February 11th, 2008

A long and interesting and fun weekend rolling into a terribly Sunday night trading wise which again makes me want to sit back and really question how to approach this year. I guess i need to take this on as a personal challenge of how well can i trade.

- Obama continued on with his momentum, sweeping the Maine, Nebraska, Washington, and Virgin Islands caucuses and Louisiana primary
- Clinton fired campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and replaced with Maggie Williams
- Hillary looking out to Latinos in Texas and blue-collar workers in Ohio and Pennsylvania
- Tuesday = Potomac Primary; competing for 15 pledged delegates in D.C., 70 in Maryland and 83 in Virginia
- Chavez has threatened to freeze Venezuelan oil shipments to US; US is biggest customer of VEB importing 1.4mn bpd
- Britian, Netherlands, and Dutch Caribbean Islands courts all ruled in favor of Exxon
- Altria and Honeywell out of the Dow, BofA and Chevron added


- USD weak with RBA commenting for need for rates to rise a good deal more => "dislcoations" with US and abroad
- G7 nations approved plan for sale of gold by IMF beginning in April as broad reform movement for its budget
- IMF holds 103mn ounces or $92bn, only 5yrs ago it was worth $23bn, now $70bn higher
- Reliance Power IPO traded down 12%, brought an end to booming IPO scene
- PHP had smallest budget deficit in a decade in '07 but stocks still down 2% and USD/PHP higher with risk aversion
- Temasek looking to increase its stake in Standard Chartered from well beyond 20% and less than 30%
- BoT talking more about lifting capital controls and implementing interest race cuts in tandem
- the expected pressure on usd/thb from lifting controls would be offset by lower yield in THB
- tax measures would not be used to replicate effects of rate cut
- has labeled the issue a coplex onethat required proper environment to be established first