The Nonfarm Payroll Report for October 2009 showed a loss of (only) 190k jobs in the US with the unemployment rate spiking to 10.2 percent from 9.8 percent.

So, the two sides of this coin are less jobs being lost, but more people unemployed.

The report appears to have sparked some risk aversion in the forex markets with the US Dollar staging a very minor rally initially and the Yen pairs selling off.

The Federal Reserve released their monthly rate setting statement after their FOMC meeting for October 2009.

The key statement of the release was: Read more...

The CIT Group (not to be confused with CitiGroup) filed for a prepackaged bankruptcy protection before the markets opened this week.

So far reaction has been restrained and direction-less, however it’s worthwhile to note that volatility is going up as evidenced by the rise in the VIX over the past week.
Read more...

US GDP came in showing gains of 3.5 percent. The markets took this as wonderful news with the stock market reversing it’s losses from the past few days and the dollar turning around and heading downhill as risk taking came back into focus.

FXCM UK has issued a press release stating that they plan to raise margin requirements on Nov 22^nd.

The details can be obtained on the press release page of their web site.

FXCM stated that based on their business experiences in Hong Kong that they believed that traders are better off working with less leverage in the long term.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to remind people about some issues that can occur with trading on margin.

For more information on trading on margin see the following articles:

• Trading on Margin
• Extreme Leverage
• Introduction to Risk Management