Allied Irish Banks to give $50 million bonuses amid government bailout
Dublin, Ireland, United Kingdom (AHN) – Financially challenged Allied Irish Banks is scheduled to give $50 million (EUR 40 million) bonuses to bank officers despite the company being a possible recipient of another bailout from the Irish government.
The bonuses, amounting to $214,328 (EUR 161,000) for each of 2,400 bankers in the Dublin capital markets division, are part of a court award in 2008. The bonuses are scheduled to be given Dec. 17.
Because of the AIB situation, European banking regulators were scheduled to meet in London Thursday to come up with new rules applicable within the regional bloc on payment of bonuses amid financial crises. The rules propose to defer paying the bonuses over three years and forfeiting the payments if the banks suffer more losses.
AIB is 19 percent owned by taxpayers, but the government share is expected to go up to 95 percent after the Irish central bank required AIB to raise another $6.9 billion (EUR 5.2 billion) by the end of February. The amount will likely come not from the private sector, but from the $113 billion (EUR 85 billion) bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.
AIB investors, including some of the world’s largest fixed-income pension and insurance funds, are scheduled to meet Friday to discuss a possible lawsuit against the Irish government if the bank will be required to reduce again the value of subordinated debts issued by AIB.
Investors who held Tier 1 and Tier 2 bonds in AIB agreed in June 2009 to trade in these bonds for a new issue of lower Tier 2 debt. The move caused investors to lose 33 to 50 percent of their investments’ face value.
The investors warned that if they were forced to another round of swap, many pension funds, insurers and main fixed-income funds would shirk from Irish paper in the future for a long time.
Subordinated debt investors have filed similar legal cases against the Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide, but with little success.
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EUR/USD Weekly Review 29 Nov – 3 Dec 10
Simultaneous Release at TheGeekKnows.com – Learn Forex Trading and view EUR/USD Reviews. Good day forex trading koalas. In the previous EUR/USD weekly review, we noted that the global economy faces three potential problems. The Euro Zone Deficit Crisis, the cooling of China’s economic growth and the two Koreas. Looking at the EUR/USD daily chart above, [.
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EU, IMF Agree on ‘EUR 80-90 B’ Irish Bail-Out
European and IMF officials have agreed on Sunday to help bail out Ireland with loans to tackle its banking and budget crisis, stabilize financial markets and prevent loss of confidence in other euro zone members, notably Portugal and Spain. Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said the amount would be less than EUR 100 B. According to reports the bailout package is expected to total EUR 80 to 90 B….
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Daily Forex News Recap (11/5): NFP Surprises to Upside, USD Mixed; Euro Stumbles on Debt Woes
Today’s Non-Farm Payroll report came in better than expected, with the economy adding 151K jobs in October. That helped boost risk appetite for commodity currencies like AUD, CAD and NZD. It also helped stiffen the USD against the JPY and EUR. The Euro was pressured by sovereign debt woes, and we look at EUR/CHF and EUR/GBP.
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EUR/USD Weekly Review 27 Sep – 1 Oct 10
Simultaneous Release at TheGeekKnows.com – Learn Forex Trading and view EUR/USD Reviews. Good day forex trading koalas! The weekend is here again and now is the time to rest and prepare for the new week. In the last review, we saw the EUR/USD approaching the line of 1.36. The idea of more quantitative easing to [.
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Forex Trading – Getting Started
Forex Trading: a Beginner’s Guide
The forex market is the world’s largest international currency trading market operating non-stop during the working week. Most forex trading is done by professionals such as bankers. Generally forex trading is done through a forex broker – but there is nothing to stop anyone trading currencies. Forex currency trading allows buyers and sellers to buy the currency they need for their business and sellers who have earned currency to exchange what they have for a more convenient currency. The world’s largest banks dominate forex and according to a survey in The Wall Street Journal Europe, the ten most active traders who are engaged in forex trading account for almost 73% of trading volume.
However, a sizeable proportion of the remainder of forex trading is speculative with traders building up an investment which they wish to liquidate at some stage for profit. While a currency may increase or decrease in value relative to a wide range of currencies, all forex trading transactions are based upon currency pairs. So, although the Euro may be ‘strong’ against a basket of currencies, traders will be trading in just one currency pair and may simply concern themselves with the Euro/US Dollar ( EUR/USD) ratio. Changes in relative values of currencies may be gradual or triggered by specific events such as are unfolding at the time of writing this – the toxic debt crisis.
Because the markets for currencies are global, the volumes traded every day are vast. For the large corporate investors, the great benefits of trading on Forex are:
- Enormous liquidity – over $4 trillion per day, that’s $4,000,000,000. This means that there’s always someone ready to trade with you
- Every one of the world’s free currencies are traded – this means that you may trade the currency you want at any time
- Twenty four – hour trading during the 5-day working week
- Operations are global which mean that you can trade with any part of the world at any time
From the point of view of the smaller trader there’s lots of benefits too, such as:
- A rapidly-changing market – that’s one which is always changing and offering the chance to make money
- Very well developed mechanisms for controlling risk
- Ability to go long or short – this means that you can make money either in rising or falling markets
- Leverage trading – meaning that you can benefit from large-volume trading while having a relatively-low capital base
- Lots of options for zero-commission trading
How the forex Market Works
As forex is all about foreign exchange, all transactions are made up from a currency pair – say, for instance, the Euro and the US Dollar. The basic tool for trading forex is the exchange rate which is expressed as a ratio between the values of the two currencies such as EUR/USD = 1.4086. This value, which is referred to as the ‘forex rate’ means that, at that particular time, one Euro would be worth 1.4086 US Dollars. This ratio is always expressed to 4 decimal places which means that you could see a forex rate of EUR/USD = 1.4086 or EUR/USD = 1.4087 but never EUR/USD = 1.40865. The rightmost digit of this ratio is referred to as a ‘pip’. So, a change from EUR/USD = 1.4086 to EUR/USD = 1.4088 would be referred to as a change of 2 pips. One pip, therefore is the smallest unit of trade.
With the forex rate at EUR/USD = 1.4086, an investor purchasing 1000 Euros using dollars would pay $1,408.60. If the forex rate then changed to EUR/USD = 1.5020, the investor could sell their 1000 Euros for $1,502.00 and bank the $93.40 as profit. If this doesn’t seem to be large amount to you, you have to put the sum into context. With a rising or falling market, the forex rate does not simply change in a uniform way but oscillates and profits can be taken many times per day as a rate oscillates around a trend.
When you’re expecting the value EUR/USD to fall, you might trade the other way by selling Euros for dollars and buying then back when the forex rate has changed to your advantage.
Is forex Risky?
When you trade on forex as in any form of currency trading, you’re in the business of currency speculation and it is just that – speculation. This means that there is some risk involved in forex currency trading as in any business but you might and should, take steps to minimise this. You can always set a limit to the downside of any trade, that means to define the maximum loss that you are prepared to accept if the market goes against you – and it will on occasions.
The best insurance against losing your shirt on the forex market is to set out to understand what you’re doing totally. Search the internet for a good forex trading tutorial and study it in detail- a bit of good forex education can go a long way!. When there’s bits you don’t understand, look for a good forex trading forum and ask lots and lots of questions. Many of the people who habitually answer your queries on this will have a good forex trading blog and this will probably not only give you answers to your questions but also provide lots of links to good sites. Be vigilant, however, watch out for forex trading scams. Don’t be too quick to part with your money and investigate anything very well before you shell out any hard-earned!
The forex Trading Systems
While you may be right in being cautious about any forex trading system that’s advertised, there are some good ones around. Most of them either utilise forex charts and by means of these, identify forex trading signals which tell the trader when to buy or sell. These signals will be made up of a particular change in a forex rate or a trend and these will have been devised by a forex trader who has studied long-term trends in the market so as to identify valid signals when they occur. Many of the systems will use forex trading software which identifies such signals from data inputs which are gathered automatically from market information sources. Some utilise automated forex trading software which can trigger trades automatically when the signals tell it to do so. If these sound too good to be true to you, look around for online forex trading systems which will allow you undertake some dummy trading to test them out. by doing this you can get some forex trading training by giving them a spin before you put real money on the table.
How Much do you Need to Start off with?
This is a bit of a ‘How long is a piece of string?’ question but there are ways for to be beginner to dip a toe into the water without needing a fortune to start with. The minimum trading size for most trades on forex is usually 100,000 units of any currency and this volume is referred to as a standard “lot”. However, there are many firms which offer the facility to purchase in dramatically-smaller lots than this and a bit of internet searching will soon locate these. There’s many adverts quoting only a couple of hundred dollars to get going! You will often see the term acciones trading forex and this is just a general term which covers the small guy trading forex. Small-scale trading facilities such as these are often called as forex mini trading.
Where do You Start?
The single most obvious answer is of course – on the internet! Online forex trading gives you direct access to the forex market and there’s lots and lots of companies out there who are in business just to deal with you online. Be vigilant, do spend the time to get some good forex trading education, again this can be provided online and set up your dummy account to trade before you attempt to go live. If you take care and take your time, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be successful in forex trading so, have patience and stick at it!
Author: Philippa Holmes
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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