Singapore News Highlights: 24th Nov 2015

• Singapore shares were up with the STI up 0.04% or 1.05 points to 2,904.54. 

• KLW shares fall 14% after it announced yesterday that it is under investigation by the Commercial Affairs Department for possible offence(s) under the Securities and Futures Act.

• New Silkroutes Group requested to lift its trading halt, after Malta's Ministry of Energy and Health has become a new shareholder of IEG Malta.

• UOB launched its US$8 billion covered bond programme.

• Noble’s battling criticism of its accounting, may have its credit rating cut to junk by S&P's on concerns about the company's liquidity.

• Kepple Corporation has priced the issue of its S$200 million notes due 2023.

• Subsidiary of Midas won 4 contracts worth S$16.1 million to supply aluminium alloy extrusion for metro trains in China, and airport rail trains in Malaysia.

• Yuan fell to its 3-month low as the central bank weakened the currency's reference rate amid a dollar advance and also due to the concern that China will allow a decline to help its economy.

• Risks for S-Reits will rise in 2016, in view of weak economic fundamentals and new supply that will be added into most sectors.

• Singapore inflation eased last month, to -0.8% as compared with -0.6% in September mainly due to the lower costs of oil-related and retail items.

• The creation of the Asean Economic Community has potentially significant consequences for the Singapore economy.

• USD rose yesterday at economic reports expected to show improvements that could support a Federal Reserve interest rate hike next month.

• National Gallery Singapore,was unveiled by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong before it opens to the public from Today.

How does Forex Work?

The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralizedmarket for the trading of currencies. This includes all aspects of buying, selling and exchanging currencies at current or determined prices. In terms of volume of trading, it is by far the largest market in the world.

• Forex trading is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another
  
• These two currencies make up what is known as a "currency pair"
  
• Currencies are always traded in pairs - each currency is represented by three letters
  
• The first two letters represent the country and the third letter identifies the currency
  
• Forex pairs are read in the opposite direction of mathematical proportions or ratios
  

For example:
EUR/USD = 1.23700

• The currency to the left of the slash ("/") is called the base currency (in this example, the Euro) and the currency on the right is called the quote currency (in this example, the U.S Dollar)
  
• This notation means that 1 unit of the base currency (that is, 1 Euro) is equal to 1.23700 U.S Dollars
  
• You have to pay 1.23700 U.S Dollars to buy 1 Euro
  
• If selling, the foreign currency exchange rate specifies how much units of the quote currency you get for selling one unit of the base currency
  
• In the above example, you will receive 1.23700 U.S Dollars when you sell 1 Euro
  

When to Buy?

A trader would open a buy position if they believe that the value of that specific base currency would increase.

When to Sell?

A trader would open a sell position if they believe that the value of that specific base currency would decrease.

When can Currencies be Traded?

The spot FX market is unique among the world financial markets in that it's open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. See the below tables for GMT and EST trading times:

Singapore News Highlights - 19th Nov 2015

• Singapore shares opened higher following the Wall Street's gain on expectations that the Fed would be confident enough about the US economy to raise rates in December.

 

• SIIC Environment Holdings, recorded more than 100.6 million shares, making it the most active counter yesterday.

 

• Cosmosteel posted a 49.3% drop in net profit to S$1 million for the quarter ended Sept 30, 2015.

 

• Sembcorp Marine won a floating storage offloading vessel construction contract from Modec.

 

• Kepple T&T appointed Tan Eng Hwa as CFO & Desmond Gay Kah Meng as CEO.

 

• Air Liquide SA's US$10.3 billion takeover of rival Airgas Inc has given the European company a leading share of the US market in industrial gases amid forecasts of further construction and manufacturing growth.

 

• Oil prices higher as traders weighed a small gain in US inventories and a Federal Reserve report that supported expectations of a December interest rate hike.

 

• USD low against the euro after the minutes of the Federal Reserve's October policy meeting reinforced expectations of an interest rate hike next month.

 

• Due to the recent global developments that aim to clamp down on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting practices of some multinationals, and also increasing emphasis on tax transparency, there is need for Singapore to re-position itself for value creation to fuel its economy's growth.

 

• Fed officials continue to flag December as a likely time for interest rates to rise after 7 yrs near zero & expressing confidence they will be able to pull off a rate hike smoothly despite fears of an abrupt market reaction.

 

• SGX partnered EBS BrokerTec, ICAP's electronic FX and fixed income business, to launch SGX-listed FX block futures on EBS BrokerTec's FX central limit order book- EBS Market, a primary venue for e-traded currencies.

Four Pros of trading in FX market acting oneself as a profitable Forex Signal

1. Liquidity in forex trading is money making forex signal that allows traders to gain profit potential. Due to liquidity in FX market, it’s become easy to enter & exit the position.

2. There is no fix time to begin trading in FX market, trade whenever you want. Forex market allows traders to trade from Sunday 5 pm EST till Friday 4 pm EST.

3. The FX market provides Hedging which is a profitable currency trading signal by fixing the exchange rate at which the transaction concludes in the future. To complete this Hedge, the traders buy or sell currencies through ‘Swap’ instrument (a kind of derivative instrument that allows counterparts to exchange cash flows on the basis of specific time).

4. Hedging is also implementable from future markets depending on the size of trade & the amount of currency involved in it. It’s better to get Forex trading signal when implementing hedging.