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The next few weeks will be interesting for international investors. Right now, Greece is the main focal point of concern as Europe reacts to the ongoing debt crisis, but the immediate focus will soon be shifting to Janet Yellen and the U.S. Federal Reserve. Ongoing developments in the U.S. and world economy are getting independent experts to think that the Fed might be rethinking some of its earlier plans about raising interest rates.

The Global Chief Investment Strategist at Citi Private Bank had an interesting, and very realistic, perspective on Greece and the impact that it will have on the world economy. His basic words were that Greece is a small market, and doesn’t have a huge impact on the European economy, let alone that of the entire world. While U.S. markets are responding to the issue now, it’s not likely to stay that way for long. (more…)

The United States isn’t the only country that releases a monthly jobs report. Most major nations do this, and they can help you to get a jumpstart in your Forex trading. They are solid, hard pieces of data that have a real impact. Just as the U.S. government’s release of jobs data affects the stock markets, when a country releases job and unemployment data, the world reacts to this information. Sometimes the data is exactly what’s expected, sometimes it’s a surprise. For Forex traders, this means a chance to make even more money by having superior information.

Let’s look at the Australian dollar as an example. Job data for May is a good indicator of the health of the nation. It was expected that the data would stay flat with an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent sitting consistently from the month before. The most current data was much better than expected at 6.0 percent, although there is some debate over whether or not this is actually accurate. (more…)

Everyone puts money into the markets for the same reason: to grow that money. After that, individualized goals can vary a little bit. Some people want to have their extra money keep up with inflation. Some people just want to outperform a savings account. Others want to beat market growth and have as much money as possible. Odds are, you probably fall into this latter category. That’s where trading comes into play. Trading involves short term trades that aim at beating the market by taking advantage of small chunks of time where prices are moving faster than normal. It’s an admirable goal to try and beat the market, and it is possible. But, it’s also very difficult to get your timing just right in order to do so.

A lot of people think that mutual funds are the way to go. They are managed funds; meaning, someone else does the work for you. You just need to look at what their past returns are and go with the best one, right? Nope. (more…)

The Facebook stock has been in the news a lot, lately, and not always for good reasons. Its price has been especially difficult to predict recently, even when it seems to be going in a very clear direction. It’s dropped over $5 in the past week, but before that, it spent the last six months making steady gains, a bit over $20 worth of profits. A lot of this is because of the fact that Facebook has said that its operational costs may increase by as much as 70 percent next year, and that spells trouble for the investors that are currently positioned long within the company.

As a matter of fact, the entire sector seems to be having some major difficulties. Even the giant company Google is struggling, and they are one of the largest of the social media companies, better positioned than almost any other social media stock out there. If Google is down almost $40 off of its high for the year, then there are big signs of trouble ahead for the entire sector. (more…)