Update from my previous quickie on USD/JPY.

Update from my previous quickie on the USD/JPY last week can be seen in FaceBook.

Click Here to see it.

So far, it has been well on track with what we saw and study last week.

Posting will be alternating between here and Facebook.

Hello everyone,

I have find that posting is much more effective for my fellow traders but no fear, public still can view my quickie updates from here because, I will attached a link to my related postings in Facebook here :)

Lastest quickie on USD/JPY > Click Here!

Warmest Regards,
Ash Ariffin

Quickie on EURUSD.

EURUSD holds steady just beneath the 1.43-level with interim resistance seen at 1.4330, followed by 1.4360 and 1.44. Subsequent ceilings are eyed at 1.4440, backed by 1.4470 and 1.45. Support is seen at 1.4280, followed by 1.4230 and 1.42. Additional floors will emerge at 1.4150, followed by 1.41 and 1.4070.

Global Events Calendar [24-08-2009] - [28-08-2009]

*Time displayed is based on Singapore Time (GMT+8:00).
*Click on it for the enlarged version.

A month of Ramadan. (Fasting month for Muslims)

Today, 22nd August 2009. Marks the first day of the fasting month for Muslims around the globe. The month where participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, sexual conduct, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset.Ramaḍan is a time to fast for the sake of Allah, and to offer more prayer than usual, showing much gratitude to Allah for what he has given them.

Wishing all Muslims around the world a safe and healthy month of Ramadan.

Hoenig Stirs Debate on Bank Failures as Fed Forum Convenes.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The host for central bankers attending the Federal Reserve conference this weekend to discuss the financial crisis is a regional Fed chief who’s making waves with his proposal for letting big U.S. banks fail.

Thomas Hoenig, the Kansas City Fed president, will welcome Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and dozens of other central bankers to the annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, starting today. Hoenig said he hopes the gathering will serve as a model for handling crises in the future.

Bernanke has urged Congress to back part of Hoenig’s proposal for dealing with faltering big banks, which would wipe out shareholder equity in any that receive government aid. The Treasury Department’s so-called resolution authority plan, while likely to result in stockholder losses, doesn’t require it.

“Tom is leading the mainstream on this,” said former Fed Governor Lyle Gramley, now senior economic adviser with New York-based Soleil Securities Corp. “He’s ahead of the curve.”

Hoenig, 62, took office in 1991 and is soon to be the longest-serving Fed policy maker. Out of the 12 regional Fed presidents, he is one of two to have served as a head of bank supervision. Hoenig is tougher than his colleagues on inflation, having dissented from interest-rate votes four times since 1995, always for tighter policy.

Alternative to Bailouts

Companies with weak capital or investor confidence shouldn’t be bailed out, Hoenig said in a private talk in Omaha, Nebraska, in March. He said the government instead should declare them insolvent, replace managers, remove the bad assets and require shareholders to take losses. Hoenig broke from his usual practice of speaking from notes on index cards for non- economic comments and released written text entitled “Too Big Has Failed.”

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas asked for a copy of the speech after reading a newspaper article about it. He invited Hoenig to testify at an April hearing of the Joint Economic Committee, where Brownback is the ranking Senate Republican. Brownback said he had received “huge numbers of calls” from constituents angry about bank bailouts.

“Tom putting it out there, said, ‘You’re frustrated and you’re mad and there’s a way to address it,’” Brownback said in an interview. “It gave it, I think, a realistic, regulator approach from a respected individual.” He said he would like Hoenig to address lawmakers again this year.

The debate has been fueled by multibillion dollar government rescues of financial companies including Citigroup Inc. and American International Group Inc. Lawmakers in line with Hoenig include Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Banking Committee.

Shifting Risk

“Our regulatory reform effort must place the risk back where it belongs, on the risk takers and not on the taxpayers,” Shelby said in a statement.

Bernanke echoed Hoenig’s views in recent congressional testimony. In July 24 remarks to the House Financial Services Committee, the Fed chief indicated support for the Treasury’s resolution plan while adding that Congress might want to add some constraints such as requiring shareholders to bear losses.

“People are starting to sit up and take notice of his remarks,” said Camden Fine, president of Independent Community Bankers of America, a Washington-based trade group. “It’s influencing the debate.”

Not everybody agrees with Hoenig’s recommendation of setting strict guidelines to handle financial failures.

“You have to trust the authorities with some ability to change the rules when they need to,” said William Isaac, former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and now chairman of the global financial services unit of LECG Corp., an economic and financial consulting company based in Emeryville, California.

Vigorous Debate

While Hoenig’s plan may not be covered in the formal discussions at Jackson Hole, his fingerprints extend past the brief remarks he delivers: Hoenig approves topics and speakers, with an eye to fostering debate.

“It has to be vigorous,” Hoenig said during an interview in a conference room next to his 14th-floor office at the bank’s new limestone-and-glass headquarters building in Kansas City. “I don’t think we’ll get better if we don’t listen to our critics as well as to those who praise us.”

Scheduled speakers include Bernanke tomorrow, along with Trichet, Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, and less- well-known professors such as Carl Walsh of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Ricardo Caballero, chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s economics department.

“I’m hoping that this becomes, in a sense, a lessons- learned and a beginning of a blueprint,” Hoenig said.

Roots in Iowa

Thomas Michael Hoenig grew up in Fort Madison, Iowa, the second of seven children of a plumber and homemaker. After being drafted into the Army and serving in Vietnam, he completed graduate studies in economics at Iowa State University in Ames. Unlike most students, Hoenig was ready with his dissertation topic, bank competition.

“He decided what he wanted to write his dissertation on and came in and told me,” recalled Dudley Luckett, a retired professor who was Hoenig’s adviser.

Hoenig joined the Kansas City Fed as an economist in 1973. He played basketball there with another young economist, Donald Kohn, who’s now the central bank’s vice chairman.

One of Hoenig’s defining experiences occurred in 1982, when he was on the front lines during the failure of Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Bank, which triggered a national banking crisis and helped precipitate the 1984 government takeover of Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co.

Principles Approach

“We learned lessons about concentrations of credit,” Hoenig said. That and subsequent events helped shape his view that setting hard rules for banks was better than the so-called principles-based approach, which favors wide-ranging edicts such as treating customers fairly. The U.K.’s financial regulator held itself out as a principles-based regulator until this year.

“There’s nothing in this crisis that I haven’t seen before,” Hoenig said.

Warning about dangers posed by big banks isn’t new for Hoenig. In a 1999 speech, Hoenig said the rise of “mega financial institutions” created a risk of a “less stable and a less efficient financial system” because the government would be reluctant to close troubled companies, creating implicit guarantees for some depositors and creditors.

Hoenig will become the longest-serving Fed policy maker this year when Minneapolis Fed President Gary Stern, who has also made a name studying too-big-to-fail, retires.

“I don’t ever recall him being so vocal on a subject like this,” said Douglas Lee, who runs Economics from Washington, a consulting firm in Potomac, Maryland. “He will certainly be a voice that will be listened to.”

Police investigating death of Freddie Mac official...

Source: Mail.com

David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead at his home Wednesday morning in what police said was an apparent suicide.

Mary Ann Jennings, director of public information for the Fairfax County, Va., Police Department, said Kellermann was found dead in his Reston, Va., home. The 41-year-old Kellermann has been Freddie Mac's chief financial officer since September.

Jennings said that a crime scene crew and homicide detectives were investigating the death, but that there didn't appear to be any sign of foul play.

McLean-based Freddie Mac has been criticized heavily for reckless business practices that some argue contributed to the housing and financial crisis. Freddic Mac is a government-controlled company that owns or guarantees about 13 million home loans. CEO David Moffett resigned last month.

Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults and have received about $60 billion in combined federal aid.

Kellermann was named acting chief financial officer in September 2008, after the resignation of Anthony "Buddy" Piszel, who stepped down after the September 2008 government takeover. The chief financial officer is responsible for the company's financial controls, financial reporting and oversight of the company's budget and financial planning.

Before taking that job, Kellerman served as senior vice president, corporate controller and principal accounting officer. He was with Freddie Mac for more than 16 years.

Administration seeks to free frozen credit markets...

Source: Mail.com

AP - Monday, 23 March, 2009 10:21:38 PM
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

The Obama administration took a fresh shot at ending a national paralysis in lending Monday, teaming up with investors to buy bad bank assets and ease credit for hard-pressed consumers and businesses.

The program, announced by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was not the first such attempt by the new administration to revitalize an economy mired in recession.

Geithner pleaded for patience, saying work to rehabilitate the banking and financial industry has to go forward despite "deep anger and outrage" over bad lending and investment practices.

The newest initiative, he told reporters, will seek to harness government and private resources to purchase an initial half-trillion dollars of bad assets off the balance sheets of banks. And he held out the expectation that the program eventually could grow to $1 trillion

Wall Street seemed to feel rejuvenated, at least at the opening. In late morning, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 221 at 7,500. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 23 at 792, and the Nasdaq composite index is up 42 at 1,500.

But the investor reaction to the administration's initial bank rescue program on Feb. 10 was anything but enthusiastic. Disappointed investors sent the Dow Jones down that day by a whopping 380 points.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration took a fresh shot at ending a national paralysis in lending Monday, teaming up with investors to buy bad bank assets and ease credit for hard-pressed consumers and businesses.

The program, announced by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was not the first such attempt by the new administration to revitalize an economy mired in recession.

Geithner pleaded for patience, saying work to rehabilitate the banking and financial industry has to go forward despite "deep anger and outrage" over bad lending and investment practices.

The newest initiative, he told reporters, will seek to harness government and private resources to purchase an initial half-trillion dollars of bad assets off the balance sheets of banks. And he held out the expectation that the program eventually could grow to $1 trillion in purchases.

Apology...

Hey everyone,

I apologise for not informing earlier that I will be on a trading holiday for this Month of March and April. Been busy and taking time out for R&R with my wife and family. With school holidays and everything, been spending a lot of time with my wife and family for BBQs and family quality time :)

With the time spent with my family, I also manage to have a little bit of time, putting things together for my nature of business to enhance benefits for the community.

Everything for this blog will resume as per normal once the month of April ends and a new month of May begins :) I still wish everyone a safe trading profits for the time to come :)

Peace and trade safely everyone...

Warmest Regards,
Ash Ariffin