How Solid is Excess Brokerage Coverage (Full-Net-Equity Protection) for Losses Over $500,000?

By Jack Haddad

The Securities Investors Protection Corp. (SIPC), often assumed to be analogous to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), insures retail brokerage accounts for up to $500,000 each in the event of a catastrophic firm failure. The SIPC is non-profit organization funded by its member securities brokers, created by congress in 1970 to promote confidence in the US securities markets. The coverage is event-neutral in the sense that it replaces missing securities and cash whether they disappeared in an earthquake, fire,flood, or were stolen by a broker. Missing securities are replaced at their current market value which may be a fractionof their previous value.

To meet its obligations, SIPC currently has $1.25 billion of capital which invested in US Treasuries as required by law. It also has a $1.0 billion private syndicated line of credit to draw on should its capital be exhausted. On top of that, it has $1.0 billion in line of credit from the US Treasury.

To cover losses beyond that, brokererage firms have arrangements with the following insurers:

1. CAPCO (Customer Asset Protection Co.), which is a insurer of 14 brokerages, claims that it has no dollar limit on excess SIPC coverage; yet, if you desire to specifically inquire what the financial backing is for each customer coverage, president Frank Lagerstedt labels such information as "proprietary." Lagersterdt has legal backing for withholding the information. The New York State Insurance Dept has repeatedly denied my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for CAPCO's financial information.

In fact, CAPCO declines to provide any information about its capitalization. The New York State Insurance Department denied Bloomberg Wealth Manager's FOIA to see the firm's financail statement, citing New york Insurance Law, section 7003 (c) (3). Under New York Insurance Law, section 7003 (c) (3), the information filed by a captive insurer in its application for licensing is "given confidential treatment and shall not be the subject to public inspection... except to the extent the superintendent finds release of information necessary to protect the public..."

Furthermore, it is not known how much reinsurance CAPCO has or how much of the member premiums go to boosting the company's capital. Also, CAPCO won't disclose whether memeber firms are required to ante up addtional capital if a large claim drains its resourses. Moreover, none of the company's officers explain how its "risk remote" potential liabilities are quantified. It is strongly believed that CAPCO is unable to quantify the risk for the same reasons the commercial insurers couldn't. For that matter, the company is most likely undercapitalized.

Member firms belonging to CAPCO are: Robert W. Baird, Bear Stearns, Credit Suisse First Boston, A.G. Edwards, Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Legg Mason Wood Walker, Lehman Brothers, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, National Financial Services, Pershing, Raymand James Financial, and Watchovia Securities.

2. Lloyd's of London offers $150 million per customer but no more than a total of $600 million per broker-dealer for customer losses. Its client firms are Ameritrade, E*Trade, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Smith Barney, Citigroup, T.D. Waterhouse.

3. XL Insurance insures for up to $600 million in total customer losses. Its member firm is UBS Financial Services.

If brokerages are going to use excess SIPC coverage for their customers, don't they owe an explanation of how they intend to provide it? It is highly suggested that excess SIPC coverage is little more than a marketing tool for brokerages that say they offer it. Most brokers claim that they purchase insurance for the sleep-at-night factor, and that excess SIPC has always been a nice enhancement for clients.

It is my personal adamant belief that rather than considering the amount of excess SIPC coverage a firm carries, an investor should place more emphasis on its financial strength. - 23199

About the Author:

Dr. Jack Haddad, MD, MBA has been professionally trading the stock market since 1997 and had an annualized return of 39.4%. Dr. Haddad has recently launched MD Capital Management, an Investment Fund with Charles Schwab. The fund utilizes option hedging techniques to generate returns while minimizing risks. For more info, visit Jacks online group: MD Capital Management.

Forex Market- The Strategies the Pro's Use

By fx

As it seems the world economies are facing recession many people are searching for ways to generate extra income. One of the best ways to generate income is through trading the CFD Market. The real power of CFD's is the ability to be able to go long or short, so you can still profit while the market falls.

Most beginner traders don't bother trying to follow the trend that has come about long term - instead they try to trade by forex scalping or day trading. These methods focus the trader on small moves and they hope to catch small profit however as most short term moves are random, this leads to equity eliminate and sending the trader broke.

The other alternatives are swing trading and long term forex trend following and this article is all about the latter method. If you look at any forex chart, you will see long-term term trends that last for months or years. These moves can and do yield serious profit - present we will outline a simple method to get them.

Breakouts- Trading on Confirmation of Break outs

By far the best way of catching the serious moves is to use a forex trading strategy based around breakouts. A breakout is simply a move on a forex chart where a new high or low is made and resistance or support is broken.

It's a fact that most leading moves start from new highs or lows. Right this an sit it next to your computer so that you don't forget it.

While it might appear that you are not buying or selling at the greatest level, you are in terms of the odds of the trend continuing. Most forex traders make the mistake of waiting for the breakout to come back and get in at a better price but these traders never get on board. The grounds for this is if a breakout occurs, then you have a new strong trend and a pullback is not very likely to occur. So you will the boat and therefore profits.

Most traders don't buy or sell breakouts and that's exactly why it's such a powerful method.

The only point to keep in mind is a support or resistance which is ruined, should be valid and that means at least 3 points in at least 2 different times frames. The more tests and the greater the spacing between the tests the more valid the level is.

Confirmation- Don't Guess it, Confirm IT

Of course not every breakout keeps and some reverse, these are false and can cause losses. You therefore need to confirm each move. All you need to do to achieve this is to put a few momentum indicators in your forex trading system to confirm your dealing signal.

These indicators give you an estimation of the strength and velocity of price and there are many to choose from. We don't have time to discuss them here (simply look up our other articles) but two of the greatest are - the stochastic and Relative Strength Index RSI

Stops and Targets

Stop points are easy with breakouts - Simply behind the breakout point.

If you have a serious trend then you need to be careful but you can milk it, so don't move your stop to soon and keep it outside of normal volatility. If it is a huge move, trailing stops should be held a long-term way back and the 40 day moving average is a good level to use.

You have to keep in mind that when the trend does eventually turn you are going to give some profit back. You don't know when the trend is going to end, so don't predict it.

It's ok to give a little bit back, as that's the nature of trading forex. Keep in mind if you got 50% of all leading trend you would be very rich. When you are long-term term trend following you have accept giving a bit back and taking dips in open equity as the trend develops - this is noise and does not affect the long term trend.

The above is a simple way to trade forex and catch the high odds moves that yield the serious profit. If you are learning forex dealing and want a simple method that is robust and will help you get every major move, then you should base your dealing on the above method.

Now that you have all the winning strategies, you now need to have a winning broker, recently the CFD FX Report has reviewed these brokers and have come up with Best Forex Broker.

Any trader serious about gaining extra knowledge and becoming a better trader should continue to educate themselves as great place for Free education lessons is the CFD FX REPORT they offer as host of great education lessons. You can also join there forum and chat to traders around the world, or visit there broker section and see who the expert recommend. This site is a must for anyone serious about trading. - 23199

About the Author:

The CFD FX REPORT is a real time trading tool that offers clients free trading reports, with trading ideas, stock market and forex market education as well helping them with. Also if you are looking for a Forex Broker, then feel free to visit our broker section as we recently reviewed all the forex brokers and have found the best on the market.

The Best 3 Ideas for CFD Trading

By cfdreport

Many people today are excited by the possibilities of the CFD Market and how much money can be made. Many of these people want to become a full time CFD trader, either now or very soon. This is the one of the most common thoughts amongst CFD traders, so do you think like this too?

Contracts For Difference- The Big Secrets

To make lots of money from CFD Trading and to survive in the CFD Markets just being a normal CFD trader will not cut it, you need to become a professional CFD Trader. So what are the secrets of the professional trader? What enables them to make lots of money from CFD Trading? So here are some secrets of a Professional CFD Trader , which he uses to make big money?

The Best Idea Number 1- Keep it simple

You do not have to be Einstein to be a professional Trader- They will simply Follow a CFD Trading System. Most of the professional traders are not God, they don't have any exceptional foresight skills. What makes them different to most people is simply because they have a CFD system, which gives great signals and most importantly they stick to this system and there rules. More than likely they have a very simply trading plan, nothing too complicated and nothing over the top.

The Best idea number 2- Think and work smarter, not harder.

When it comes to CFD Trading sometimes it doesn't matter how much you learn, how much time you put in, it comes down to how accurate and how useful the tutorials and education is and also the mindset of the individual. So the key is finding the right information, the right education lessons and the right CFD Broker. The CFD FX REPORT recently researched all the brokers and they have come up with who they believe to be the Best CFD Broker. They also have some excellent education lessons available.

The Best Idea Number 3 - Determination, Discipline, Ability to Take a Loss, Money Management and Belief

Most of the successful CFD Traders have the mindset that they will succeed, they set rules, they stick to them and they can take a loss. They understand that you can't pick the market 100% of the time and if they trade to their plan. They understand to make big profits are not achieved over one or weeks but over years. They will not put anymore then 5-10% of their capital per trade - 23199

About the Author:

The CFD FX REPORT is a real time trading tool that offers clients free trading reports, with trading ideas, stock market and forex market education as well helping them with. Also if you are looking for a Forex Broker, then feel free to visit our broker section as we recently reviewed all the forex brokers and have found the best on the market.

Following the Market Movers in CFD Trading

By cfdreport

To become a successful CFD trader you need to make yourself aware of all of the economic indicators that can affect the market and how those figures can change prices which will create some great trading opportunities.

The Key Economic Indicators are unemployment, payroll, trade balance, interest rate cuts/increases, CPI and retail Sales. Now that you have some basic knowledge of economics your next step is to open up a demo CFD account. You will need to purchase an automated CFD trading software application. Look for CFD software application that has a demo account. Using a demo account is a great place to start it is free. Who doesn't like free. When you feel confident and ready to start trading you can open up an account and start making money. It also allows you time to practice your CFD Trading Strategies and allows you to fine tune them. If you are going to be using a CFD Broker, the CFD FX REPORT recently reviewed all CFD Brokers and have come up with who they believe is the best CFD broker in the market.

With CFD there is two ways that you can trade with either normal CFD platform or mini CFD platform. We would sugges that mini CFD is a good place to start for people just entering the CFD market. The mini CFD allows you open an account that is at a reduced amount. It requires a smaller capital compared to regular CFD accounts, a minimum of $200. With mini CFD trading, you can control a $80,000 currency position. The key here is leverage. Because of leverage, a trader can trade in a commodity more than the money available in his account. Say with a $50 deposit, one could trade a maximum of1 5 mini lots. This kind of leverage is greater than stocks or day trading. Of course, it is recommended to start with a manageable leverage that allows greater flexibility in transactions. With leverage from CFD brokers the average range is 1:50 up to 1:400. We would suggest that when you start trading that you look at starting on the lower levels and you can always increase the leverage down the track.

Once you have started trading on the mini CFD if that is the route you have taken there are few other concepts to learn. They concepts are moving averages, Fibonacci levels and Bollinger Bands. These are ratios and measurements used to determine the highness or lowness of the price relative to previous trades. You just need a working knowledge of these concepts. Your automated software will handle all the mathematical calculations for you.

Now that you have a good knowledge of these concepts, there is one other thing we must consider. The worst enemy of any trader is Fear, so make sure you are aware of your fears and do all you can to overcome them. To become a profitable trader you must leave fear aside and stick to your trading plan. In conclusion, the key to being a successful CFD trader is to have the knowledge and proper psychological preparation but once you master these skills the money and rewards of CFD Trading are endless.

Happy Trading. - 23199

About the Author:

The CFD FX REPORT is a real time trading tool that offers clients free trading reports, with trading ideas, stock market and forex market education as well helping them with. Also if you are looking for a Forex Broker, then feel free to visit our broker section as we recently reviewed all the forex brokers and have found the best on the market.

Forex trading systems secrets

By fxtrait

Today as the world economies slow down people are now seeking out extra ways to generate income. What has grown with a great deal of popularity in the past few years has been Forex Trading. Forex turns over in excess of $2 trillion dollars per day how much of that are you currently making?

There are some major advantages to Forex Trading.

* The long hours that the forex market is open, it trades 24 hours a day for 6 days per week and is the most liquid market in the world. So even if you have a full time job you can still come home and trade. It is a great way to start out, paper trade build up confidence start achieving financial success then you can leave your current job.

* It doesn't matter what the market is doing as you can just as easy go long (buy currency) or go short (sell currency) so there is never a bad time unlike buying stocks. The liquidity means that you have no problem selling.

* You don't need thousands to start. The reason that you don't need massive bank balance is because you can use leverage, in some cases you can get 400:1 so if you have $1000 you can leverage that into $400,000, which can make for great profits. Also you don't pay brokerage or commissions.

* The market will never go broke. Unlike share trading where companies can collapse it is very unlikely to happen in Forex. Imagine if the USD was worth $0, so you can see very unlikely.

* If you are new to the foreign exchange market, you do not have to worry about spending thousands of dollars to learn or buy a course. There is online forex trading course that will explain how the forex market works and a forex tutorial will also explain about fundamental and technical strategies that are available to you as a forex trader.

* Work your own hours if you don't feel like trading then you don't have to, it will always be open tomorrow.

* To learn Forex Trading is very simple today all you need is a computer and forex broker

* To ensure that you can become successful in Forex Tradingmake sure that you get some education, as knowledge is power. You can start out learning online or through books it doesn't have to be through expensive course.

Have Fun and enjoy it.

In order to become a successful Forex Trader the key is education and the best place to continue to learn from is the CFD FX REPORT they offer a host of Free education lessons. This is a must visit site if you are serious about making money from trading. - 23199

About the Author:

The CFD FX REPORT is a real time trading tool that offers clients free trading reports, with trading ideas, stock market and forex market education as well helping them with. Also if you are looking for a Forex Broker, then feel free to visit our broker section as we recently reviewed all the forex brokers and have found the best on the market.