(eToro Blog) The fallout from Friday’s downgrade of nine Eurozone members continues during a trading day expected to be subdued with Wall Street’s closure for a federal holiday. But the affect on the equity markets in Europe is expected to be rather short-lived, as analysts point out that the markets had generally already priced in the downgrades,

(eToro Blog) Australia reported that home loan approvals rose in November as the Reserve Bank of Australia delivered its first rate cut in 2011. Loans for houses and apartments rose 1.4%, beating analyst expectations of a 1% growth. First time home buyers rushed into buy homes and the report shows that they accounted for 20% of home loans in

(eToro Blog) Following Standard & Poor’s downgrade en masse of the Eurozone’s more vulnerable and fiscally-troubled states, a new announcement from S&P confirms investors and analysts’ fears: the Eurozone’s bailout facility will be detrimentally affected. According to the Sovereign Debt Committee Chairman at S&P, John Chambers, the down

(eToro Blog) U.S. markets were under pressure for most of Friday’s trading session as fears over a rumored downgrade of France and Austria’s credit rating were later confirmed.  Despite that, volatility moved off its high as traders were unwilling to hold volatility ahead of Monday’s Martin Luther King holiday.

On the heels of Thursday’s worse t

As China’s economic growth has slowed, some bullish investors have pointed to China’s “deep pockets” as a way for the country to keep its economy growing. Yet, data published on Friday showed that China’s supposedly deep pockets could soon run dry.

During the final three months of the year, Chinese reserves dropped by 0.6%. Although this is but a

This week looked good for the euro as Forex traders felt a little less concerned about the situation in Europe, but then Standard & Poor’s came in and spoiled traders’ mood.

The euro looked good for the most part of the week. Meetings of European leaders and officials of the International Monetary Fund spurred optimism that was further

(eToro Blog) As was noted in a previous post, a similar analysis can be done with the eToro data, where the distribution of “closing ratio” was presented, and demonstrated the tendency of traders to close out their position at a profit of 90% or a loss of 50%.

The following figure presents the cumulative total of the number of trades closed. The