Forex Street Weblog

CMC Markets closes its U.S. operations

Hi everyone

Just in case you didn´t know already, CMC Markets has decided to close down its U.S. operations .
This action is intended to be effective on or about September 30, 2008.

Francesc

Dr. Sivaraman's blog the most viewed in August, followed by James Chen and Rob Booker

Hi everyone

Here you have blogs traffic data for the last month

Data for August 2008
View all blogs at http://www.fxstreet.com/live/forex-blogs/blogs/

1. FX Market Readings by Dr. Sankaran Sivaraman
Page Loads 76,349
Unique Visitors 31,314
First Time Visitors 10,755
Returning Visitors 20,556

2. FX Path by James Chen
Page Loads 14,878
Unique Visitors 10,267
First Time Visitors 5,347
Returning Visitors 4,920

3. Postcards from the Right Edge by Dr. Rob Booker
Page Loads 13,936
Unique Visitors 9,737
First Time Visitors 4,477
Returning Visitors 5,260

4. The Advisor Blog by Valeria Bednarik
Page Loads 12,010 
Unique Visitors 7,529
First Time Visitors 4,430
Returning Visitors 3,099

5. VLog FxBootcamp by Wayne McDonell
Page Loads 11,312 
Unique Visitors 8,288
First Time Visitors 4,059
Returning Visitors 4,229

6. CEO Blog by Francesc Riverola
Page Loads 5,387
Unique Visitors 3,780
First Time Visitors 2,837
Returning Visitors 943

7. Trade Setups by Phil Newton
Page Loads 4,387
Unique Visitors 3,393
First Time Visitors 1,898
Returning Visitors 1,495

8. The Disciplined Trader by Pierre Charlebois
Page Loads 4,093
Unique Visitors 3,360
First Time Visitors 2,340
Returning Visitors 1,020

9. 1st On Forex by Jerry Furst
Page Loads 4,267
Unique Visitors 3,544
First Time Visitors 2,539
Returning Visitors 1,005

10. Forexology by Sunil Mangwani
Page Loads 2,663
Unique Visitors 2,103
First Time Visitors 1,326
Returning Visitors 777

11. Trader's Edge by Ross Yamashita
Page Loads 2,153
Unique Visitors 1,749
First Time Visitors 1,160
Returning Visitors 589

12. Random FX Thoughts by Dirk Du Toit
Page Loads 552
Unique Visitors 489
First Time Visitors 310
Returning Visitors 179

FXstreet's August data.... Unique visitors keep growing while page views decrease

Hi everyone,

Below you have Google analytics stats for FXstreet's website in August 2008.

August traffic was a little bit better than same month previous year raising a small 3% in unique visitors, while page views and visits decreased. From previous month, the numbers were a little bit softer.

Both monthly and yearly data was distorted by the fact that August this year had 5 weekends instead of 4.

Well, even though the fact that comparing same dates from one year to another the site grow almost a 7% in unique visitors, the truth is that I´m not satisfied at all with these numbers.

Usually, September, October and November are good months for traffic, so I hope that the combination of this along with new features to be added soon to the site will help us to break this negative trend we have been into since reaching all-time highs in January this year.

The sections with the best performance from previous month were rates&charts and education, while live lead the sections with worst performance due the lack of live sessions in August with a 11% fall, followed by news and technical with a 9% fall.

Major Losers:
Live: -11.43%
News: -8.60%
Technical: -8.55%

Major Gainers:
Rates&Charts +7.46%
Education: +3.91%

August 2008 compared with August 2007
1,229,050 Visits
Previous: 1,234,918 (-0.48%)

338,961 Absolute Unique Visitors
Previous: 329,844 (+2.76%)

3,610,326 Pageviews
Previous: 3,830,308 (-5.74%)

2.94 Average Pageviews
Previous: 3.10 (-5.29%)

00:04:35 Time on Site
Previous: 00:04:25 (+3.75%)

2008 Performance

August 2008
1,229,050 Visits
338,961 Absolute Unique Visitors
3,610,326 Pageviews
2.94 Average Pageviews
00:04:35 Time on Site

July 2008
1,240,108 Visits
342,734 Absolute Unique Visitors
3,682,792 Pageviews
2.97 Average Pageviews
00:04:38 Time on Site

June 2008
1,226,647 Visits
355,189 Absolute Unique Visitors
3,611,568 Page views
2.94 Average Page views
00:04:27 Time on Site

May 2008
1,251,870 Visits
381,910 Absolute Unique Visitors
3,635,515 Pageviews
2.90 Average Pageviews
00:04:25 Time on Site

April 2008
1,307,354 Visits
390,102 Absolute Unique Visitors
3,909,374 Pageviews
2.99 Average Pageviews
00:04:31 Time on Site

March 2008
1,347,180 Visits
432,795 Absolute Unique Visitors
4,108,593 Pageviews
3.05 Average Pageviews
00:04:26 Time on Site

February 2008
1,261,205 Visits
390,714 Absolute Unique Visitors
4,013,485 Pageviews
3.21 Average Pageviews
00:04:37 Time on Site

January 2008 (All-time highs)
1,456,401 Visits
455,489 Absolute Unique Visitors
4,178,521 Pageviews
2.87 Average Pageviews
00:04:01 Time on Site

David Solin's view - Oil, near term critical juncture....

Hi everyone

Before going for the weekend I´m leaving you here a piece of analysis from our friend David Solin, partner at Foreign Exchange Analytics.

David considers that is worth keep a close eye on crude, not only for oil’s potential action, but for the potential action it could trigger for the USD (especially on a near term basis).

Download oil-daily-aug29.pdf

Enjoy your weekend

Francesc

Rob Booker new Chief Currency Strategist at InterbankFX

Hi everyone

I´m very happy to announce that my friend and extraordinary FX educator Mr. Rob Booker has been appointed as the new Chief Currency Strategist at InterbankFX.

The appointment was officially announced yesterday night.

I´m very happy for Rob and I wish him all the best of lucks in this new adventure. I also want to congratulate InterbankFX for this smart move. Getting Rob on board was one of the best things I´ve ever done at FXstreet.com so I´m sure that he will do great things at Interbank's end as well.

Congrats guys!

Francesc

Danske Bank's TTTP most viewed report in August 2008

Hi everyone

As it´s always been since we started publishing Danske Bank's Today's Technical Trading Points, the report was the most viewed piece of research at FXstreet.com during the month of August 2008 with 32,000 page views.

Once more, congratulations to Danske Bank for such a nice piece of good analysis.

Here you have the top10 most viewed reports at FXstreet's Technical and Fundamental Sections:

Technical
1. Today's Technical Trading Points by Danske Bank 32,048
2. Daily Technical Analysis by Mizuho Corporate Bank 10,942
3. Daily Forex Technical Report by ActionForex.com 10,755
4. Daily Forex Forecasts by FXDream 7,441
5. The Daily Forecaster by FX-Forecaster.com 6,944   
6. Daily Recommended Trades by E-Forex 6,116
7. Forex Analysis on Majors by Forex Ltd  5,101
8. Currency Performance Report by FXstreet.com 4,390   
9. Forex Economic Analysis by Deltastock.com  4,042 
10. Daily Market Commentary by GFT  3,962

Fundamental
1. World Interest Rates Table by FXstreet.com14,065
2. Gold Investments Market Update by Gold and Silver Investments Limited 2,491   
3. Forex Levels for Today by To Trader Thinking  2,792
4. Weekly Market View by FXstreet.com  2,289   
5. Daily Market Briefing by FXCM  2,072
6. Lessons from the Pros by Online Trading Academy  1,938   
7. Daily Global Commentary by Northern Trust  1,923 
8. US Market Update by Trade The News  1,548   
9. London Gold Market Report by BullionVault.com 1,513
10. Asia Market Update by Trade The News 1,506 

Castellers (human castles)... A breathtaking experience

Hi everyone

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to visit a small village named El Catllar near Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain). The village was celebrating its yearly festival known here in Catalonia as "Festa Major". The holidays last a few days and you can enjoy night music, kids activities, a village gathering for supper all together and many other activities.... and of course, you can get Castells.

As taken from The Wikipedia "A castell is a human tower traditionally built during festivals in many places in Catalonia. At these festivals, several colles castelleres (teams) meet and try to build the most impressive towers they can.
This tradition originated in Valls, near Tarragona, so El Catllar is in the middle of the land of Castells.

Well... to see how they load and download such human towers is a must as it is absolutely breathtaking.

I took some pictures for you and also you can see a Castell live at YouTube.

Enjoy them

Francesc

Danske Bank - Euroland: Ifo signals further weakness ahead

The dramatic drop in the Ifo in recent months clearly indicates that the German economy is increasingly affected by the slowdown in export markets. We have already seen a clear slowdown in consumption (which contracted for the third consecutive quarter in Q2) and slower export growth. As confirmed by today's detailed national account for the German economy, this is impacting investments. Going forward, we think activity in this area will remain weak. This is bad news for the German economy, and therefore also Euroland as a whole as Germany was more or less the "last man to fall". In the second half of 2008, the German economy is likely to stagnate, and a technical recession is not an unlikely scenario....

We continue to expect the ECB to be sidelined for now, as the current environment does not give room for the ECB to either hike or cut rates. Furthermore, the weakening of the German economy does not come as a surprise. We expect a continuation of this development in the quarters ahead, which should intensify pressure on the ECB for a rate cut.
Full Story

SEC files suit against Royal Forex, owner

Another one :(

SEC files suit against Royal Forex, owner (Dallas News)
The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a Carrollton man and his foreign currency exchange business, alleging he runs a fraudulent investment scheme that has lost investors more than $300,000.
The SEC filed suit Wednesday against Patrick H. Haxton and his company, Royal Forex Management LLC. The suit alleges that Mr. Haxton and his company's Web site tout high returns from the company's "trading robot" program.
Full Story

David Solin's view - EURUSD, time to buy.....

With the market oversold after the last month of sharp declines, these recent bullish signs suggest at least a week or 2 of correcting higher and minimum 400 tick bounce may be ahead (and potentially more).
Download eur-daily-aug25.pdf