Asian markets are trading firm on Wednesday with investors going in for some hectic buying, tracking a positive close on Wall Street overnight and higher commodity prices. Hopes of a global economic recovery on the back of the European Union’s move to help Greece get out of its debts and some encouraging reports from across the globe are also bolstering sentiment to a significant extent.

Financials, resources and industrials stocks are among the notable gainers in the Australian market. Stocks from various other sectors are also trading firm. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index is up 96.2 points or 2.1% at 4,664. The broader All Ordinaries index is currently trading at 4,683, up 92.4 points or 2% over its previous close.

On Tuesday, the S&P/ASX 200 index had ended up 22.3 points or 0.49% at 4,568, while the All Ordinaries index moved up 20.4 points or 0.45% to 4,591.

Among bank stocks, ANZ Bank is up 3.5%, National Australia Bank is trading higher by 3.3%, Westpac Banking Corporation is gaining about 2% and Commonwealth Bank of Australia is up with a gain of 2.5%. Macquarie Group is trading higher by 1.4%.

In the materials space, BHP Billiton is up 1.8%, Rio Tinto is gaining about 2.8% and Newcrest Mining is trading higher by 3.75%. Bluescope Steel, Orica, Incitec Pivot, Fortescue Metals and Lihir Gold are also trading notably higher.

Among energy stocks, Woodside Petroleum is up 1.6%, Santos is gaining 1.65%, Oil Search is up 2.2% and Origin Energy is trading stronger by about 2.5%.

Shares of Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory Co Holdings Ltd are up nearly 8% after the group received an improved takeover offer from Murray Goulburn Co-Operative Co Ltd. On Tuesday, WBC had reported a significant rise in first-half profit and said its outlook is positive.

Coffey International is down nearly 8% due to weak results. The global engineering and project management provider’s net profit fell 20% to A$10.85 million in the six months to December 31, from A$13.51 million in the prior corresponding half. Operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization fell 14% to A$31.1 million. The company has blamed a strong Australian dollar exchange rate and the global financial crisis for the fall in its first-half profit.

On the economic front, an index measuring skilled job vacancies in Australia added 1.6% to 44.4 in February compared to the previous month, the Department of Employment and Workforce Relations said. That follows a 1.1% monthly increase in January.

Among the individual components, marketing and advertising positions jumped 9.9% on month, while metal trades and construction jobs also were sharply higher. The availability of health profession and accounting positions saw significant declines. By region, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania saw an increase in skilled vacancies, while Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory all saw declines.

A forward-looking index measuring the Australian economy added 1.3 points or 0.5% in December compared to the previous month, the Westpac/Melbourne Institute index revealed, coming in at 245.8. That follows the 1% monthly increase in November. On an annualized basis, the index jumped 6.2% after jumping 5.4% on year in the previous month. The survey also showed that the coincident index climbed 1 point or 0.4%.

In the currency market, the Australian dollar opened notably higher thanks to the positive close on Wall Street overnight. The Aussie was quoting at US$0.9008-US$0.9011 in early trades, up 0.85% from Tuesday’s close of US$0.8932-US$0.8937. The Australian dollar is currently trading at 0.9007 to the U.S. dollar.

The Japanese stock market is trading firm on Wednesday with investors picking up stocks cutting across various sectors.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index, which rose to 10,258, was up 210.37 points or 2.1% at 10,245 at the end of the morning session.

The mood is so positive that just three stocks out of the 225-stock strong Nikkei 225 index are currently down in the red.

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After getting off to a good start, the local equity markets continued to add weight in the mid-morning session tracking strong global cues. The BSE Sensex and the S&P CNX Nifty touched fresh highs and were trading near those levels. The bears were bleeding in trade as the bulls were dominating the entire sectoral space of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Metal stocks were the major gainers in trade led by Tata Steel, Hindalco Inds and Sterlite Inds up anywhere between 4.35% and 3.23%. Tata Steel has posted its first consolidated profit in four quarters for the three months ended on December 31, 2009. Stocks from consumer durables, realty and capital goods space were also doing well at this point of time. All the 30 components of the BSE’s sensitive index were trading in the green. Second line stocks were also witnessing value picking from investors. The market breadth on the BSE remained strong; the gainers thrashed the losers in a ratio of 1729:557 while 61 shares were unchanged.

The 30-share BSE Sensex zoomed 227.61 points or 1.40% to 16,454.29. The index touched a high and a low of 16,457.11 and 16,228.91, respectively.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices gained 1.31% and 1.20%, respectively.
In the BSE sectoral space the main gainers were, Metal up 2.92%, Consumer Durables (CD) up 1.90%, Realty up 1.76%, Capital Goods (CG) up 1.57% and Bankex up 1.51%.

There were no losers in the BSE sectoral space.
Meanwhile, the chairman of Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) C Rangarajan, on Tuesday, said that India should move towards the path of fiscal consolidation as the economic growth was resuming.

Rangarajan said that the process of fiscal consolidation must begin now as the economy was picking up again while the fiscal deficit, at the level it currently is, will be unsustainable in the long run. Hit first by the global commodity rally and then the recession in advanced economies following the events of September 2008, the Indian government was forced to take expansionary fiscal policies which pushed the deficit to a 16 year high of 6.8% in FY10.

Tata Steel up 4.35%, Hindalco Inds up 4.27%, Sterlite Inds up 3.23%, L&T up 2.23% and Tata Power up 2.13% were the major gainers on the Sensex.

There were no losers on the benchmark index.
The Indian government said on Tuesday that all the hurdles in the way of the much-awaited auction of third generation (3G) radio spectrum had been cleared, although there was yet no clarity regarding the possible timing of the event. The auction has been delayed thrice owing to differences between telecom and defence establishments on availability of spectrum.

But union communications minister said that the Ministry was yet to receive directions from the Law Ministry as well as the Finance Ministry. ‘There is no clarity yet. I am waiting for directions from the Finance Ministry and the Law Ministry and have not got any from them,’ said A Raja.

The S&P CNX Nifty soared 1.44% to 4925.45 from its previous close of 4855.75. The index touched a high and a low of 4926 and 4857.60, respectively.

Tata Steel up 4.43%, Hindalco Inds up 4.33%, Sterlite Inds up 3.38%, Tata Power up 2.62% and L&T up 2.33% were the top gainers on the Nifty.

While Idea down 0.09% and Hero Honda down 0.08% were the only losers on the broadly followed index.

Among Asian markets, Hang Seng advanced 1.77%, Jakarta Composite rose 0.67%, KLSE Composite added 0.84%, Nikkei 225 surged 2.57%, Straits Times gained 1.10% and Seoul Composite soared 1.66% and.

The local markets pared their early gains and entered into the negative terrain during the last hour of trade. Most of the Asian equity markets were trading in the green. Meanwhile, the Indian rupee registered a 16-month high against the dollar, riding on the disappointing US jobs data. The broadly followed 30-share Sensex was hovering around the previous close of 17,540. Realty, PSU, Metal, Auto and TECk sectors were the major gainers in the index. The market breadth on the BSE was positive in the ratio of 2172:752 while 52 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex was up 10.20 points or 0.06% at 17,550.49, with the intraday high and low of 17,776.57 and 17,529.89 respectively.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up by 0.91% and 1.79% respectively.

Among the sectoral indices, Realty up 2.62%, PSU up 0.87%, Metal up 0.87%, Auto up 0.83% and TECk up 0.78% were the major gainers.

On the other hand, Oil & Gas down 0.78% was the only loser on the BSE sectoral space.

The major gainers on the Sensex were DLF up 2.64%, Jaiprakash Associates up 2.17%, Hero Honda up 1.76%, Maruti Suzuki up 1.76% and Grasim Industries up 1.47%.

RIL down 1.20%, BHEL down 1.19%, Hindalco Industries down 1.04%, Wipro down 0.89% and ICICI Bank down 0.36% were the top losers on the benchmark index.

The government has ruled out any plans to merge BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam) and MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam). Speculation were rife on this matter on the backdrop of the two PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) registering persistent losses. However, the Centre is mulling to sell part of its stake in BSNL and is likely to proceed further in this regard very soon.

In a move aimed at pushing the consolidation in the Indian banking industry, the finance ministry is likely to appoint private consultancy firms to help guide the large public sector banks on their way to acquire the smaller ones. The finance ministry earlier had an informal meeting with five of the biggest banks to discuss the agenda of consolidation where bankers were urged to explore various avenues for consolidation and come up with a roadmap whenever they felt comfortable. While the bigger banks have been working in this direction, the progress has been slow.

The 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was up by 9.85 points or 0.19% to 5254.60 from the previous close of 5244.75 with an intra day high and low of 5287.20 and 5227.80, respectively.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Unitech up 4.21%, ABB up 3.36%, PNB up 3.10%, Axis Bank up 3.06% and DLF up 2.78%.

On the other hand, the top losers were Cairn down 1.75%, BHEL down 1.34%, RIL 1.31%, Hindalco down 1.01% and Power Grid down 0.86%.

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The markets have finally given up and have pared all their early gains, with both the benchmarks trading in negative terrain. Defensive sectors like Health care and FMCG have now moved up while the banking, PSU and auto sectors are still languishing in red. The market sentiments have turned cautious as the advanced tax reports are mixed with some companies paying less than expected advance tax for the third quarter. Though, the government has conceded that the inflation was surging and has become a cause of concern. But it maintained that the development was somewhat expected and there was no need to take any emergency measures to check inflation, indicating that it would not pressure the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to take any immediate steps, but still the banking stocks were trading lower since morning.

The BSE Sensex was trading at 17,044.25, down by 53.30 points or 0.31% after touching a high and low of 17,200.47 and 17,044.25 respectively. There were 13 advances against 17 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has turned in the favour of declines with 40.40% stocks advancing against 56.32% declines. Though the broader indices too have pared gain but are still performing better than the benchmarks. The BSE mid cap index was down by 0.13% while the BSE Small cap index was marginally by 0.07%.

The top gaining sectors of the BSE were HC up by 0.95%, FMCG up by 0.71%, Metal up by 0.39% and IT up by 0.26%.

The top loosing sectoral indices were Bankex down by 1.39%, PSU down by 0.82%, Auto 0.71%, Power down by 0.39% and CD down by 0.31%.

The top gainers of the Sensex were M&M up by 1.88%, Hindalco up by 1.86%, Tata Steel up by 1.71%, ITC up by 1.65% and HUL was up by 1.01%.

The top losers of the index were RCom down by 2.04%, SBI down by 1.57%, HDFC Bank down by 1.26%, Tata Power down by 1.24% and Maruti Suzuki was down by 1.23%.

The government said on Monday that the total sovereign expenditure in the current fiscal year will not exceed the budgeted level. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in the Parliament that total spending will remain at Rs 10.2 lakh crore as was given in the union budget for FY10 presented in July.

Mr Mukherjee also added that the fiscal deficit in current financial year would not exceed the budgeted target. The finance ministry had targeted fiscal deficit at 6.8% of the estimated gross domestic product in FY10. However, the government has recently sought the nod for spending nearly Rs 30,000 crore. This has raised the concerns that total expenditure over the fiscal would exceed that mentioned in the budget and thus would lead to rise in deficit.

The finance minister was answering a query in the Parliament on government’s plan of spending extra money without increasing its planned borrowing. Mukherjee had said earlier that the excess expenditure would be balanced either by savings from some other heads of expenditure or by increasing the revenue by corresponding amount. Indian government is running a record high deficit in the current fiscal, highest in 16 year. While the budgeted level of gap between revenue and expenditure of the union government is 6.8%, the actual figure after accommodating states deficit at 4% and off-budget items like fuel and food subsidies, total deficit would touch close to 11.5%.

The S&P CNX Nifty was trading at 5087.00, down by 18.70 points or 0.37% from its previous closing of 5105.70 and has touched a high and low of 5129.45 and 5086.15 respectively. There were 20 advances against 29 declines while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Cipla up by 2.05%, Hindalco up by 1.39%, Tata Steel up by 1.14%, M&M was up by 1.07% and Siemens was up by 1.05%.

The top losers of the index were IDFC down by 3.22%, RCom down by 2.68%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.14%, SBI down by 1.82% and Idea was down by 1.80%.

The Asian markets are trading in red with some of the indices gaining strength with some plunging further in red. Shanghai Composite was trading at 3,275.98, down by 26.92 points or 0.82%, Hang Seng was trading at 21,860.34, down by 225.41 points or 1.02%, Jakarta Composite was trading at 2,484.99, down by 21.39 points or 0.91% and Nikkei 225 was trading at 10,083.48, down by 22.20 points or 0.22%.

On the other hand Straits Times was trading at 2,802.68, up by 3.14 points or 0.11% and the Seoul Composite was trading at 1,665.85, marginally up by 1.08 points or 0.06%.

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Crude oil trades around the world. Crude oil is one of the most heavily traded commodities in the world. Every day perhaps billions of dollars worth of crude oil gets traded. New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is considered to be the hub of crude oil trading in the world.

You should be aware of the power of crude oil in the global economy. Crude oil trades around the world. Crude oil is one of the most heavily traded commodities in the world. Every day perhaps billions of dollars worth of crude oil gets traded. You must be thinking that crude oil contracts get traded between the oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Nigeria and so on with non oil countries. Now to your surprise, New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is considered to be the hub of crude oil trading in the world.

At NYMEX, crude oil futures contracts based on Dubai Crude Oil, Brent North Sea Crude Oil, differential between the light sweet crude oil and the four domestic grades of crude oil as well as oil options are traded.

The NYMEX contract for the light sweet crude is the most liquid of all the crude oil contracts. A standard crude oil contract is based on 1,000 barrels of crude oil that will be delivered to Cushing Oklahoma. The E-mini crude oil contract trades on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) GLOBEX platform and is cleared at NYMEX. It is based on 500 barrels of crude oil.

The NYMEX contract for the light sweet crude is the most liquid of all the crude oil contracts. A standard crude oil contract is based on 1,000 barrels of crude oil that will be delivered to Cushing Oklahoma if not settled in cash before the expiry of the contract. The E-mini crude oil contract trades on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) GLOBEX platform and is cleared at NYMEX. It is based on 500 barrels of crude oil. Now as a retail trader, you can trade the E-Mini crude oil contract. If you have been dabbling into futures trading than you must know that futures trading is risky and can easily wipe out the capital in your trading account in a matter of minutes. So what to do? One and easy option is to stay away from the crude oil futures trading. The more difficult option is to first learn futures trading do some paper trading and only then venture into this difficult proposition. Read the whole article, I will give you a very good solution at the end.

Open outcry trading takes place between 10: 00 AM EST to 2:30 PM EST. After hour trading takes place on NYMEX ACCESSS system, an internet based trading platform starting at 3:15 PM EST Monday through Thursday and ending at 9:30 AM EST the following day. Sunday trading starts at 6:00 PM EST.

You can visit the website of NYMEX and read a more about the crude oil trading that takes place at that exchange. Now trading crude oil futures contracts require you to be in tune with the market sentiment. Trends in crude oil market don’t develop suddenly and they don’t reverse suddenly. This is something good for you as a crude oil futures trader.

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8.50%. The amount the Brazilian Government has to pay for initiating a 3-month loan
0.0.0%. The amount the U.S. Government has to pay for the same loan

The credit crisis proved to be a major shock for the financial markets, sending institutional investors into a strong risk-aversion mode. This was reflected directly in the Treasury market, where investors bought the safety of the debt market, while shorting risky assets such equities and commodities.

With investors rallying into the Treasury market, the yield on the government debt fell to record low levels during the credit crisis, mainly during the last quarter of 2008.

Since then, the market has gradually returned to risk-tolerance, which means that investors are looking for higher yielding assets instead of the safety assets. These days, the VIX index is returning to the pre-credit crisis levels, while equity and commodity markets are surging towards yearly highs, suggesting investors confidence is high.

It seems that risk-tolerance does not mean anything at all for the Treasury market, since the debt market has continued to trade within the same tight range over the last half of year. This was best seen in the short maturity bill market, where the market is trading close to the 0.0% benchmark level.

Right now, the U.S. government pays a 0.1% yield for a 3-month loan, while for a 12-month loan pays 0.30%.

In other words, the Government pays $5000 for every $1 million that it borrows with a 3-month maturity, which is probably one of the best deals of the last few centuries. Making the matter even more ironic is that during the prior week the yield on the 3-month bill fell into negative territory in intra-day trading, meaning that the market was willing to pay an interest rate charge to lend money to the U.S. Government.

The last time that short-term yields fell into negative territory was after Lehman’s bankruptcy, in December 2008. All this points to something being wrong at one of the two ends of the interest rate equation. Either, the Treasury market is following the wrong event – most market participants say that the Fed’s pledge to maintain low interest rates low for a long period influenced the debt market or that the equity and commodity markets are deeply overvalued.

Either way the story goes, two points are clear: the economy is recovering, thus pointing to higher yields, while the FOMC rates cannot go any lower from where they are currently standing; yet again pointing to higher yields.

Maybe the dollar will find buyers after all, as the market starts to price in global interest rate increases from most central banks, only to realize that the U.S. yields are already up there with the top end of the market, in real terms.

Trading began on a positive note this week, as indices pushed out to a fresh 13-month highs despite the slide in the November Empire Manufacturing data on Monday. Equity indices were flat mid week as October housing starts declined to their lowest level since April, and building permits came in to the downside and corporate news remained fairly light. On Wednesday the Baltic Dry Index rose to its highest levels since last September, another milestone of the Asian recovery. But things fell apart on Thursday as equity weakness in Asia on concerns of a growing asset bubble carried through into European and US trading, firmly knocking US equities off their highs. Light volume and the weekly jobless claims data were a contributing factor, as the data came in very modestly higher. Bleak earnings from Dell and USD strength kept equities weak into the close on Friday. For the week, the Nasdaq composite led the way down, weighed on by a note from Merrill downgrading the tech sector, including such heavyweights as Intel and Microsoft: the Nasdaq dropped 1.0%, the S&P 500 declined 0.2%, while the DJIA eked out a 0.4% gain,

The week commenced with markets squarely focused on the first official remarks from Fed Chairman Bernanke since the FOMC meeting two weeks ago. The advanced text of his speech to the NY economics club appeared heavy on strong US dollar rhetoric, providing some hope for the weary greenback. This rhetoric was quickly dismissed as it became clear that a continued low inflation outlook coupled with a dismal employment picture will force the Fed to keep rates low for an extended period of time. In the Q&A session, the Chairman acknowledged that the Fed needs to deal with the possibility of developing asset bubbles, but noted he has yet to see any “large misalignments” in US valuations. The weaker-than-expected US Producer Price Index and Industrial Production data only confirmed Bernanke’s comment that significant challenges still face the US economy and prompted many to speculate that the FOMC’s long period of low borrowing costs might get even longer. As PIMCO’s Bill Gross wrote in his monthly outlook this week, the US needs another 12 months of 4-5% nominal GDP growth before the Fed dares exiting the “0% foxhole, mini-bubbles or not.”

Many participants took Bernanke’s comments to mean the door will remain open to the notion of the US Dollar as a funding currency and the accompanying expansion of risk appetite. The Fed’s Yellen only added strength to this argument (and raised some eyebrows) when she said on Wednesday that the US stock market is not overvalued and credit spreads do not reflect a bubble. In addition, the Fed’s Bullard gave markets a history lesson, warning that the FOMC did not begin rate increases until two to three years after the end of each of the past two recessions. The comment was misinterpreted and immediately sparked rumors that Bullard had said the Fed would be “on hold” until 2012, providing bearish dollar momentum and boosting spot gold to yet another all-time high.

Financial names helped push overall equity markets lower this week, especially after another serving of doom and gloom from Meredith Whitney. On Monday she said “I have not been this bearish on financials in a year” and reiterated that banks will need to raise more capital. The press speculated that the administration would extend TARP through 2010 (last week it was reported that TARP has $239B in unspent funding). On the positive side, October credit card master trust data showed that on the whole net charge offs declined sequentially for a second month in a row, offering more evidence that the business is stabilizing. The October advanced retail sales data jumped dramatically, to a 1.5% gain versus a 1.5% decline in September, although many commentators pointed out that the data owes most of its big gain to auto sales. Continuing discussions of a Tobin Tax on financial transactions lurked in the background in both the US and Europe.

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