Stocks and bonds do not typically trend the same direction. When traders are confident they move out of bonds such as the 10 year Treasury note and into stocks because they are willing to take more risk in return for more potential reward. Similarly when traders are cautious (or panicked) they sell stocks and move into Treasury bonds. This is not the only reason these two markets tend to move inverse to each other but it is an important underlying factor. Periodically, these trends will change temporarily and stock and bond prices will trend the same direction. Read More...

TD Ameritrade announced that it has re-vamped its line of mobile trading applications. The move is meant to tap into the already successful mobile trading applications developed by subsidiary thinkorswim and the few developed for TD Ameritrade and consolidate them under the brand "TD Ameritrade Mobile." The applications offer advanced charting, technical analysis, and... Read More...

The preliminary release (the first of 3 revisions) for 2nd quarter U.S. GDP was released today and the top line numbers missed expectations slightly. Overall analysts expected to see growth on an annualized basis of 2.5% but the release showed growth of 2.4%. In the premarket - stock futures were selling off strongly on the news before the official open. The dollar has bounced firmly on the data as well and we are forecasting that traders will be attempting to cover excess risk exposure before the weekend. Read More...

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The market started on an upbeat note with the vast majority of earnings reports surprising to the upside before finally closing down across the major indexes. There is always debate about whether the actual profits report is the most important predictor of market direction of whether the forward looking statements by management have a bigger impact. The truth is probably a lot more ambiguous. The reaction to earnings reports tends to just be a mirror of general investor sentiment, which...
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Are you worried about a collapse in the U.S. Treasury bubble? This article will review a new product in the market that can be used to turn that fear into a profitable opportunity. Specifically, we will be reviewing the Powershares 3X 25+ Treasury Bond ETNs. These are leveraged investments and in general it is safe to assume that leveraged and inverse ETNs and ETFs are a mixed bag of benefits and significant disadvantages. They offer very convenient access to markets.... Read More...

STRATEGY Register for today's 'Ask the Expert' webinar
STRATEGY Risks of Leveraged Funds and ETNs

After hearing the dire warnings of deflation that have become the standard talking points of most economists, American investors may be reaching for a bottle of Prozac. I believe that their anxiety is misplaced. Read More...

BASICS How Investors Deal With Deflation

First it was Charles Schwab. Then Fidelity joined in. Finally it was E*TRADE's turn to lower commission rates. The firm joined what has been coined the broker "price war" in February, with a bit of a "better late than never attitude." The standard price comparison chart, by which online brokers love to brag, will have to be updated across the board.

So now that everyone is playing along it's less of a price war and more of a garden party. As everyone joined together on pricing, they're creating, as TD Ameritrade's CEO Tomczyk called it, "a zero sum game." Read More...

BASICS The Truth Behind Broker Commissions
New Price War in Online Trading? - Barron's

Motorola (MOT) released earnings today and surprised analysts with the strength of its android-based cell phones. The stock is up 3% just after the open on fairly strong volume. The firm's Droid X and Droid phones are selling very well and are considered by many to be a superior alternative to the iPhone offered by Apple (AAPL.) While that last statement may be debatable depending on your 'fan-boy' status, rising sales numbers like this can't be a good thing for Apple... Read More...

STRATEGY We will be talking about AAPL in today's 'Ask the Expert'

A few positive announcements in Europe today has been pushing the USD down against most of the majors overnight in North America. The reports (labor in Germany and Eurozone sentiment) don't always have a big effect on forex prices the day they are released much less a long term impact so we still see technicals ruling the day. There are a couple of long positions that look good against the dollar that we covered in the video, however, overall we are keeping our timelines and targets short for those trades.... Read More...

We were hoping to get some good economic data today from the Census Bureau. Unfortunately, that is definitely not what we got. The Census Bureau announced this morning that Durable Goods Orders actually contracted by 1% last month. This came as quite a surprise as most analysts were expecting orders to grow by 0.9%. Read More...

ASK THE EXPERT Watch Today's Video

Just as we were starting to see forex traders increasing their willingness to take on more risk in their portfolios, we started getting negative economic news coming out of the United States. It started yesterday with a worse-than-expected Consumer Confidence report from the Conference Board and was backed up today by a worse-than-expected Durable Goods Orders announcement. Both of these announcements show that consumers in the U.S. are tightening their purse strings, which could cause the USD to regain some strength if risk takers pull back. Read More...

FOREX Watch Today's Ask the Expert: Video

As gold prices have scaled new heights in recent years, acquisition activity has begun to heat up in the gold mining space. In this article, we will conduct a case study of recent major transactions in the gold mining space to identify characteristics of attractive takeover candidates. We will then... Read More...

BASICS Buying Gold in a Standard Brokerage Account

The Ultimate Stock-Pickers Team tends to be agnostic to stock classifications like growth or value, preferring to focus on whether or not a company's shares are trading at a deep enough discount to our fair value estimate to warrant purchasing regardless of how the stock might be classified. While we'll always be drawn to value managers, given the impact investors like... Read More...

BASICS What Are Stock Dividends?
STRATEGY Dividends or Growth, Do You Have to Choose?

The S&P 500 is at resistance of 1120-1130 and seems to be moving back down off those levels today on mixed fundamental data. Stocks stopped at this same level in June and gapped down through it in May. The combination of these technical and fundamental factors work together to create a point at which investor sentiment can get "stuck". Traders trying to recoup losses are motivated to sell because this was where the market stopped last time while bulls... Read More...

In this webinar we will dig into how traders can use currency options to profit from movements in the forex without taking on the unlimited risk of an outright spot or futures position. Currency options offer exposure to a new asset class for diversification and can be used for that purpose by both long term or short term traders. Forex traders should also consider the benefits of using currency options as an alternative to stop losses. In the webinar video I will walk through 3 specific examples of how these strategies could be deployed this week.
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