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Sunday, May 26, 2013

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Image marketing is a natural fit for visually rich businesses like photography, design and fashion. However, every business can take advantage of the visual trend with a little creativity. Turn company or industry data into rich charts, graphs or info-graphics. Share reports, studies or even books you’ve read to tell your own story in images.

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Tips of the Day!…Web Design Solutions Unlimited.

Global Networking…Take the time to understand your Clients.

Global Networking…Take the time to understand your Clients.

If one is to join the Global network of many customers that are there for you. Then one must learn the native ways of their customers to be effective in those Markets…jp – CEO/Owner of Web Design Solutions Unlimited…jp – CEO Web Design Solutions Unlimited

US AID discovers corruption in the procurement of Iraqi ministries.

BAGHDAD / Press-term

08/05/2013 (23:01 pm)

Confirmed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID) provided nearly nine billion dollars in support of Iraq since 2003, and will continue for a few more years, despite shrinking budgets, and showed that more corruption in Iraqi ministries is through the procurement system used.

The director of the agency Thomas tulle in a meeting with a number of media, including the long-Presse: The size of the subsidies granted to Iraq since 2003 to now nearly nine billion dollars, including 200 million for 2013, the current, indicating that this support is reduced compared to previous years but our work continues for a few years to come. He added tulle: to support the Agency focuses on the areas of infrastructure, education, health, agriculture, financial sector reform democratic governance and support of the elections, pointing out that the organizations that supported the agency provided aid to the 1715 case of the most vulnerable groups in society, especially women, as well as the submission billion dollars in small loans to about 400 thousand people helped to secure 400 thousand jobs.

The director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the agency has in collaboration with UNICEF vaccinate 98 percent of the children of Iraq, noting that the agency has provided support to the agricultural sector local and that sector fish farming has doubled its production of five thousand tons to 80 thousand tons to reach sales of fish farmers to 142 million dollars now. Toole confirmed the presence of auditors and Iraqi oversight committees to monitor the functioning of the organizations that support by the agency, and continued: in the event of detecting corruption process calls for the organization returns the funds given to the organization concerned or refer the matter to the local authorities or the Iraqi judiciary.

Saw director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, that the most important problem of corruption in Iraqi ministries concerning the procurement system followed them, revealing that there is coordination with the Office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and the Advisory Board at the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, to address the issue of the procurement system in the Iraqi ministries. He tulle: that the Agency carried out a training cadres of 13 Iraqi Ministry of encouraging them to apply new purchases on the systems according to international standards. And the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the United States federal government, which is primarily responsible for the management of external assistance to civilians.

The foundations of former President John F. Kennedy, the agency in 1961 administrative order to implement development assistance programs under the Foreign Assistance Act, and the work of Congress to update the mandate through a number of annual financial dependence laws and other legislation. In spite of the fact that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one of the agencies of the U.S. government technically independent, but they are subject to foreign policy directives of the President of the United States of America and the United States Secretary of State and the National Security Council.

The director of the agency operates within the foreign policy directives and powers of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is seeking the U.S. Agency for International Development to help people to improve their living conditions and recover from disasters, or those people who are struggling to live in a free and democratic nations. Agency’s objectives include the provision of economic assistance and humanitarian and development around the world to support the implementation of the foreign policies of the United States. The agency works in Africa, Asia and the Near East, Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe.

Sources: BAGHDAD / Press-term and Currency Newshound

http://almadapaper.net/ar/news

Blue’s Comments: This has been the 2nd Biggest Issue next  to the Counterfeiting with the USD & the IQD from Iran in Iraq over the last 10 years..Until they can contain these corruption’s in the procurement of the Iraqi ministries to Iraq’s Sectors of lining their and family pockets with not only foreign Aid from the United States and other United Nations Country’s that contribute to Iraq’s Foreign Aid they will never become a full and respected Nation with the Global Foreign  Banking  Investments and Trade Industry…They are starving their People and denying their Citizens the rights they deserve..Blue/Jp

US AID discovers corruption in the procurement of Iraqi ministries.

Why Iraq PM Maliki Must Go New York Times.

Johnny Selman

 

By NUSSAIBAH YOUNIS

Published: May 2, 2013

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

Related

• Memo From Baghdad: Clashes in Iraq Carry Worries of a New Civil War (April 29, 2013)

• Iraqi Prime Minister Faces More Calls for Resignation (January 5, 2013)

NOBODY wants another civil war in Iraq, yet events are propelling it in that direction. War can be averted only by a new political understanding among three main groups — Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds — but Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has become too divisive to deliver it.

So the United States, together with Iraq’s neighbors, must press Mr. Maliki to resign so he can be replaced with a more conciliatory figure.

Last week, Iraq experienced the most serious escalation of violence since 2006, when it slid into civil war. Now it risks being sucked into a catastrophic vortex of regional violence centered on Syria.

America, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and the Persian Gulf states have a rare, deeply shared interest in preventing another civil war that would benefit only militant extremists.

Iraq’s first civil war developed after decades of authoritarianism, warfare and devastating sanctions destroyed Iraqi society, and after the 2003 American invasion dismantled the Iraqi state without a plan for swift reconstruction. The power vacuum let sectarian tensions, latent in the long-brutalized population, explode. But by 2007 and 2008, Iraq was putting itself back together; the United States helped Sunnis battle extremists in their midst and supported Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, as he suppressed radical Shiite militias. Only by putting their trust in the political process, and turning against the extremists in their own communities, did Iraqis stem the violence.

But if Mr. Maliki, who took office in 2006, had a successful first term, he has squandered the opportunity to heal the nation in his second term, which began in 2010. He has taken a hard sectarian line on security and political challenges. He has resisted integrating Sunnis into the army. He has accused senior Sunni politicians of being terrorists, hounded them from power and lost the cooperation of the Sunni community. The result: the political bargain that had sustained the fragile Iraqi state broke down.

Today, resurgent terrorist groups have killed hundreds of moderate Sunnis who once fought them, and are offering others a grim chance to save their lives — by “repenting” and joining the extremists.

Meanwhile, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, remains in exile, having fled and then been given a death sentence in absentia on charges of terrorism. Similar moves to charge Finance Minister Rafe al-Essawi, a moderate Sunni, led to the protests that have now engulfed Iraq’s Sunni heartland and alienated other communities. An army attack on a protest encampment last week brought only wider violence.

Relations between Mr. Maliki and Iraqi Kurds, who are largely self-governing, also rest on a knife’s edge after a year in which territorial disputes almost led to military confrontation. Even as the Kurds deployed security forces to the disputed region of Kirkuk, they negotiated for concessions from the Maliki government. This week, Kurdish sources reported the signing of a new deal, but after all the broken promises there is little reason to think it will last.

Given the two-year-old Syrian civil war escalating next door, a sectarian crisis and political collapse in Iraq would be a disaster at the worst possible time. It would blur the boundaries between the two conflicts, bring additional misery to Iraq and pose enormous challenges for Iraq’s neighbors and the United States.

That specter is so frightening, it just might be possible to stave off — if Iraq’s neighbors and the United States can recognize, and decisively act on, their shared interest in maintaining Iraq’s stability and territorial integrity. Iran and the United States, despite their deep divisions over the Syrian government and the Iranian nuclear program, can cooperate quietly, as they did in 2001 against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey could lend their strong voices; they, too, want good relations with a stable, prosperous Iraq, and have their hands full aiding Sunni rebels in Syria.

It is true that Iran supported militants in Iraq to frustrate the American occupation, but the withdrawal of American troops has changed such calculations. Now, in Iraq, Iran has a market for its goods and a friend to relieve its isolation. For its part, the United States is less concerned about Iran’s current role in Iraq than about the possible empowerment of extremist militants during a civil war.

If all of these countries could persuade Mr. Maliki to resign, it would give moderate Sunnis a symbolic victory and dampen extremist influence in their community. That, in turn, could show all Iraqis that change can be achieved through politics, rather than war.

Iraq’s parliamentary democracy could survive a resignation. It is normal for a prime minister to step down and be replaced by another figure elected by Parliament. There are other capable Shiite politicians who could recruit and lead a national-unity government.

A decade after Saddam Hussein’s fall, violence threatens to overwhelm Iraq. Getting Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to cooperate with the United States on a new political bargain there, with Mr. Maliki out of the picture, won’t be easy, but it’s essential to save Iraq.

Sources: Bluewaters2u Research Desk, and  author Nussaibah Younis

Nussaibah Younis is a research fellow in the international security program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

 

Why Iraq PM Maliki Must Go New York Times.

Google, Networks and Computers.. Dizzying but invisible depth.

Dizzying but invisible depth

By Jean-Baptiste Quéru

You just went to the Google home page.

Simple, isn’t it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit of about how browsers work, it’s not quite that simple. You’ve just put into play HTTP, HTML, CSS, ECMAscript, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they’ll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let’s simplify.

You just connected your computer to www.google.com.

Simple, isn’t it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit about how networks work, it’s not quite that simple. You’ve just put into play DNS, TCP, UDP, IP, Wifi, Ethernet, DOCSIS, OC, SONET, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they’ll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let’s simplify.

You just typed www.google.com in the location bar of your browser.

Simple, isn’t it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit about how operating systems work, it’s not quite that simple. You’ve just put into play a kernel, a USB host stack, an input dispatcher, an event handler, a font hinter, a sub-pixel rasterizer, a windowing system, a graphics driver, and more, all of those written in high-level languages that get processed by compilers, liners, optimizer’s  interpreters, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they’ll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let’s simplify.

You just pressed a key on your keyboard.

Simple, isn’t it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know about bit about how input peripherals work, it’s not quite that simple. You’ve just put into play a power regulator, a de-bouncer, an input multiplexer, a USB device stack, a USB hub stack, all of that implemented in a single chip. That chip is built around thinly sliced wafers of highly purified single-crystal silicon ingot, doped with minute quantities of other atoms that are blasted into the crystal structure, interconnected with multiple layers of aluminum or copper, that are deposited according to patterns of high-energy ultraviolet light that are focused to a precision of a fraction of a micron, connected to the outside world via thin gold wires, all inside a packaging made of a dimensional and thermally stable resin. The doping patterns and the interconnects implement transistors, which are grouped together to create logic gates. In some parts of the chip, logic gates are combined to create arithmetic and bitwise functions, which are combined to create an ALU. In another part of the chip, logic gates are combined into bi-stable loops, which are lined up into rows, which are combined with selectors to create a register bank. In another part of the chip, logic gates are combined into bus controllers and instruction decoders and microcode to create an execution scheduler. In another part of the chip, they’re combined into address and data multiplexers and timing circuitry to create a memory controller. There’s even more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they’ll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Can we simplify further?

In fact, very scarily, no, we can’t. We can barely comprehend the complexity of a single chip in a computer keyboard, and yet there’s no simpler level. The next step takes us to the software that is used to design the chip’s logic, and that software itself has a level of complexity that requires to go back to the top of the loop.

Today’s computers are so complex that they can only be designed and manufactured with slightly less complex computers. In turn the computers used for the design and manufacture are so complex that they themselves can only be designed and manufactured with slightly less complex computers. You’d have to go through many such loops to get back to a level that could possibly be re-built from scratch.

Once you start to understand how our modern devices work and how they’re created, it’s impossible to not be dizzy about the depth of everything that’s involved, and to not be in awe about the fact that they work at all, when Murphy’s law says that they simply shouldn’t possibly work.

For non-technologists, this is all a black box. That is a great success of technology: all those layers of complexity are entirely hidden and people can use them without even knowing that they exist at all. That is the reason why many people can find computers so frustrating to use: there are so many things that can possibly go wrong that some of them inevitably will, but the complexity goes so deep that it’s impossible for most users to be able to do anything about any error.

That is also why it’s so hard for technologists and non-technologists to communicate together: technologists know too much about too many layers and non-technologists know too little about too few layers to be able to establish effective direct communication. The gap is so large that it’s not even possible any more to have a single person be an intermediate between those two groups, and that’s why e.g. we end up with those convoluted technical support call centers and their multiple tiers. Without such deep support structures, you end up with the frustrating situation that we see when end users have access to a bug database that is directly used by engineers: neither the end users nor the engineers get the information that they need to accomplish their goals.

That is why the mainstream press and the general population has talked so much about Steve Jobs’ death and comparatively so little about Dennis Ritchie’s: Steve’s influence was at a layer that most people could see, while Dennis’ was much deeper. On the one hand, I can imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Jobs did and the people he inspired: probably a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square. Deep inside, though, our devices would still work the same way and do the same things. On the other hand, I literally can’t imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Ritchie did and the people he inspired. By the mid 80s, Ritchie’s influence had taken over, and even back then very little remained of the pre-Ritchie world.

Finally, last but not least, that is why our patent system is broken: technology has done such an amazing job at hiding its complexity that the people regulating and running the patent system are barely even aware of the complexity of what they’re regulating and running. That’s the ultimate bike shedding: just like the proverbial discussions in the town hall about a nuclear power plant end up being about the paint color for the plant’s bike shed, the patent discussions about modern computing systems end up being about screen sizes and icon ordering, because in both cases those are the only aspect that the people involved in the discussion are capable of discussing, even though they are irrelevant to the actual function of the overall system being discussed.

CC:BY 3.0

Sources: Jp/Bluewaters2u and Main Source Jean-Baptiste Quéru

For non-technologists, this is all a black box. That is a great success of technology: all those layers of complexity are entirely hidden and people can use them without even knowing that they exist at all

 

The Iraqi Dinar: Ditch the Hype and Get the Facts..

 

Investing in currencies can be wildly risky and volatile.

It can also drive massive gains from relatively small investments.

Just about every currency can be traded against another in real-time, providing tons of potential profits from most currencies in the world.

But what about the Iraqi dinar?

Why are people so crazy about it these days?

Is it really so unique and exotic?

The Iraqi dinar is a currency that has acquired quite a bit of popularity since the Iraq War began in 2003. That popularity has increased tenfold amidst speculation that it will dramatically increase in value.

Why else would the United States government be hoarding more of it than any other nation on the planet (excluding Iraq)?

Did Bush know something we didn’t when he asserted that the “war would pay for itself”?

Can we, as investors, find an opportunity here?

We’ve created this report to make sure our readers have accurate information they can act upon.

Let’s get started right when the Iraqi dinar was reborn…

Iraq War

Following the second U.S.-led war in Iraq, the dinar was in a state of limbo.

The old Iraqi dinar, featuring images of Saddam Hussein, had to be completely demonetized and a new batch had to be issued.

The U.S. Dollar (USD) became the de facto currency while the country was virtually rebuilt from scratch. Even to this day, the USD is heavily relied upon by businesses and citizens throughout the economy.

Eventually, banknotes were created in 2003 and the old bills were completely replaced in 2004. These new banknotes led to a cottage industry of sellers sending the new Iraqi dinar to oversea investors who hoped to profit from Iraq’s new currency when the economy improved…

The provisional government of Iraq made this legal; the banknotes are exchanged at different rates by companies wanting to turn a profit.

The dinar has gone up in value over the past five years even though it’s not traded on any legitimate foreign exchange. All of the real action has been internal or between central banks through auctions.

The changing exchange rate comes from booming growth in Iraq and long-term devaluation of the USD…

GDP grew at more than 12% last year and the fiscal deficit is a modest 8% of GDP.

This pair of factors have driven the value of the dinar from 4,000 dinars per USD at the time of their introduction, to a high of 980 dinars per USD.

It has been hovering between 1,160 to 1,170 dinars per USD since early 2010.

 

Iraq was in shambles after two wars and a decade of sanctions and neglect.

However, it still has 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, which puts it third behind Saudi Arabia and Canada. Oil production is at 2.9 million barrels a day with the dream of producing 12 million bbd by 2017.

A number of the world’s leading oil companies are working hard to boost production as quickly as possible, which in turn has helped boost the explosive growth rates we’ve seen since the last war.

The U.S. Government’s Off-the-Books Stash

The U.S. Treasury does not officially list the Iraqi dinar as part of the country’s Forex reserves. However, the Treasure does say it did an initial currency swap with Iraq to fund their government and ministries.

Exactly how many dinars were traded is never mentioned, but it does make reference to “billions of U.S. dollars” traded to Iraq.

Experts speculate the U.S. government received nearly 4 trillion Iraqi dinars at an exchange rate of 4,000 dinar to 1 USD.

If this is even close to true, at 1170 dinars to one 1 USD, the U.S. government would be sitting on a 340% gain — as would anyone else who speculated on the dinar over the years.

And that would give Bush’s statement — “This is a war that will pay for itself” — some weight.

Back and Forth… and Back Again

Rumors of extreme deprecation have become a complex issue. Many sources have bantered back and forth over the past year, entertaining the idea that a serious devaluation may be under way.

However, the Central Bank of Iraq recently attempted to extinguish that notion when it publicly announced an imbalance of the Iraqi dinar exchange rate while simultaneously denouncing rumors that the dinar will soon experience a sharp decline in value.

The Iraqi government planned on pulling three zeros off the end of the currency, which would make for easier math without changing the purchasing power.

Back in September 2011, Alsumaria, an Iraqi satellite television station, reported: “Iraq Central Bank said that it won’t only delete the zeros, but it will also change Iraq monetary structure in order to provide bigger currencies.”

In mid-April, the finance committee in the Iraqi Council of Representatives warned investors and Iraqi citizens how the low exchange rate of the dinar compared to the USD would be detrimental to Iraq’s economy. Strict regulations were then mandated on the sale of dollars based on trade restrictions with Iran and Syria.

The Central Bank was expected to withdraw dinars from the market in masses to facilitate the change.

Two days later, everything changed….

Iraq officially suspended all previous plans of dropping three zeros off the value of bank notes of its currency, claiming that the economic climate isn’t yet “suitable” for such a dramatic restructuring procedure.

To withdraw the 30+ trillion dinars currently in circulation would be an overwhelmingly tedious process that is not on Iraq’s agenda, and will not be a priority “until further notice,” according to the cabinet secretary.

It’s a curious story, indeed: speculating on something so volatile for which one day devaluation is imminent and the next it’s not to be spoken of “until further notice”…

Since then, the plan to change the denominations of dinar bills is now quietly still on the table, although it has been slightly changed.

The new bills with much smaller numbers are tentatively going to be in circulation with the old notes for several years. Gradually the old notes will be phased out as old paper bills are retired.

“The knocking out of zeros from Iraqi paper currency will save Iraqis using massive sums of paper money in their money transactions,” said Central Bank Deputy Governor Mudher Saleh.

Buyer Beware!

There are many dinar dealers on eBay as well as sketchy websites that sell currency with no licensing.

Those dealers and resellers are usually the ones who promote the dinar as a great investment opportunity in forums and other media channels.

Don’t forget the dinar is still not traded through regulated exchanges.

Any purchases you make today are unregulated and you will not have the protection that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and other major currency markets provide.

A little bit of common sense goes a long way here. Anyone who tells you that you can make a fortune purchasing Iraqi dinars and then turns around to sell them to you is clearly betting it will never happen.

A Real Opportunity Will Come

As we’ve seen with the back-and-forth currency policies and announcements, the Central Bank of Iraq is still finding its place in what is essentially a brand-new country.

Once monetary policy stabilizes and the dinar is introduced in legitimate Forex exchanges, we’ll have a real opportunity on our hands.

What the Iraqi dinar will do (once it is safely and widely traded) is allow you to bet on a country in the Middle East that is seeing strong growth and constantly improving balance sheets.

The Central Bank of Iraq raised interest rates in 2007 in an attempt to allow a gradual appreciation of the dinar. The move will also fight continued use of the USD within the Iraqi economy, although progress has been very slow. Hopefully, it will continue to work on building a strong, competitive, market-based economy.

As long as oil is in high demand — which will undoubtedly be until the world runs out — Iraq will have plenty of money pouring into its borders. Don’t forget that Iraq has the potential to boost exports several times over.

While Iraq is still fighting a culture of corruption, there are few oil-rich countries with more potential. Virtually every other oil exporter is either a closed economy or already highly leveraged with debt…

With the low fiscal deficit of 8% GDP, Iraq will only be slowed by global economic forces — unlike the United States.

Wealth Daily has been following news on the Iraqi dinar for years, and we will continue to keep a close eye on developments while cutting out the hype and chafe.

Keep an eye on Wealth Daily for the latest updates.

There are bound to be numerous opportunities for profit ahead, and we’ll let you know as soon as they present themselves.

Resources: http://www.wealthdaily.com/ Special Report and yours truly Jp/Bluewaters2u..comments to follow

The Iraqi Dinar: Ditch the Hype and Get the Facts.

How to Trade the VIX: Using the “Fear Gauge” to Hedge Down Markets

How to Trade the VIX: Using the “Fear Gauge” to

Hedge Down Markets..

If you don’t know already, it’s time to learn something all serious investors should know: how to trade the VIX Indicator (VIX).While most investors are scrambling to figure out whether the market is headed up or down, savvy pros use the VIX both as means of protection and a source of profit.”Call me a Nervous Nellie, if you like,” said Gilani, “but I’d rather lose out on a hedge than get killed because I didn’t have one on when the proverbial shot hit its mark.”

That’s why knowing how to trade the VIX is so essential.

But before we get into how to trade the VIX, we need to understand what the VIX actually is.

What the VIX Indicator Measures

Most investors think of the VIX simply as a “fear gauge.”

But contrary to what most people think, the VIX doesn’t measure actual stock market volatility.

In fact, experts view the VIX as possibly one of the best contrarian indicators in the business.

You see, the VIX tracks the trading in options on the S&P 500 to indicate how investors expect the market to move over the next 30 days.For example, as investors buy more put options, they get more expensive and the VIX goes higher. Conversely, the reverse is also true: when investors sell options, they become cheaper and the VIX begins to fall.The VIX then, is really a reflection of the price of calls and puts on the S&P 500.

It is quoted in percentage points and roughly translates to the expected annualized movement in the S&P 500 over the next 30 days. A VIX reading of 15 implies the S&P could swing higher or lower by 15% over the next 12 months, or about 4.33% over the next 30 days.

As a contrarian indicator, the VIX usually has an inverse relationship with the markets. When the market is rallying the VIX tends to drop; when the market is tanking the VIX tends to rise.

The scarier the broad market decline the higher the VIX tends to go – hence its reputation as the “fear gauge.” In fact, during the worst part of the 2008/2009 bear market the VIX soared as high as 80.

In today’s markets, however, a VIX reading greater than 30 is generally associated with a large amount of volatility and uncertainty, while values below 20 generally reflect less stressful times.

The VIX in Action

When the VIX fell as low as 16.6 on July 6 last year, Gilani warned investors to protect themselves against potential volatility.

“The low VIX creates an excellent opportunity for you to buy put protection at reasonable prices,” Gilani said. “In the face of future unknowns, and as long as implied volatility is low, you should take advantage of cheap puts to add some portfolio protection … just in case.

Exactly two days later the VIX began a relentless climb. Investors who heeded his advice were glad they did.

The VIX jumped to 48 and remained above 40 throughout October as the S&P 500 tumbled to a yearly low of around 1,100.

Meanwhile, Gilani had also advised his Capital Wave Forecast subscribers to hedge with put options in May and June.

On Aug. 8– the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 635 points — subscribers to Capital Wave Forecast locked in gains of 456%, 455%, 371%, and 197% on four of those holdings.

How to Trade the VIX

There are a few different options for investors who want to know how to trade the VIX.If you believe that market volatility will surge, you can buy VIX call options (the right to buy) or puts (the right to sell).Another approach would be to trade VIX futures-based exchange-traded notes (ETN) and exchange-traded funds (ETF), including the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSE: VXX) and S&P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures ETN (NYSE: VXZ).

Because they are cheap to own and trade, they make for a fairly good, simple alternative for investors looking to hedge their risks and protect their profits.

But you don’t have to trade the VIX directly to make money on it. Most often, the movements in the VIX are inversely correlated to the S&P 500 and the market in general.

That means trading S&P 500-based products with plenty of liquidity.

When the VIX is high you can buy the S&P 500 SPDR (NYSE: SPY), including futures and options.

Or you can consider a number of leveraged inverse ETFs, including the ProShares UltraPro S&P 500 (NYSE:UPRO) and the ProShares UltraShort S&P 500 (NYSE: SDS) when the VIX falls below 20.

Investors who want to trade the VIX should keep in mind that VIX-linked products are short-term trading tools for active traders who know the risks. That’s why it never hurts to have the help of an experienced Wall Street professional.

Gilani said more VIX trades might be needed in the months ahead.

“If what’s going on now keeps on going, we’re going to have to add a lot more protection,” said Gilani. “My hope is that this is a shorter-term panic selloff caused by profit-taking. That’s how it starts, sometimes. But if it escalates it’s going to be a long, hot, and sweaty summer.”

Source: BY DON MILLER, Contributing Writer, Money Morning

Blues Thought’s: I highly recommend to all to learn how to use to very valuable STOCK INDICATOR tool…I myself have just began to understand this charting tool along with the RSI charting tools as well to help gain and upper edge in these crazy markets.. I will post more on this in my Investment tab above under Advance Investing in the near future..until then dig in and learn this new form of tracking your Investments…Blue/jp

Nature’s Healing Matrix

http://www.natureshealingmatrix.com/

facebook.com/Bluewaters2u

How to Trade the VIX: Using the “Fear Gauge” to

Hedge Down Markets..

News Alert, Jeremy Lin Out for Rest of Regular Season With Knee Injury!

News Alert, Jeremy Lin Out for Rest of Regular Season With Knee Injury !

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Saturday, March 31, 2012 — 6:37 PM EDT
—–

Jeremy Lin Out for Rest of Regular Season With Knee Injury

Jeremy Lin’s basketball season has come to an abrupt and untimely end, because of a knee injury that will require surgery.

Lin, the Knicks’ point guard, has a small, chronic meniscal tear in his left knee, the Knicks announced Saturday night. He will undergo arthroscopic surgery and is expected to miss six weeks, wiping out the rest of the regular season and possibly the first round of the playoffs, assuming the Knicks make it.

“It is a big blow,” Coach Mike Woodson said before the Knicks’ home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. “He was starting to come as a player.”

Lin’s injury is the second devastating hit the Knicks have taken in the last week. Amar’e Stoudemire, their starting power forward, is out with a bulging disk in his lower back; he also could miss the rest of the regular season.

The revelation of Lin’s injury came a week after he initially complained of soreness in the knee, in a March 24 victory over Detroit. A magnetic resonance imaging examination, performed Monday, showed what the team called a small, chronic tear — meaning the injury had been present for some time.

Lin and team officials had hoped to delay surgery until after the season, but the knee did not sufficiently respond to treatment over the course of the week. After testing it once more Saturday morning, Lin opted for immediate surgery.

“I can’t really do much, can’t really cut or jump,” Lin said at a news conference. “So it’s pretty clear that I won’t be able to help the team unless I get this fixed right now. It’s disappointing for me. It’s hard to watch the games. And I think I want to be out there, obviously, more than anything, to help the team.”

The injury marks a somber epilogue to a story that captivated much of the world and launched a movement called Linsanity. Lin — 23 years old, undrafted and largely unknown — erupted for 25 points in a Feb. 4 victory over the Nets, then strung together a series of fantastic performances, each more spectacular than the last. The Knicks won seven straight games with Lin running the offense, a streak that saved their season.

Lin, the American-born son of Taiwanese immigrants, is the N.B.A.’s only Asian-American and is wildly popular here and in China. His jersey, which was not even available two months ago, is among the league’s top sellers.

With Lin out, the veteran Baron Davis will finish the season as the Knicks’ starting point guard. Davis, who turns 33 this month, has his own health concerns. He is recovering from a herniated disk and a recent hamstring strain. He will be backed up by the 33-year-old Mike Bibby and the rookie Iman Shumpert.

“We got to go on,” Woodson said.

Lin will be a restricted free agent this summer. Under N.B.A. rules, no team will be allowed to offer more than the average salary, about $5 million, and the Knicks will have the right to match any offer. Lin said he saw his future in New York.

“It’s been an unbelievable journey,” he said. “I would love to keep this team together as long as we can, everybody, top to bottom.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/sports/basketball/jeremy-lin-to-have-knee-surgery-will-miss-rest-of-regular-season.html?_r=1&emc=na

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http://www.natureshealingmatrix.com/

News Alert, Jeremy Lin Out for Rest of Regular Season With Knee Injury !

Apple to pay dividend, start stock buybacks

Apple to Use Cash for Stock Dividend and Buyback

 

 

Timothy D. Cook, chief executive of Apple, and other executives had signaled their willingness to consider a plan for the company’s cash.

By NICK WINGFIELD

Published: March 19, 2012

Apple announced Monday that it would pay a stock dividend of $2.65 a share in the quarter that starts in July and its board authorized a $10 billion share buyback, two moves that will use up some of its cash hoard of nearly $100 billion to reward investors.

The company issued an unusual media alert on Sunday evening saying that it planned to announce the long-awaited decision by its board about what to do with its cash balance.

Apple stock, which has been on a steep trajectory up, rose about 1 percent to $591.04 a share in before-market activity on Monday after a temporarily halt in trading.

The company, which recently released the newest version of its iPad, was widely expected to announce a dividend. As its cash has piled up, Wall Street analysts and investors had begun to call more loudly for Apple to return some of it to shareholders. Although having too much cash is rarely seen as a burden for a company, Apple earns less than 1 percent in interest on the cash, which many investors view as wasteful.

Until recently, Apple had resisted pressure to issue a dividend, a practice often associated with mature companies that have settled into slower rates of sales and earnings growth.

While it is more than three and a half decades old, Apple has been on a growth spurt that is highly unusual for a company of its age. The success of new products like the iPhoneand iPad has propelled both revenue and profits; during the holiday quarter, for example, the company more than doubled its profit from the same period in the prior year.

Apple issued shareholder dividends earlier in its history, stopping in December 1995.

Since Apple’s current chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, took over last fall, he and other executives have signaled their willingness to consider a plan for the company’s cash other than letting it accumulate. For months, Apple executives have said they were in discussions with the company’s board members about developing such a plan.

A. M. Sacconaghi Jr., an analyst with Bernstein Research, said before the announcement that one challenge Apple faced was that its stock had appreciated so much that some growth fund managers were bumping into limits on how concentrated their funds can be in any single stock.

Mr. Sacconaghi said that issuing a dividend could help Apple appeal to new types of value investors. He said that a recent increase in Apple shares had partly been caused by more of those value investors’ buying the stock in anticipation of a dividend.

“It will attract a broader class of investor,” he said.

Apple could also have announced other plans for its cash, including an acquisition of another company, though Apple has never made a multibillion-dollar acquisition.

While Apple ended last year with a cash balance of $97.6 billion, it cannot easily gain access to most of that for a dividend because roughly 66 percent of the money is held by its foreign subsidiaries. To bring that cash back to the United States, Apple would have to pay hefty repatriation taxes, very likely more than 30 percent.

That leaves it with about $34 billion in cash in the United States. In a recent report, Mr. Sacconaghi estimated that Apple could issue a 2.5 percent annual dividend to shareholders without touching its cash in the United States, financing the payout entirely from new cash it generates from its business operations. At Apple’s share price of $585.57, that would amount to a dividend of $14.64 a year for every share.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/technology/apple-to-use-cash-for-stock-dividend-and-buyback.html

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Apple to Use Cash for Stock Dividend and Buyback

Iraq is very close to RV-Revaluation of the IQD & here is WHY,HCL- Oil & Gas Law, Erbil Agreement, Kuwait, WTO & IMF.

Bluewaters2u's Blog

Iraq is very close to RV-Revaluation of the IQD & here is WHY,HCL- Oil & Gas Law, Erbil Agreement, Kuwait Port & Boarder, WTO ,IMF, UN, March 12th,2012.

Here are a few reasons why Iraq is so very close to an Revalueation of their currency ( IQD )…In my Opinion..

I agree Helen, but lets think about it and look at what we do know to be true…and find some sort of “peaceful easy feelings” towards what we think we know.. ummm…Didn’t the Eagles sing something about that..anyways….

1st….We know they have passed the 3 million barrels -of Oil -a-day produced at the levels of price of Oil too for some time now..

2nd..We Know that Iraq and Kuwaiti are in serous discussions on the Sharing of the most important connection in the world they both have and both need to survive past the Oil dilution..And that’s the…

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