Justrade gets a mention in miningmx.com article by Marc Ashton
Here is the link:http://www.miningmx.com/news/gold_and_silver/Gold-price-fever-to-continue.htm

Here is the mention: "Rory Mackay of binary options trading firm Justrade.com said that interest in his firm's daily gold contracts had been growing since it started listing the instrument two months ago.

Using binary options, traders can take a daily or weekly view on the gold price at various levels with active trade above the $1,055 and $1,065 levels for Friday close.

"Big picture wise, India is saying it would rather have gold reserves than dollar reserves," said Mackay adding that it meant that this was a slightly different approach to China which had tied much of its wealth to the US dollar.

Asked whether Justrade would be adding contracts with higher strike prices during the week Mackay said: "We'll list keep on listing as the price moves." "

This is Data week for South Africa due out this week:
Medium Term Budget Statement Tuesday at 14h00
CPI for September on Wednesday at 11h30
PPI for September on Thursday at 9h30
M3 for September on Thursday
As well as PSCE for September and finally on Friday we have Trade Balance for September.

Should be an interesting week take care out there.

Here is a chart that is really a bit scary.
Read Andy Kessler's article here: http://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/2009/09/dow-jones-vs-the-monetar...

He figures that the market gives out before the printing press does...

Marc Ashton has started a venture called Rival Pioneers see here http://rivalpioneers.bundublog.com/
What is it about?
"Rival Pioneers is a South African entrepreneurship initiative aimed at developing young business people in South Africa and incubating small businesses through their start-up phase."

Go take a look and see what you can do there.

We are privileged to host Charles Snyman from Efficient Group's thoughts.

The Money Quote: " Over and above the 780Trillion US$ stimulation package currently applied by the American government they have record twin deficits. The above four facts are the driving force behind the rising call for the creation of a new world currency as an alternative to the dollar. The governor of the bank of China proposed that the International Monetary Fund take over the role of global financial leadership, a role traditionally ceded to the US."

Read it all...

Gold's PM fix yesterday just a little over 1000 USD. This commodity is attracting interest, especially on our daily contracts. We have seen volumes climb and are getting better liquidity and depth.
currently we are seeing tight spreads 5 points or so and between 5 and 3 contracts a side.
Go and check it out worth a trade.

An article in the UK Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6147211/Barack-Obama-accuse...

The Money Quote: "It is also not impossible that the US will experience the kind of economic collapse from first to Third World status experienced by Argentina under the national-socialist governance of Juan Peron."

Ouch.....

This is a great post on basic economics: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2009/08/economic-facts-of-life.html

The Money Quote: "There is no political freedom without economic freedom and property rights."

Enjoy

Fed official says that real US unemployment rate is at 16% :
"If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking -- so-called discouraged workers -- and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart."

Read it all here: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.4452bed82adf3124e5884678e236...

Here we have a preview of a new research house, that will focus on online research for the retail South African investor.
Here is a sample of what they will be offering (See the attached PDF)
As usual here is the Money Quote: "After a delayed birth in 2000 and and a dull and prolonged infancy in this country,ETF's have certainly hit adolescence recently"

There are now 26 ETF's in South Africa with more in the pipeline.

A shocking statistic quoted to me in conversation with the guys from GT24/7 0.5% of South Africans trade or manage their own portfolios. Get with the program guys the fees are killing you...

Read the whole thing.

The probability of a double dip recession is increasing. Article in the FT.
See the entire article here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/90227fdc-900d-11de-bc59-00144feabdc0.html?ncli...

The Money Quote: "In summary, the recovery is likely to be anaemic and below trend in advanced economies and there is a big risk of a double-dip recession."

Here is a new market predictor from Jim Cramer, take a look...

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/21/video-is-obamas-loss-wall-streets-...

I have posted on Wolfram Alpha before, however I received an update on what they have been doing all summer. They have made great strides, for instance try this link http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=option

Pretty cool.

Sadly they don't have binary or digital options listed (I have sent them an email asking for this feature so lets see)

Check out the stuff available for Finance and Money:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/MoneyAndFinance.html

Warren Buffet has a New York Times op ed today worth a look:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19buffett.html?pagewanted=1&_r...

The Money Quote: "Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt. The dollar’s destiny lies with Congress."

Now here is the rub does congress actually have a clue?

A key features of markets is that they allocate resources more efficiently than any other device yet found. (certainly more efficiently than government.)
BUT what do markets need to be able to do that function?
They need liquidity and depth.
Liquidity is the ability to trade in the market with reasonable volume without affecting price excessively.
Depth is the ability to trade volume within a price range.

What has all this got to do with Justrade?
We are slowly getting better at both!

We are experimenting with daily Gold contracts, volumes are picking up and spreads are closing.

As I type this (disclaimer, this may change!) there are prices on the Daily gold contracts with a 5 point spread in 2 contracts both ways.

Take a look!

I can not resist giving links to Andy Kessler's posts, this one is a brilliant look at telecoms, data and innovation.
The money quite: "So now the FCC and its new Chairman Julius Genachowski are getting involved. Usually this means a set of convoluted rules to make up for past errors in allocating scarce resources that—in the name of "fairness"—end up creating a new mess."

Read the whole thing here : http://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/2009/08/wsj-why-att-killed-googl...

On AM live with Chris Gibbons this morning.
The song remains the same, I still see no V shaped recovery.
US indicators are not positive see previous post : http://blog.justrade.com/rory-mackay/2009/08/rsa-mpc-down-50-bp
Baltic dry index is at last years lows
As an aside the largest pension funds in the world are cutting back on their equity allocation. Bloomberg article here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=amowlMWZN_dc

The podcast will be up a little later.

Data releases for the forthcoming week:
GDP
Buildings completed
Building plans passed
All in all interesting indicators. Efficient group ( http://www.efgroup.co.za/) has the following expectations:

GDP -3.5%
Buildings completed 2.2%
Building plans passed 6.6%

Insofar as GDP is concerned they see most sectors under pressure and that will reflect in negative growth.

As you know the MPC committee decided to drop the repo rate by 50bp yesterday. What does this portend?
Of the many criticisms of the Governor and by extension the committee was that South Africa was missing out on the Global "recovery".

I am not sure looking at the latest crop of US data that the "recovery" is anything but a resurgence in the DOW Jones a quick fisking by Reason Magazine online shows:
1. US unemployment claims are rising again.
2. US retail sales have declined.
3. Foreclosures are way up.
Here is the article: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/135420.html
This coupled with the Baltic dry index back at recent lows does not give me confidence in the "recovery"

For the local economy the move is positive but not in any way a magic bullet, if the experience of the rest of the world is anything to go by.

The Baltic dry index is down 17% the most since October
See here: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/08/baltic-dry-index-down-17-for-week...

But what is the Baltic dry index anyway? Basically a shipping index which tacks trade activity by measuring the amount of goods being shipped around the world at any one time. As such it is often seen by economists and traders as an indicator of economic activity.

So it's low what does this mean? Not a lot of trade appears to be taking place, and possibily the recovery is not complete.