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Friday, April 30, 2010

Shout outs to ATL Night Spots

Shout outs to ATL Night Spots for putting me up on this beauty. Her name is Ms. Cat and yes I’d love to niip on her cat. Her measurements are 34DD-23-40, it doesn’t get much better than that. Make sure you check in with ATL Night spots for more pics of this hotttie.










The major European indices all continue to post positive results today on the back of strong corporate earnings. The Paris-based CAC 40 is up the most at 0.94%. The FTSE 100 and DAX follow right behind at 0.56% and 0.36% respectively.

Corporate earnings are quelling the recent anxiety over Greek debt and possible contagion rampant in previous sessions. Uniliver reported forecast beating first quarter sales growth with shares rising close to 3%. Siemens gave a boost to the technology sector after posting strong first quarter profits. And finally Banco Santander buoyed the banking sector reporting a first quarter profit growth of 6%, pushing shares higher.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Sexiest ever pics of Monica Belucci















The USD/CHF is currently trading under the nine-month high of 1.0898 set yesterday on the back of a more than 180 pip rally by the dollar versus the Swiss franc. Since setting this high mark late in the American session, the pair slid downwards till it found support at 1.0843 and then moved back upwards to trade at the moment of publication near 1.0870.

Ian Coleman, FXstreet.com independent analyst, writes that the pair should see "a strong bullish day" with "a move up towards 1.1400."

The analyst places daily support levels at 1.0848, 1.0792 and 1.0769 and daily resistance levels at 1.0900, 1.1000 and 1.3540.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Social Media: Addiction Possibility for Your Teen

What do you think happens when 200 college students unplug…totally? This isn’t a trick question or a funny joke. It is exactly what happened at the University of Maryland. The International Center for Media and Public Agenda conducted a study, “Twenty-four Hours Unplugged,” in which 200 students were required to quiet their cell phones, laptops, desktops, netbooks, Kindles, iPads, televisions, radios. No surfing, no chat, no email, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Mafia Wars.

Not surprisingly, the experiment didn’t go over well with the students. They got cranky. They blogged about it afterward. According to the website A Day Without Media, those 200 students went overboard in describing their experience. Each was asked to write 300 words on the experience (60,000 total) but they had a lot more to say, to the tune of 111, 109 words. Many of those words included the reasons why they did not complete the 24 hours. What? There were some who couldn’t go 24 hours without the tether?

Some of the sadder responses:

  • I ONLY USE NEWSPAPERS TO CLEAN MY WINDOWS
  • EMAIL IS THE ONLY KIND OF MAIL I’VE EVER SENT
  • THERE ARE 11 TVS IN MY HOUSE
  • MY TV IS ON 24 HRS A DAY
  • I SENT OVER 7000 TEXTS LAST MONTH

These responses go to show you how much phones, computers and televisions have invaded our life, to the point of not knowing what to do when they are not available. (Hello, a hike anyone? Picnic at the beach? Visit the museum? Visit the folks?) Students complained of feeling isolated, became anxious and fidgety, almost like withdrawl from an addiction. Many had never driven or exercised without music. They couldn’t set up a date, organize a softball practice or even a study group without what many think of as their “lifelines.” They had no way of knowing what was going on in the world, no Google News, no sportcasters with the latest MLB or NHL scores, no recent Lindsay Lohan sightings.

There were, of course, some good excuses for breaking the silence: one student had 3 of his textbooks as e-books. No ebooks meant no studying, and no research project was going to keep him from doing his homework. But these were few and far between.

According to the ICPA, “The major conclusion of this study is that the portability of all that media stuff has changed students’ relationship not just to news and information, but to family and friends — it has, in other words, caused them to make different and distinctive social, and arguably moral, decisions.”

I don’t happen to think that this is just a teen or twenty-something phenomenon. I took a trip last weeken, just an overnight to my nieces’ volleyball tournament, without my laptop. It’s the first time in four years that I have traveled without it, and I have to admit that it was painful. My work requires I be tethered to a computer to monitor breaking news and do assignments. It has accompanied me to the mountains, the lake, the desert, and even Las Vegas. I don’t go a day without it. I even brought it to my nephew’s wedding earlier this month so that I could download the pictures I was taking. But when I left it at home last weekend, I felt bereft. I could not pull out my SD card and check the action photos I was taking, couldn’t live stream the event for my brother who was sitting at home waiting for updates, or check Yelp for a good restaurant. So I understand what they were going through.

I don’t consider it an addiction for myself, but for those who live and breathe IM and texting, play Farmville and Mafia Wars, watch every episode of Law & Order or every bout of MMA available, for those who never shut off their phone, shut down their computer, or turn off the TV, then the possibility of addiction does exist. So beware. Watch your kids for signs of overuse, and then take them out to play, to hike, to get an ice cream. Offer them alternatives to the electronic world.

Although Super model Heidi Klum



Although Supermodel Heidi Klum had a funny shoot with comedian Will Ferrell in the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, I guess she felt a little left out from the hot “Body Paint” shoot. So Heidi decided to take things in her own hands. Who needs SI?

Here are the fun sexxy photos of a new Body Paint shoot by Rankin that is all about Heidi. I personally like this shoot better than the SI, it has a fun energetic quality to it. And the painted ripped T-shirt with yellow undies look awesome. It must have taken hours to paint it.

Enjoy the famous Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue official body paint shoot and the cool Heidi & Ferrell shoot.













Market Review – Fundamental Perspective

With the end of the last week, the USD touched a two week high against the JPY as orders for U.S. durable goods excluding transportation items climbed 2.8% in March 2010 and sales of new homes increased 26.9%, the most in five decades. The JPY weakened 1.95% and reached 93.97 versus the USD. With the beginning of the current week, the USD could extend his upward trend and traded at 94.09. Furthermore the EUR declined against the USD on concerns that Greece`s request for a 60 billion USD bailout from the European Union will fail to ease investors concerns about the nation`s ability to end its financial crisis. The USD strengthened to 1.3359 from 1.3384. Also the other 15 most traded counterparts rose against the EUR as investors demand Greece pay almost triple what they charge Germany for its 10-year bond. The Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told investors that they will lose their shirts if they bet the cash strapped nation will default, as his government moved toward securing emergency aid before dept payments come due in the middle of May. Furthermore the yield on the Greek two year note rose to its personal high and reached 10.57%. The JPY rose to 125.72 versus the EUR.

The GBP increased versus the USD and rose more than 4% from its year’s low at 1.4748. Last Friday, the GBP traded at 1.5368 and has been starting the week at 1.5386. Also against the EUR, the GBP had a good start in the week and rose to 0.8683. Furthermore at the end of the last week, the Office for National Statistics in the U.K. published, that the gross domestic product climbed 0.2% in the first quarter against the median estimate of 0.4%. Therefore it could be a surprise that the GBP could start the week with gains versus its major counterparts.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Kim K is Looking Healthy


Kim Kardashian was on Live With Regis and Kelly recently, but let's face it - no one cares about what she was actually doing in New York. The only thing I... I mean people... care about is her ridiculous curvy body. She was intent on showing it off, too, by wearing one of the tightest dresses known to man.

It's good to see that Kim is keeping up with her appearance, even after she got Reggie Bush'd. Most girls would just let themselves go after being cheated on and dumped, but not Kimmy.










Gold "Crisis Protection" Proven as Eurozone's Greek Bail-Out Begins

THE PRICE OF GOLD retained a slight weekly gain as the close approached in London on Friday, trading above $1141 an ounce while the Euro bounced – and world stock markets rose – following Greece's formal request for a joint European and IMF bail-out.

Gold priced in Euros spiked within 0.3% of April 9th's record, hitting €27,743 per kilo before easing back as the single currency rose.

British investors looking to buy gold, the price held at £743 an ounce – 0.3% higher from last Friday's finish – after UK data showed the economy growing half-as-fast as analysts forecast between Jan. and March, adding just 0.2% year-on-year.

Crude oil and broader commodities were little changed.

"Greece is asking for the activation of the support mechanism," said a letter sent this morning by finance minister Papaconstantinou to the European Commission, fellow Eurozone states, and the European Central Bank.

"The moment has come," Greek premier Papandreou told reporters, apparently catching the European Commission unawares.

First it denied receiving a formal bail-out request. Then the EC said it will take "some time" to trigger the rescue, currently agreed at a maximum €45 billion (£60bn).

Thursday had seen Greek bond prices sink to new crisis-lows, driving the yield offered by two-year debt above 10%.

As Greek bonds rallied on Friday, German Bund prices ticked lower alongside UK and US Treasury debt.

Germany's Dax rose 1.4% by lunchtime in Frankfurt. Athens' stock market jumped almost 2%.

"Although gold's Dollar-price may still be 6% below its late-2009 highs, in Euro terms gold prices are up 6% from their Dec-09 peak," notes Patrick Artus' team at French bank Natixis.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Gold "Crisis Protection" Proven as Eurozone's Greek Bail-Out Begins

THE PRICE OF GOLD retained a slight weekly gain as the close approached in London on Friday, trading above $1141 an ounce while the Euro bounced – and world stock markets rose – following Greece's formal request for a joint European and IMF bail-out.

Gold priced in Euros spiked within 0.3% of April 9th's record, hitting €27,743 per kilo before easing back as the single currency rose.

British investors looking to buy gold, the price held at £743 an ounce – 0.3% higher from last Friday's finish – after UK data showed the economy growing half-as-fast as analysts forecast between Jan. and March, adding just 0.2% year-on-year.

Crude oil and broader commodities were little changed.

"Greece is asking for the activation of the support mechanism," said a letter sent this morning by finance minister Papaconstantinou to the European Commission, fellow Eurozone states, and the European Central Bank.

"The moment has come," Greek premier Papandreou told reporters, apparently catching the European Commission unawares.

First it denied receiving a formal bail-out request. Then the EC said it will take "some time" to trigger the rescue, currently agreed at a maximum €45 billion (£60bn).

Thursday had seen Greek bond prices sink to new crisis-lows, driving the yield offered by two-year debt above 10%.

As Greek bonds rallied on Friday, German Bund prices ticked lower alongside UK and US Treasury debt.

Germany's Dax rose 1.4% by lunchtime in Frankfurt. Athens' stock market jumped almost 2%.

"Although gold's Dollar-price may still be 6% below its late-2009 highs, in Euro terms gold prices are up 6% from their Dec-09 peak," notes Patrick Artus' team at French bank Natixis.

"This demonstrates gold's ability to protect investors from crises that debase their own currency, but not those of other sovereign issuers."

"German investors have not been put off by the all-time high expensiveness of gold in Euro-terms," reports Wolfgang Wrzesniok-Rossbach from Hanau-based refinery group Heraeus.

"The Greek financial crisis continues to drive investors here to the yellow metal."

Industrial demand, in contrast, "has shown a slight reduction in demand – current price levels appear to be simply too high," says Wrzesniok-Rossbach.

"Even at record prices of almost €865 an ounce" however, scrap-gold flows into the refinery "have slowed down in recent days," he adds.

Over in the credit-insurance market, the cost of protecting Portuguese government bonds also slipped back on Friday – together with Greek credit-default swaps – from yesterday's new record highs.

"The market believes that Greece will be forced to restructure its debt," says Simon Derrick at Bank of New York Mellon in London, and "The logic of such a situation for [Greek bond] investors is also simple enough:

"There is no last mover advantage in such a circumstance.

"We also note outflows just starting to build from Portuguese debt in recent days," Derrick is quoted by the FT's Alpha blog, "although they are still relatively modest."

Precious-metals analyst Walter de Wet at Standard Bank also notes fears of Euro-debt contagion today, writing "We doubt [the Greek rescue] would be enough to lift concerns over sovereign debt levels in certain European countries."

Even though the physical market is currently "quiet and directionless", de Wet reports, "Underlying uncertainty should continue to support gold."

Friday, April 23, 2010

Greece: Third time lucky?

EU Finance Ministers held yet another meeting on Greece, and have finally agreed on the details of the potential rescue package, which have been outlined in a press conference by Eurogroup head Juncker and EC Monetary and Economic Affairs Commissioner Rehn. The financing package looks substantial, it comes at rates that while concessional are still high enough to send a tough message and give Greece a strong incentive to put its house in order. My overall impression is that this should be enough to give Greek bonds some support in the near term, but this is just the beginning of an arduous adjustment process for Greece – the challenge of combining robust economic growth with draconian fiscal adjustment, both essential to reach debt sustainability, remains a formidable one. The agreement also leaves unchanged the underlying vulnerability of the eurozone, and the debate on institutional reforms will have to continue. It is also not clear yet to what extent the mechanism would constrain the ECB’s exit strategy, as the rates charged on EU loans are benchmarked on EURIBOR rates. Also, other large-deficit EU countries would be wise to take additional fiscal measures soon, to avoid becoming the next weak spot.

When will the rescue take place? Rehn and Juncker insisted on the “if and when needed” formula, but during the Q&A Rehn slipped and gave a more realistic “if, or rather when needed”. To be activated, the rescue mechanism will require a formal request by Greece, an assessment and opinion by the European Commission and the ECB, and a unanimous decision by EU leaders. It sounds laborious, but the groundwork has been laid in such a way as to make the following steps faster. Just yesterday, Greece formally requested the initiation of discussions with the IMF. While this does not constitute a formal request for either IMF or EU money, it is clearly the first necessary step in that direction. The key obstacle ahead now is agreeing on the IMF and EU conditions. Rehn indicated that on fiscal policy for 2010 the existing Greek program will be sufficient. However, detailed fiscal conditions will need to be agreed for 2011 and beyond, and the IMF will doubtlessly insist on tough structural conditions to create the conditions for growth and debt sustainability; pension reform and labor market liberalization are some of the likely candidates. Greece faces a few tough years ahead.

How much? The EU will offer up to EUR 30bn for the first year, which I assume would mean 12 months from the activation of the program, bringing us roughly to mid-2011. Over the same period, the IMF could probably provide up to an additional EUR 15bn, which would already be in excess of 2000% of quota – it seems extremely unlikely it could provide more. This would give a neat 2/3 to 1/3 split between EU and IMF financing, with the EU playing the greater role.

Note that the EU today could obviously not speak for the IMF, so we will have to wait for official confirmation from the IMF of when Greece applies for a program and how much financing would be provided.

This is a substantial amount of money. Greece faces about EUR 17bn in debt redemptions over the next six weeks, and another EUR 24bn in the first half of next year, plus the financing needed to cover the budget deficit over the entire period. Supported by this amount of official financing, Greece should be able to raise its additional funding on the market at least for a few months – its ability to do so over an extended period will of course depend on whether it fulfills the EU and IMF conditions. Notice that this will be a multi-year program, and Rehn explicitly indicated that financing for further years would be determined during the program negotiations. This confirms that Greece has a longer-term problem that does not disappear in virtue of today’s announcement.

At what price? The bottom line is that EU fixed-rate loans would be extended for a 3-year maturity at approximately 5% interest rate. This is arrived at by taking 3-year Euribor swap rates as a benchmark and adding a 300bp spread plus an additional 50bp spread to cover operational expenses. Variable rate loans would carry similar spreads over 3M Euribor, which is currently at about 0.64%. It is not clear to what extent this mechanism might constrain the ECB’s exit strategy. The loans will as usual be disbursed in tranches. To the extent that they are at flexible rates, they would of course reflect movements in the 3-month Euribor rate, which is now extremely low. If they are at fixed rates, either the rate is determined based on the Euribor prevailing when the tranche is disbursed, in which case they may rise well above 5%, or the rate is determined based on the Euribor prevailing when the program is activated. But in the latter case, the rate would fall further and further below market levels. In other words, if the ECB proceeds to push market rates up, then either Greece will face higher rates on the EU loans, endangering debt sustainability, or the subsidy element will increase, endangering political sustainability of the arrangement.

Rehn and Juncker were adamant in stating that 5% is not concessional, and not a subsidy. The Orwellian rationale provided in the press conference is that the rate is above that charged by the IMF, and since IMF rates are arguably concessional, something higher is not. Yet 5% is well below current market rates, which means that some residual political and social resistance in Germany cannot be ruled out. However, 5% at 3-years is a high rate: Germany pays about 1.3%, Italy about 1.8%, Portugal about 2.4% and Ireland about 2.3%. In this sense, it is fair to say that while the loans are concessional, they are extended at a rate that still provides a strong incentive for Greece to put its house in order and win back the market’s confidence to at least the same extent that Ireland has.

Another way of looking at it is that even with the EU’s help, Greece will need to implement tough actions to both reduce the fiscal deficit and restore competitiveness if it wants to bring its debt back on a sustainable path.

In other words, the medium-term debt sustainability challenge remains intact. Greece seems relatively well positioned to meet the EU fiscal targets for 2010. But that just means that at the end of this year the country will be in a deeper recession (at least -4% GDP contraction), with a budget deficit still close to 9% of GDP, and having done little to restore competitiveness. The challenge of combining robust economic growth with draconian fiscal adjustment, both essential to reach debt sustainability, remains a formidable one. The relatively high rate is also a powerful signal that Germany is serious: together with the highly visible and transparent process of IMF reviews, it guarantees that Greece will really need to abide by the agreed conditions or risk a cutting off of the official financing – it is hard to see Germany agreeing to a renewal of EU loans in case Greece’s program veers substantially off track.

British actress Jessica Jane Clement Could Get It

Here are some pictures of Jessica Jane Clement in Monkey Mag Photo Shoot. She is sexxy as hell but I almost forgot what her name was. Oh well. She is a British actress and that is the extent of my knowledge about her. Enjoy the pics.











The Pound has stretched higher at European session opening, breaking through 1.5435/40 resistance to extend rebound from 1.5190 week low to 1.5475 so far, which according to Karen Jones, technical analyst at Commerzbank, is expected to fail at 1.5690/5710, and resume longer-term downtrend.

The pair might fond interim resistance at 1.5525/75, and strong resistance at 1.5690/5710, where Jones expects failure: "Rallies will find interim resistance at 1.5525/75 and strong resistance at 1.5690/1.5710. If challenged we would expect failure and the resumption of the downmove from this juncture."

On the downside, 1.5283 and 1.5190 are key levels to maintain near-term uptrend, says Jones: "GBP/USD remains underpinned near term by its 20 day ma at 1.5283 currently. This together with 1.5190 (this weeks low) must hold for a near term upside bias to be preserved."

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