Alex

I currently have The Strategic Bond Investor (by Tony Crescenzi of Miller Tabak) on order and will post a review once I have read it.

This one is for all those analysts who consistently get it wrong, but will be right one day. "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field." Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962) One for those who pick a stock because they like the name of the company and refuse to sell it no matter how badly it performs. "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into." Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) For all those frustrated traders who sold short a stock for all the right reasons, but it just keeps on defying gravity. "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)

For futures contracts it's: Euro, Yen, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Mexican Peso. CME FX Records

Suffice to say, hen's don't have teeth.

Why trade spot when you can trade futures? I can think of many advantages of trading in the futures market, but can think of none when trading spot. The only disadvantage is that the futures market is closed for one hour each day (the liquidity in the spot market is poor then anyway). Honest forex brokers are rarer than hen's teeth and with so many discount futures brokers to choose from these days, why put yourself through the pain. They're all bucket shops and anyone who says otherwise is just plain wrong! There is no obligation for them to carry out your trades and more likely than not, they'll just get tossed into the metaphorical bucket along with all the other mug punters' tickets.

Regarding bond markets in general: Are there any seasonal factors at work? As we draw to the close of Q2 earnings season, will bond markets take on a more bid tone as investors withdraw from stocks and park their money somewhere less risky over the summer period.

Does anyone here trade the 3-Month Sterling (Short Sterling) Futures contract on LIFFE? I'm interested to know who the big players are and why they trade it. The standard contract size is £500,000 and the price is based on what the LIBOR rate is predicted to be on the day of settlement. Just like bonds, the price moves inversely to the yield which is 100-x. The minimum tick size is 0.01 which corresponds to a £12.50 change in price. For example, if you were betting the Bank of England was going to surprise the market by raising the base rate, you would take a short postion. You sell at a price of 95.00 (LIBOR 5%) and a few weeks later the BOE raises rates by 25 basis points. The LIBOR rate moves to 5.25% and you buy the contract back making a profit of £312.50. (95.00-94.75)/100*£500,000*3/12 = £312.50