundamental to the trimer  assembly, part of a robust trimer interface comprising a mixture of hydrophobic interactions, salt bridges and hydrogen bonds, which buries ~25% of the surface  area of each polyhedrin subunit. The C-terminal hooks protrude at right angles from three edges of the trimer. Eight of the cubelike trimers are neatly  arranged to fill the crystal unit cell. There are in fact two nested sets of four trimers, one arrayed at the corners of the cell and the other at the centre; four  trimers point inwards towards the centre of the cell, whereas the other four point out towards the corners. The closest interactions between the trimers of the  same polarity come at the centre of the face of the unit cell. This contact is not extensive (~800 Å2) and would not normally be sufficient to achieve a strong interaction; however, four salt bridges between highly  conserved glutamate, arginine and asparagines side chains and a covalent disulphide bond between 2 symmetry-related copies of Cys132 tether this extended dimer. As Cys132 is the only  cysteine fully conserved across the baculoviruses it seems likely that this disulphide stabilization is biologically relevant. These interactions link four trimers of the  same polarity in a tetrahedral arrangement to form a dodecameric cage (Figure 1C, D). The assembly of the crystal is completed by clipping together  dodecamers (Figure 1E). In this lattice the disulphide bonds provide cross-braces, whereas stability  in the direction of the unit cell edges is provided by a very extensive interface (~10,000 Å2). This includes the protruding C-terminal hooks which engage adjacent dodecamers through a series of conserved residues. By light microscopy, the AcMNPV polyhedra appear as cubes (Figure 1F).
    Overall the structure explains certain key physical properties of the polyhedra, revealing a  robust isotropic structure with virus engagement modules arrayed at high density to specifically attach the viruses to be occluded. This raises interesting  possibilities for redirecting these interactions towards the encapsulation of other structures. The structure also explains the mechanism of lattice dissolution in the  high pH environment of the insect mid-gut, by revealing a high concentration of tyrosine side-chains at molecular interfaces, forming a pH dependent  molecular switch.
    The structure also illuminates the evolutionary history of polyhedrins – although it raises almost as many questions as it answers. Firstly it is  clear that the baculovirus protein is surprisingly different in structure to the equivalent protein from the type 1 cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus. Although both of  these proteins possess a jelly-roll, the baculovirus polyhedrin is in fact more similar to the major coat proteins of picornaviruses. We believe that this latter similarity is sufficiently strong to support the hypothesis that they evolved from a common ancestral protein, however at this stage we cannot tell if the two  known polyhedrin structures are also related. With tricky questions of evolution such as this it will be interesting to see if the determination of additional  structures will clarify the situation by identifying serial homologues.
Principal Publications and Authors
Ji X, Sutton G, Evans G, Axford D, Owen R, Stuart DI. (2010). How baculovirus polyhedra fit square pegs into round holes to robustly package viruses. EMBO J. 29, 505-14. Epub Dec 3, (2009).
Funding Acknowledgement
Medical Research Council UK and SPINE2-COMPLEXES LSHGCT-2006-031220

Government confirms Phase III funding



Government confirms Phase III funding

Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed that Diamond Light Source will receive funding for Phase III expansion in the Government’s spending review, part of a strategy to support world-class science and invest in infrastructure projects that contribute to economic growth.
Diamond will receive £69 million from the Large Facilities Capital Fund over the next four years. With additional funding from the Wellcome Trust and further investment in the next spending review, this will enable the construction of ten new beamlines by 2017, bringing the total to 32 and maximising Diamond’s potential to support UK science and industry.
“This is a very welcome announcement. Phase III will significantly enhance Diamond’s capabilities, and enable us to continue to establish a truly world-class facility for UK science. We are grateful for the continued support of the UK Government, the Science & Technology Facilities Council and the Wellcome Trust.”

Professor Gerd Materlik, Chief Executive of Diamond Light Source
Opened in 2007, Diamond is the largest medium energy light source in the world. Phase I comprises the synchrotron and 7 initial beamlines, which with a further 15 beamlines developed in Phase II (2007-2012) are used to conduct research in fields including structural biology, health and medicine, nanoscience, solid-state physics, earth science, chemistry, electronics, engineering, energy, food and environmental science.
Work by researchers at Diamond has already resulted in over 1,000 publications, many in leading scientific journals. Diamond is increasingly supporting industrial R&D, working with Rolls Royce on aerospace and energy applications, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline on drug discovery and development, and Johnson Matthey on improved emissions control catalysts.
The Chancellor’s announcement confirms the commitment to Phase III announced by the previous Government in March. A total of £111.2 million is expected to be invested over the next 7 years - £97.4 million from the Large Facilities Capital Fund and £13.8 million from the Wellcome Trust.
Phase III will give Diamond a world-leading capability in areas such as high spatial resolution and will have a major impact in the study of advanced materials, life sciences and in environmental research. The new beamlines will deploy cutting-edge synchrotron technology and enable techniques including long wavelength macromolecular crystallography, high-throughput small angle scattering, high resolution angle resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, and soft X-ray microscopy, with many potential new applications.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

No inflation? Tell it to your Thanksgiving turkey



ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Receives Permit To Mine at Ulaan Ovoo in Mongolia
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V:PCY, OTCQX: PRPCF, Frankfurt: 1P2) announces that on November 9, 2010, it received the final permit to commence mining operations at its Ulaan Ovoo coal project in Mongolia. Prophecy is one of few international mining companies to achieve such a milestone. The mine is production-ready, with a mine opening ceremony scheduled for November 20.
Prophecy CEO John Lee said: "I thank the government of Mongolia for the expeditious way this permit was issued. The opening of Ulaan Ovoo is a testament to the industrious and skilled workforce in Mongolia. Prophecy directly and indirectly (through Leighton Asia) employs more than 65 competent Mongolian nationals and four expatriots. The company also reaffirms its commitment to deliver coal to the local Edernet and Darkhan power plants in Mongolia."
The Ulaan Ovoo open pit mine is 10 kilometers from the Russian border and within 120km of the Nauski TransSiberian railway station, enabling transportation of coal to Russia and its eastern seaports. Thermal coal prices are trading at two-year highs at Russian seaports due to strong demand from Asian economies.
For the complete press release, please visit:
http://prophecyresource.com/news_2010_nov11.php



"The fundamental reason why you're seeing record-high turkey prices is the fact we’re seeing record-high costs of raising turkeys," said Tom Elam, president of FarmEcon LLC, an agriculture and food-industry consultant in Carmel, Indiana. "When both stocks are down and production is down, then you get a double hit on the amount available to be consumed." Retailers in the U.S. sold whole frozen turkeys for an average of $1.57 a pound in September, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier and the highest level since at least 1980, the Labor Department said on Oct. 15.
While those government statistics don't capture the holiday discounting by grocers this month, retail prices probably will be up 20 percent from Thanksgiving last year, said FarmEcon's Elam.
The birds are traditionally the main course for meals on Thanksgiving, an annual holiday that Americans will celebrate on Nov. 25 this year. Stores usually cut prices to spur sales on accompanying items for the holiday dinner including cranberry sauce, green beans, or stuffing mix, Elam said. Retail prices, even with specials, will be higher this year, he said.
Last year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, cut prices on turkeys, selling whole 12-pound (5.4 kilogram) turkeys for 40 cents a pound. That level of pricing probably won’t be around this year, Elam said.
Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart won't disclose its turkey pricing until Nov. 17, Melissa Hill, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
Some retailers probably are going to lose money because customers still expect discounts, Whitman said.
"Retailers stand the very real possibility of losing more money than last year due to high wholesale prices," Whitman said. "The consumer has really come to expect low-price turkeys even during the most popular time of year for it."
Most grocers secure their supply in February and March, and they had an incentive to do that this year because stockpiles were expected to be tight by November, Elam said. For those who didn’t buy early or need more now, they will be forced to pay "top dollar" to preserve customer loyalty by making sure there is enough turkey at Thanksgiving, Whitman said.
"There'll be enough to go around," said Kelly Zering, associate professor and extension specialist in the department of agricultural and resource economics at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. "It might be that if you wait until the last minute, you might have fewer to choose from than you had last year."
Per-capita consumption will be 16.2 pounds this year, the lowest level since 1988, according to the USDA. That is down from 16.9 pounds in 2009. The main reason for the decline is lower turkey output, said David Harvey, a USDA agricultural economist in Washington. Record grain prices in 2008 led some producers to reduce their flocks, he said.
The U.S. corn crop will be 1 percent smaller than forecast a month ago, the Department of Agriculture said on Nov. 9, after flooding in June and hot, dry weather in August lowered Midwest yields. Feed is about 25 percent of the retail cost of turkeys, Elam said.
Turkey producers have seen their profits dwindle after the jump in feed costs, and some may lose money during a seasonal drop in demand in January, Elam said. Some may trim or abandon plans to expand, he said.

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ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit,
Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property

Company Press Release, October 27, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include:
-- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres.
-- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres.
-- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre.
Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest."

Hypocritical U.S. is tops at currency manipulation

Section:
By Aaron Task
Tech Ticker
Yahoo Finance
Friday, November 12, 2010
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/535604/U.S.-of-%22Irony-and...
After the G20 failed to reach any consensus on currency issues and trade imbalances, President Obama took a direct shot at China Friday, saying the renminbi "is undervalued ... and China spends enormous amounts of money intervening in the market to keep it undervalued."
The president's comments cap (at least for now) a period of extraordinary public debate among politicians and policymakers -- past and present -- over currencies and the Fed's QE2 program.
... Dispatch continues below ...




ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Receives Permit To Mine at Ulaan Ovoo in Mongolia
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V:PCY, OTCQX: PRPCF, Frankfurt: 1P2) announces that on November 9, 2010, it received the final permit to commence mining operations at its Ulaan Ovoo coal project in Mongolia. Prophecy is one of few international mining companies to achieve such a milestone. The mine is production-ready, with a mine opening ceremony scheduled for November 20.
Prophecy CEO John Lee said: "I thank the government of Mongolia for the expeditious way this permit was issued. The opening of Ulaan Ovoo is a testament to the industrious and skilled workforce in Mongolia. Prophecy directly and indirectly (through Leighton Asia) employs more than 65 competent Mongolian nationals and four expatriots. The company also reaffirms its commitment to deliver coal to the local Edernet and Darkhan power plants in Mongolia."
The Ulaan Ovoo open pit mine is 10 kilometers from the Russian border and within 120km of the Nauski TransSiberian railway station, enabling transportation of coal to Russia and its eastern seaports. Thermal coal prices are trading at two-year highs at Russian seaports due to strong demand from Asian economies.
For the complete press release, please visit:
http://prophecyresource.com/news_2010_nov11.php



Ahead of the G20 confab, Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble called U.S. policy "clueless," while foreign ministers from China, South Africa and France (among others) questioned the wisdom of QE2. Adding insult to irony, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan piled on in The FT, where he warned the U.S. is "pursuing a policy of currency weakening." That in turn, prompted a sharp rebuke from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who told CNBC: "We will never seek to weaken our currency as a tool to gain competitive advantage or to grow the economy."
Michael Pento, senior economist at Euro Pacific Capital, says the U.S. doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to discussions about currencies, calling Alan Greenspan's comments the "height of irony and hypocrisy," given his easy-money policies at the Fed.
"The U.S. is the No. 1 currency manipulator on the planet," he says. "We print up a lot of dollars" and "we can consume more than we produce because of that."
But that policy makes for a "chronically weak" dollar and puts America at the mercy of its foreign creditors, Pento says, restating a warning about the risks of a true dollar crash and skyrocketing interest rates if we don't change course, soon.
It won't happen overnight, but China is plotting its own exit strategy by slowing rolling its Treasury holdings into the short end of the curve, he says, suggesting other foreign investors will follow suit.
"The credibility of this country is falling faster than the dollar," Pento says. "One day you'll have a Treasury auction without indirect bidders and only Ben Bernanke" will want to buy U.S. debt, he says.
To avoid such a "watershed event," Pento recommends we adopt the bulk of the deficit commission's recommendations, as detailed here. He also wants a return to the gold standard, a controversial idea World Bank President Robert Zoellick broached this week.
Going back to the gold standard "would be painful" and even lead to a depression in the near term, Pento concedes. But "all the imbalances would be reconciled and we can start over again with a real economy."

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Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon:
http://www.goldrush21.com/
* * *
Help keep GATA going
GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:
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To contribute to GATA, please visit:

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ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit,
Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property

Company Press Release, October 27, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include:
-- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres.
-- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres.
-- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre.
Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest."
For the company's full press release, please visit:
http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf

Friday, November 12, 2010

U.S. Boosts 2011 Oil Forecast on Economic Outlook

(Updates with closing price in fifth paragraph. Adds Ghanem comment in 19th paragraph.)
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. increased its crude-oil price forecast for 2011 by $1 a barrel on projections that global economic growth will lead to higher demand and that inventories in industrialized nations will decline.
West Texas Intermediate oil, the U.S. benchmark grade, will average $83 a barrel next year, up from a September forecast of $82, according to the Energy Department’s monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook. The estimate includes an assumption that OPEC will boost its output as prices rise, tempering a bigger gain.
Oil will climb 6.5 percent in 2011 from a projected average of $77.97 this year, the department said. The 2010 figure increased 60 cents from last month and reflects a 26 percent advance from the 2009 average of $61.66 a barrel. Crude has averaged $77.90 a barrel so far this year in New York.
“World oil prices are expected to rise gradually as global economic growth leads to higher global oil demand and growth in non-OPEC supply slows in 2011,” according to the forecast by the Energy Information Administration, the department’s statistical arm.
Oil for November delivery rose $1.34, or 1.6 percent, to settle at $83.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest level in a week. Futures have gained 4.6 percent this year.
U.S. Economy
U.S. gross domestic product will grow 2.6 percent this year and 2.1 percent in 2011, down from projections of 2.8 percent and 2.3 percent a month ago, according to the report.
U.S. households will spend an average of $986 between October and March to heat their homes, an increase of $24, or 2.5 percent, from last winter, EIA projected today in its Winter Fuels Outlook.
The department raised its forecast for global oil consumption this year to 86.06 million barrels a day from 85.95 million last month. That’s up 2.1 percent from last year’s 84.33 million. Demand will climb to 87.44 million in 2011, 80,000 barrels a day higher than last month’s projection.
U.S. oil use will average 18.97 million barrels a day this year, up 200,000 barrels from 2009. This year’s forecast increased 40,000 barrels from the September estimate. Consumption will climb 110,000 barrels to 19.08 million in 2011, according to the report.
OPEC Output
The 12 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries produced an average 29.49 million barrels a day in the third quarter, up 0.4 percent from the second quarter, the report showed.
The figure was 29.41 million barrels for September, down from a revised 29.55 million the month before. The August total was the highest monthly rate since December 2008, the month before the final round of OPEC production cuts went into effect. The Energy Department put August output at 29.46 million in last month’s report.
OPEC agreed to a record 4.2-million-barrel-a-day production cut in late 2008 as global demand fell 0.6 percent, the first decline since 1983. Members are now adhering to about 54 percent of that cut, according to an estimate today from the International Energy Agency.
OPEC production will “increase over the next year or two” in response to higher economic growth, EIA Administrator Richard Newell said today at a press conference in Washington. Higher OPEC output “should keep prices from rising dramatically.”
Production Targets
OPEC oil ministers signaled that they won’t alter their existing output targets when they meet tomorrow in Vienna.
The oil market is “well balanced,” Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said Oct. 12 when he arrived in Vienna. He called prices between $70 and $80 a barrel “ideal.”
OPEC has raised output by 5 percent from a five-year low reached in March 2009 and now exceeds its own target by 1.9 million barrels a day, about the same amount as Angola produces. Production was 29.1 million barrels a day last month, based on Bloomberg News estimates.
“All the ministers agree that we should leave the level of production stable,” Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s energy and oil minister, said today in Vienna. “We’re hoping to maintain the price and to increase that a little bit to between $90 and $100 a barrel.”
Oil prices “could be significantly higher” from today’s forecast if OPEC doesn’t increase production as global consumption recovers, the EIA report said.
Libya’s top oil official said he would like to see an oil price of $100 a barrel by the end of the year. Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corp., also called on OPEC members to comply with the group’s quotas.
IEA Forecast
The IEA also increased its demand outlook today. It raised both its 2010 and 2011 forecasts for worldwide crude use by 300,000 barrels a day amid signs of “apparently resurgent” demand in the U.S., Germany and Japan in the last quarter.
Global crude consumption will average 86.9 million barrels a day in 2010 and 88.2 million barrels a day in 2011, the Paris- based energy advisory agency said in its monthly Oil Market Report.
OPEC yesterday raised its forecast for 2010 global oil demand by 100,000 barrels a day to 85.59 million. That compares with 84.46 million last year. It said demand will climb to 86.64 million barrels a day next year.
--With assistance from Simon Lomax in Washington, Fred Pals in Vienna and Fiona MacDonald in Kuwait. Editors: Joe Link, David Marino
To contact the reporter on this story: Margot Habiby in Dallas at mhabiby@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net.

China could displace US Dollar dominance

million storage facilities and how the country had a big devaluating pile of dollars.
Well, trusted sources say that China has taken the next step to woo the Arab countries and establish closer relations.
Until now, the US dollar has been used as the sole oil trading currency around the globe. But last weeks rumors started to surface that a secret meeting took place between Gulf Arab oil producers and some oil importing states trying to decide on an alternative currency to dollar for transactions. Spearheaded by China, the meeting has proposed to trade oil in a basket of currency including, the Euro, Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, gold and a new currency to be planned by the GCC (The Gulf Cooperation Council-Saudi Arabia, Kuwait which already went off the US dollar two years ago, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi).
But why are Arab countries lending a kind ear to China? Look no further than the U.S, invasion of Iraq. With an estimated one million Arab deaths resulting from the US invasion, anger is simmering throughout the Arab world, not just Iraq. The bad publicity gained has helped an enthusiastic China in a big way. China is in need of huge amounts of oil and the Gulf States are happy to comply with China in exchange cheap imports, military technology transfer. This pushes the US further aside from the bargaining table and reduces its influence in the Middle-East.
This scenario is far removed from the Nixon Shock of 1971, if one were to walk the lanes of history. In 1971 the then U.S. President, Nixon, cancelled the direct convertibility of the dollar to gold. During the same period Oil production in the US peaked and the country ran out of capacity to increase the production. OPEC (The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) thus steps into the picture. Nixon's move helped the US to print more dollars- as much as they needed- to buy oil from OPEC establishing direct nexus between the dollar and oil.
So, here's the bigger picture: When this dollar dominance ends, as efforts are already visible, it could well be the last shoe to drop from the US economy.