Shard, I've wasted so much time on doing taxes as well.. and at one point I was almost going to get an accountant.. but I just like to do things myself for some reason. Oh.. and if I had a variety of investments like you have.. I would probably use an accountant too. I just love the DIY approach .. the tougher, the better. It's also a good learning process, and in the end I couldn't beleive how simple it was, and how much accountants make for something that you can do in a couple of hours (or minutes, if you are very organized from the start)
Yeah, I totally know where you're coming from. I'm that way too, and as I said, did my own taxes up until only a couple years ago. I ended up missing things, misunderstanding things (and subsequently refiling) and (now that I've seen what my accountant did) outright missed some deductions I could have made. But yes, I'm the type who prefers DIY as well - after all, we do all our investing on our own, right?
😉 🙂
Coming to the PPI, yes, if it's a higher number.. that means inflation is still a threat.. but I think you got that part wrong where you mentioned 'interest rates will be cut to curb inflation' No, its the opposite. If inflation goes higher, interest rates have to be raised to slow down inflation. So, if the PPI (or CPI) numbers are more.. that means the markets will expect the Feds to raise interest rates. This is also why the $ went down on Friday.. as the CPI came out at 0% (expected at 0.2%) So everyone thought 'Oh great, Bernanke is not going to hike rates.. or he will cut rates)
Ooops, you're right, I'm not sure why I typed that.
😉 Yes, obviously if inflation goes higher interest rates have to be raised to slow it down. Thanks for the correction.
😱
Basically.. 2 types of reports
1. Inflation measuring reports (CPI, PPI, etc) More inflation = greater chance of rate hike = upward move in currency (whatever it may be - GBP or USD etc)
2. Economic growth reports (GDP, etc) - Better number, obviously higher the currency will go .. because a strong economy is good news.
... And thanks for the summary.
🙂
Edit :- Forgot to answer your previous question - I find that the tradethenews audio feed is a second or two earlier than the text report.. so yes, it makes a huge difference when trading. Now, bloomberg is 2-3 seconds faster than the tradethenews audio feed.. so you can imagine the advantage you have while trading with a bloomberg platform next to you. Then again, you're paying for it.
Yeah, exactly - you get what you pay for! I'll definitely give the tradethenews platform a try in the New Year - I'll just pick a busy week in terms of economic data (and potential trades) to make the most of the 1-week free trial.
😉 😀
In a way, it doesn't seem like tradethenews and Bloomberg would/should be
that much faster (a couple seconds is an eternity in this game!) because even with Oanda's new service, the news comes out almost at the same time as the spike - a little bit after in most cases. With tradethenews can you actually get in "comfortably" before the spike (and by comfortably I mean .5 seconds or so)? You say it's 2-3 seconds faster? And with Bloomberg you would then, in theory, be able to get in well before the spike (a whole second or two)??? However with all the institutions using Bloomberg you'd expect
they would be the ones causing the spike in the first place!
😉 I guess all I'm saying is that I'm a bit surprised these platforms would give you a really noticeable advantage, but I guess they must... I'll just have to see for myself.
😎
