Online Trading Platforms

MUST READ : BITS – How do you develop a Social Media framework?

onlinetradingplatforms — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:00:40 +0000

The Bits paper – ‘Social Media Risks and Mitigation’ – was compiled by a panel of security, technology and communications executives to guide banks as they build out their presence on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The paper deals with compliance, information retention, and hiring issues, and with security risks that range from reputation threats to phishing and social engineering exploits.

Recognising that social media issues span legal, compliance, marketing, communications, IT and human resources departments, the paper provides an enterprise-wide view of policies, practices, communications and risk management strategies.

Susan Rivers, vice president of corporate communications for BNY Mellon, says: "We hope the white paper will offer valuable insights for financial services companies that want to use social media to enhance their business competitiveness while also adhering to industry compliance and ethical standards."

Source : http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=22783

NYT Krugman : ‘Why Bankers aren’t being locked up..’

onlinetradingplatforms — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:49:02 +0000

http://boulle.co/banksters

‘..Why the kid-gloves treatment? Money and influence no doubt play their part; Wall Street is a huge source of campaign donations, and agencies that are supposed to regulate banks often end up serving them instead. But officials have also argued at each point of the process that letting banks off the hook serves the interests of the economy as a whole… ‘

‘…Instead, these officials are pushing for a settlement with mortgage companies that, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, “would broadly absolve the firms of wrongdoing in exchange for penalties reaching $30 billion and assurances that the firms will adhere to better practices.”

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‘Category 2 Rentals in Gibraltar and Rentals in La Linea and Sotogrande, Spain’

onlinetradingplatforms — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:55:16 +0000

‘Scenic #Gibraltar: come for the monkeys, enjoy the dock fires… ‘

onlinetradingplatforms — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:16:41 +0000

Gibraltar :- TIEA à la Tripartite with Spain?

― 2:09AM investometer +27

Institutional Forex Trading House "Investors Europe" Ventures Into The Retail Market

Institutional Spot Forex at Investors Europe, Gibraltar [link]

― 12:25PM investorseurope see tweet

Scenic Gibraltar: come for the monkeys, enjoy the dock fires.

― 4:17AM kingmob6 see tweet

GIB FINANCE CENTRE COMPLIES WITH ALL INTERNATIONAL ANTI-CRIME MEASURES � Gibraltar ChronicleGibCosta | GibCosta

― 2:44AM gibcosta see tweet

Gibraltar airport Genius – go the #ATeam

"@alcattell: Gibraltar airport [link] Genius – go the #ATeam

― 12:13PM squizme see tweet

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Gibraltar :- TIEA à la Tripartite with Spain?

onlinetradingplatforms — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:09:37 +0000

http://boulle.co/Gibraltar_Spain

‘TIEA’ WITH SPAIN ON TRIPARTITE TABLE, SAYS FEETHAM

by F Oliva

Gibraltar has already signed 18 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEA’s) with OECD and EU member states and remains willing to continue doing so with other countries including Spain, Minister for Justice Daniel Feetham has said.

"The Gibraltar Government has already proposed that these same agreements be signed with Madrid as part of the negotiations of the Tripartite Forum, he declared.

The next round of Tripartite Forum talks, will be

examining several proposals on financial services cooperation including a tax exchange information agreement between Gibraltar and Spain.

"We think this should be concluded quite quickly and will help eliminate any doubt that may exist in Spain about the local finance centre activities.

Mr Feetham rejected the allegations made on occasions that Gibraltar refuses to cooperate with tax information exchange requests from Spain. He said that the problem lies in the non-recognition of Gibraltar’s legal and administrative jurisdiction, which meant that Spanish requests have often been made to Britain.

"When this happens, the Gibraltar authorities are not constitutionally obliged to provide the information. When that same request has been submitted to us, it has received immediate attention and an immediate response has been forthcoming.

"Only last year the Financial Services Commission received 25 requests for assistance from other regulators and 24 of those were dealt with successfully with only one request still outstanding," he declared.

Mr Feetham reiterated Gibraltar’s willingness to proceed with tax information exchange agreements with more countries to demonstrate Gibraltar’s openness in this field.

Gibraltar’s current TIEA agreements include USA, France and Germany

"It is clear that Gibraltar is fully compatible in every sense with all OECD standards related to the exchange of tax information."

Mr Feetham said it was important to note that it was not Gibraltar saying this but international financial institutions that are tasked with verifying and ratifying that this is the case.

"Gibraltar should be considered like any other reputable finance centre in the world, like New York, London or Frankfurt. Our small size by comparison does not mean that our quality control standards fall in the same proportion. We apply the same rules."

Mr Feetham added that Gibraltar, unlike Switzerland and some other jurisdictions, does not have banking secrecy laws, therefore the technical process of exchange of information with UK is not different from that with Spain.

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‘Stock Broking Services’ – What does a stockbroker do?

onlinetradingplatforms — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 08:17:22 +0000

http://www.unbiased.co.uk/stockbroking-services

Stockbroking Services

When it comes to making direct investments on the stock market, you’ll need a stockbroker. A stockbroker is a qualified professional who buys and sells securities (stocks and shares) on your behalf.

Fund managers and independent financial advisers (IFAs) also use stockbroking services to invest money on your behalf. Stockbrokers may offer their services over the internet, by telephone, face-to-face or through the post. There’s a charge involved for using a stockbroker to buy and sell on your behalf, although online stockbrokers may give you access to software that you can use to do the buying and selling yourself.

If you invest directly in stocks and shares, then your money’s going to be exposed to much higher levels of risk than those you’d find in a collective investment such as a Unit Trust or an OEIC. It’s also true to say that your returns could be much higher. The value of your investment can go down in value as well as up, and you may not get your money back. That’s why it’s really important to know what you’re doing, before you invest.

What does a stockbroker do?

If you do want to trade stocks and shares directly, then a stockbroker can help you. In general a stockbroker will offer three types of service:

An advisory service, which involves giving you advice on what to buy or sell
A discretionary service, in which they’ll make decisions for you
An execution-only service, in which you tell the stockbroker what to buy or sell (increasingly, this is becoming an online service).

Questions you might like to ask your IFA or a stockbroker

What’s the minimum trading limit?

What are your charges, when do I pay them?

Do the charges vary depending on the type of trade or time it is carried out?

When and how will you transfer title of the assets to me?

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‘My fear is that the FCA will employ the same type of person who works at the FSA …’

onlinetradingplatforms — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 08:53:41 +0000

http://boulle.co/qlaE7U

‘… My fear is that the FCA will employ the same type of person who works at the FSA – and that does not give me much confidence. The FSA has frequently made promises that it failed to live up to and has subsequently continued to leave consumers vulnerable to being missold…’

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NYT ‘As Italy Moves to Calm Investors, Europe Delays Meeting on Greece …’

onlinetradingplatforms — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:41:02 +0000

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/business/global/italy-borrowing-costs-hit-3-year-high-in-bond-sale.html?_r=1

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A gynandromorphic Fly by Night at the Museum gets the butterflies…

onlinetradingplatforms — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:36:36 +0000

http://holykaw.alltop.com/rare-butterfly-has-best-of-both-worlds-when-i

…

Vietnamese ‘David’ confronts Chinese ‘Goliath’ over South China Sea Energy Riches

onlinetradingplatforms — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:36:31 +0000

An increasingly fractious maritime confrontation is developing in the South China Sea, with enormous implications for international companies interested in developing East Asia’s offshore hydrocarbon resources. Far from the radars of city of London and Wall Street investors, the clash has seen Vietnam emerge as spear carrier for its fellow ASEAN members on the dispute.

Offshore drilling is the most capital-intensive form of exploiting hydrocarbons, but its expense and scarcity has also allowed technically advanced Western companies to drive hard bargains with third world countries over their offshore waters, as they don’t have indigenous advanced technical resources nor finances to exploit their maritime wealth.

Accordingly, most countries attempt to procure the best bilateral deals with foreign companies to get a taste of the offshore revenues that come from exploiting their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), which the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNLOS) recognized 12 nautical miles as normal for territorial seas and waters and provided international recognition of 200 mile EEZs. On the vexed question of overlapping claims, When an overlap occurs, UNLOS deferred to the competing states to negotiate to delineate their final and actual maritime boundary, with the general principle that any point within an overlapping area defaults to the nearest state.

According to U.S. government statistics, Vietnam’s oil and gas industry is currently the country’s biggest foreign currency earner and a major procurer of imported technology. Since Vietnam’s first oil export shipment in April 1987, crude oil has earned over $17 billion for Vietnam’s economy, all of it from offshore production. Vietnam is currently Asian third largest oil producer behind Indonesia and Malaysia.

Over the past few years China has asserted its sovereign maritime claims and takeovers even as Beijing has settled most of its disputes over its land frontiers with post-Soviet Central Asian states since the early 1990s. China’s expansive sovereignty claims on of South China Sea, including the Spratly (Nansha) and Paracel (Xisha) islets, putting Beijing directly in conflict with the sovereignty claims and security of five Southeast Asian states – Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, not to mention China’s irredentist claims on Taiwan. All, except Taiwan, are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN.

Vietnam has now emerged as the plucky David challenging Beijing’s Goliath. The confrontation began on 26 May when three Chinese patrol boats halted a seismic survey in Spratly waters claimed by Vietnam as part of its EEZ, 80 miles from Vietnam’s coast and 375 miles south of China’s Hainan Island. Following other incidents, on 13 June Vietnam’s navy held live-firing exercises in an area 25 miles off central Quang Nam province after warning other vessels to steer clear.

While China has the stronger navy, both sides can currently deploy only light maritime forces, and for the moment, regional rhetoric exceeds firepower.

Besides the cover support of its ASEAN partners, China is in a dialectical trap of its own making. Asserting its unilateral sovereignty will weaken ASEAN dominated by China as a political organization and potentially drive a number of its members to closer relations with the U.S., the only significant non-Asian power in the western Pacific.

Beyond the regional posturing, the issue seems tailor-made for international arbitration. UNCLOS provides for bilateral discussions, but given the diversity of claims, ASEAN would seem to be a better forum.

In the meantime, the South China Sea hardly seems to best potential zone for foreign energy investment companies.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/David-and-Goliath-Vietnam-Confronts-China-Over-South-China-Sea-Energy-Riches.html
Earlier Article : http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Offshore-Oil-Dispute-in-South-China-Sea-Has-Enormous-Global-Implications.html

By. Dr. John C.K. Daly for OilPrice.com. For more information on oil prices and other commodity related topics please visit www.oilprice.com

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