2013 IN REVIEW

Thank god we can enjoy this 2013 beautifully! 2013 is very special to me, because Allah granted all my wishes. What about you guys? I hope you get what you want for this year. BTW, I have some momentous moments for 2013 that I will never forget. Here they are:

SPORT

Bayern Munich was at the best performance! They grabbed treble winner (Bundesliga, UEFA Champions league, & DFB Pokal) and brought UEFA Super Cup home. It's not over, in December, they won FIFA Club World Cup 2013 in Morocco after destroying Raja Casablanca 2-0.

Barcelona, Manchester United, Paris Saint-German (PSG), Juventus, and Ajax Amsterdam finished at the top of league table season 2012/2013.

Atletico Madrid, Wigan, SS Lazio, Bordeaux, and AZ Alkmaar won the league cup.

This year was the saddest moment in soccer world; David Beckham, Jamie Carragher, Sylvain Petrov, Michael Owen, Deco, Jupp Heynckness, and Sir Alex Ferguson retired. FYI, I've been happy watching their skill for years, yes, they made my childhood fascinating.

BRAZIL was the host of Confederation Cup 2013. They beat Spain in final 3-0 as Neymar was the best player of the competition.

Persipura Jayapura was the best team in Indonesia Super League 2013.

Miami Heat won the NBA season 2013 after beating San Antonio Spurs.

Sebastian Vettel is  the youngest F1 racer ever to win the season 4 times within 6 years, how amazing!

Lance Armstrong, the greatest TOUR DE FRANCE biker, admitted his doping scandal during his participation in competition. This case turned his best career into worst one.

Rafael "King of Clay" Nadal and Serena Williams were ranked no.1 in World Tennis Ranking.

Andy Murray won Wimbledon Championship and was the first British to win it since 1936.

SEA GAMES, a biennal multi-sport event, was held in Myanmar and will be in Singapore the next two years. Indonesia took home all the gold medals in badminton of SEA GAMES 2013 Myanmar.

Tantowi-Liliyana defended their title at the All England Cup 2013.

Ahsan and Hendra grabbed the WBF Championship 2013 in Guangzhou, China,so did Tantowi and Liliyana.

Marc Marquez succeeded to be the first rookie who win MOTO GP (2013).

Chris John retired as a professional Indonesian boxer after lost against Simpiwe Vetyeka from South Africa.

INTERNATIONAL

In the beginning of 2013, Barrack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of US.

Park Geun-Hye became South  Korea's first woman president.

Hugo Chavez, Margaret Tatcher, and Nelson Mandela died. They had been a great leader this century.

Maduro was the new president of Venezuela replacing Chavez. 

Salam Fayyad, Palestine's Prime Minister since 2007 resigned and was succeeded by Rami Hamdallah. Hamdallah firstly tendered his resignation two weeks after he occupied the position. But then, he returned to his position.

BOSTON BOMBING shocked the marathon participants and caused 3 people died.

Kaesong Industrial Region, a collaborative economic development between Korea DPR and South Korea, was closed as the tension between them grew. On 16 September, this area was reopened.

Military coup d'etat happened in Egypt with President Morsi as a victim. It's just getting worse just like Syria crisis. The UN even made a thorough investigation of a biologist weapon used in Syrian civil war.

Typhoon Haiyan hit Phillipines and left thousands people died.

My Chemical Romance, an American Rock Band, broke up on arch this year. But don't worry! There will be the last great album from them in 2014.

Meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk, Russia and luckily there aren't casualties.

Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed killing thousands people.

Demonstrators (Protester) struck for insisting on Yingluck Shinawatra to resign. As a consequence, election was held earlier.

Tony Abbot was elected as the Prime Minister of Australia.

Pope Benedict XVI resigned and was succeeded by Pope Francis from Argentina. He became the first non-European Pope since Pope Gregory III, 1272 years earlier.

US Government shutdown due to an argument between Republican (House of Representative) and Democratic Senate in an effort to bring the "Obamacare" passing the Senate and the House. 

Willem-Alexander became the king of Netherland this year.

Rouhani was elected as the president of Iran, preceded by Ahmadinejad.

Edward Snowden, a former CIA and NSA employee, began to reveal the classified NSA documents to several media. 

Obama shook Raul Castro's hand at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela.

Paul Walker, main actor of Fast and Furious series, died because of car accident.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, developer of AK-47, died on December 23th.

INDONESIA

I don't know what to say, this year full of corruption and bribery scandal. The Supreme Court, the governor, politicians, and bankers are involved in this case, what a shame!

Sinabung, a volcano in Sumatera, errupted and made the refugees celebrate the christmas in camp.

Australia was claimed  taping Indonesian government's phone.

Lion Air crashed in Denpasar, Bali. The plane crashed into shallow coastal sea and broken into two parts. There aren't casualties.

Batavia went bankrupt in the beginning of this year.

The 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting was held in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia.

image source:
sport.detik.com
themotorreport.com
www.wallgiv.com
www.minnpost.com
telegraph.co.uk
nationalpost.com
lionsevents2013.com
washingtonpost.com
tribunnews.com

theborneopost.com
dunia.news.viva.com

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US NFP of 2013: What Will December Be?

As we know. US Non-Farm Payroll is one of the most used indicator to predict the movement of a pair for its effectiveness. Since 2013 comes to the end, I'd like to review the series of 2013 US NFP data and the relation to USD value.
 

First, let’s make a chart of  NFP data along this 2013. Based what I got from fxstreet.com:

Jan	119k
Feb	268k
Mar	138k
Apr	165k
May	176k
Jun	188k
Jul	104k
Aug	193k
Sep	180k
Oct	163k
Nov	204k

Some of 2013 happenings can be interpreted to measure the change of US Dollar; stimulus cut-off, tax relief cut-off, balance of payment deficit, government shut-down, etc. that put the US Dollar in worse state. No wonder if EUR and GBP gets stronger against USD this year.

The Number of NFP Data couldn’t touch 200k anymore since February data release. Luckily, November gave a big smile for USD to move up. That’s why Indonesian Rupiah got worse against USD. If we assume that Christmas and New Year holiday can relieve the number of unemployment, then we could be optimistic USD will raise and December NFP Data as well.

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WELCOME TO ISLAMIC ECONOMIC ERA

This month I bring you a good news from my beloved Yogyakarta. Yes, in the end of the Islamic Economic Seminar in UNY, Yogyakarta, we believe that someday Indonesia will reach the islamic economic era. As we know, this economic policy won't allow you to bring interest in the system that will give us the best service in controlling financial health (it's true).

On September 22nd 2013, UNY held one of the greatest Islamic economic seminar in Yogyakarta. This hopefully represented the new Indonesia economic movement. Mr. Dumairy and Mr. Masyhudi attended as a speaker. They emphasized that sharia economic had to be put in our daily economic activity. Unfortunately, the government still limit the number of national project which is held by sharia bank. That's why sharia banking doesn't grow fast.

Based on why happened in 1998, When Indonesia was engulfed by the global economic crisis, when the overall Indonesia banking were collapsed, BANK MUAMALAT, as the first "pure" sharia bank in Indonesia, still stood upright, like no others. It was a proof that sharia banking would always be operational even if crisis struck.

Well, all we can hope is, sharia economic system will have a significant role in developing Indonesia. Indonesia is a country with the largest number of moslem. So, there's no doubt to make it possible.

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WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, RUPIAH?

It's been a great news recently. Rupiah, Indonesia's beloved currency, is devaluing against Dollar. Rupiah touched Rp 11.200,- against Dollar several days ago. I'm afraid that 2008 global crisis will happen again when Rupiah even touched Rp 12.000,- . Some said it was because US in good economic state that make Asia in poor economic state especially South East Asia. But the point is, Indonesia still import too many goods.

So, what effects could be made by the depressing Rupiah?

1. The price of all imported goods definitely rise; cars, computers and other gadgets, and even most of daily basic needs.
2. Indonesia Stock Exchange is also devaluing.
3. Indonesia import several raw materials. The price moves up then.
4. With expensive raw material, producitivity decreases.
5. Productivity decreases, the number of unemployment rises.
6. Rising bank rate may possibly increases the number of Non Performing Loan.

Finally, the government has made some solutions such as:
- Encourage all councillors to exchange their dollar to Rupiah.
- Tell the Bank Indonesia to increase the bank rate.
- Less import, More export. The government give additional deduction tax for certain exporter.
- Add more tax for imported goods.

In my opinion, we should be more productive. I've been planting chilli on my own to prove that we can still be productive. I know it's too naive. But if we all can plant at least, one of our daily basic needs, it means we depend on imported goods no more. Well, we hope the best for our country so we've got to do the best, too.

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HOW I USE EXPONENTIAL MOVING AVERAGE

Forex Trading Tips

part 8

Have a good experience with the latest NFP data release? Yupp, it's the end of July. So, prepare yourself to keep up to date with the NFP data release every first Friday of the month. There are so many websites provoding the NFP data that you can learn it to gain the next profit.

What I want to explain here is about Exponential Moving Average (EMA). Using EMA gives us more detailed data than using Simple Moving Average (SMA). Well, Moving Average is one of the most popular indicator used by traders. The point is, Moving Average displays the mean of a pair's movement in a certain period.

EMA consists of several numbers such as EMA-10, EMA-20, or even EMA-100. It doesn't matter if you don't know what the number means. I'd like to emphasize that the combination between EMA-10 and EMA-20 can give us a good conclusion. When EMA-10 moves beneath the EMA-20, and the 10 crosses the 20 above, then it indicates the price of a pairs is moving up. For example, look at the picture below!

The pair of GBP/USD (June 6th-8th 2013) was moving up so high. As we knew before, EMA-10 rose, crossing up the EMA-20 from below.

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HOW TO GAIN PROFIT BY READING NFP (Forex Trading Tips part 7)

It's a data released monthly by the US Department of Labor as part of a comprehensive report on the state of the labor market. It's a kind of economic indicator. Traders are always waiting for the release. Just keep your eyes open! They release NFP data every first friday of the month. NFP will  be represented as number which means the number of jobs added or lost in the economy over the last month, not including jobs relating to the farming industry.

NFP is an influantial indicator: Wikipedia tells us that increases in employment means both that businesses are hiring which means  they are growing and that those newly employed people have money to spend on goods and services, further fueling growth. The opposite of this is true for decreases in employment.

When the NFP's change is positive, USD will get stronger against all of the currencies. As we know if USD gets stronger, then EUR/USD will fall for instance. So, if the economists forecast that NFP will rise, why don't you sell the EUR/USD? But sometimes NFP has a negative change. We must buy EUR/USD, GBP/USD, etc. immediately to gain profit. Look at the picture above! That's the GBP/USD movement from June 6th to 8th. June 7th was Friday and based on US Bureau of Labor Statistic,  Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 175,000 in May 2013. After GBP got stronger (rose highly against USD), it suddenly moved down by the time the NFP was released.

Well guys, I remind you. This is the end if June, and July will come soon. So, prepare yourself to keep finding the news about the next released NFP. They'll release the news on July  5th at 8.30 (US time). Have a nice trading!

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LET'S TRADE, LET'S BUILD OUR FUTURE! Forex Trading Tips Part 6

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Hello guys, how is your forex? Any progress? And are you interested in investing in other instruments? Well, I hope you have a good experience in forex trading. Challenge yourself, buddy!

So now, let's discuss about technical analysis! FYI, this analysis is often called as charting because we use chart in analyzing the price movement. On previous method, I explained you that Fundamental analysis was good for long term trading, While technical analysis is very good for short term trading (depends on the timeframe you use).

Based on Wikipedia, technical analysis is a security analysis discipline used for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. Analyzing technically means, you use several indicators then combine them. And what are the indicators? Below are some indicators I usually use:

1. Exponential Moving Average
Exponential Moving Average (EMA) is also known as Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA).
I set 2 EMAs for 10 and 20 respectively. This is how to read these 2 EMAs:

-If EMA 10 intersects EMA 20 undereneath, it indicates that the price will move up immediately. The conclusion is we must buy the pair.
-If EMA 10 intersects EMA 20 from above, it indicates that the price will sink. Therefore you should sell the pair to gain profit.

EMA works effectively for short term trading. Look at the picture below!

I draw a light blue circle for EMA 20 and I draw the brown one for EMA 10. As you can see, the EMA 10 intersects the 20 from beneath (4/ 19/ 2013, 7:15 AM) and the result is, the NZD/USD pair moves up which means NZD gets stronger against USD.

2. Bollinger Bands
This indicator was created by John Bollinger in 1980s. This indicator consists of two "bands", those are Upper and lower band. This is how to read Bollinger Bands:
- The price is high when it touches the upper band
- The price is low when it touches the lower band
- When the price breaks the upper band it means the pair is overbought, and it usually will go back in the bands. So, it's time to sell the pair.
- On the other hand, when the price breaks the lower band, the pair is oversold. So, it will be good if you buy the pair.
The point is, whenever the price breaks the bands, it will always go back to "get inside".
But, Bollinger Band is still inaccurate. You can see the picture below.

The circled lines are the bollinger bands (upper and lower). We know that the price will always go back to the inner band, but we still can't recognize the trend if we don't combine bollinger with other indicators.

3. Money Flow Index
According to a source, Money Flow Index (MFI) is an oscillator that uses both price and volume (of transaction) to measure buying and selling pressure. This indicator is created by Gene Quong and Avrum Soudack. MFI can be interpreted easily although it's not too accurate. Overbought happens when MFI >80. Conversely, Oversold happens when MFI <80. But, overbought doesn't always mean that the price will be going down straigth away and neither does oversold. The MFI will be shown in this picture:

You can see that the green line of MFI will move in line with the price's movement. Just move the cursor to the MFI line and the number will be shown whenever you point the cursor to line.

4. Momentum

It's quite easy to interpret Momentum. The price is in high performance when Momentum is above 0 or positive. Look at the picture above! The picture shows that GBP is going up against USD (April, 25th 2013) and when I point the cursor to the Momentum (yellow line), you can see that the number is 1.12. It means the pairs is moving so high! You'll get profit if you set a buy place for GBP/USD.

All we have to do is to combine them all to get the best conclusion whether to buy or sell. Remember, guys! Both fundamental and technical analysis are not 100% accurate. But I suggest you to keep up to date with the fundamental outlook. I hope you get what you want in forex trading.

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WHY DO WE SHOULD INVEST IN GOLD?

image source: plazadinar.com

Gold! One of the most popular investment instrument and it's zero-inflation! It means, inflation can't "eat" your money if you invest it in gold. As we know, money keeps devaluing in line with the inflation rate's change. As an Indonesian, I still remember when I was in elementary school, I can buy four candies with 100 rupiahs. Now, I think we all know that we can't afford candy at such price.

Some says that gold keeps moving up when the rate of inflation rises as well. Look at the graphic below! We can see that the price of gold keeps rising year on year.

But, the price is always fluctuating actually. And based on the latest data (March 22nd) by AGEA, gold touches UDS 1613 per troy ounce.

There's one certain thing you have to know. "Troy ounce" is a international standard unit to measure the weight of gold. In Indonesia, "gram" is the standard unit to measure it and here is the formula for converting Troy Ounce to Gram: 1 Troy Ounce is equal to (approximately) 31 grams. Let's consider the price of gold is USD 1.600 per troy ounce or USD 1600 for 31 grams. If USD 1 = IDR 9700, then it will be IDR 500645 per gram.

And what are the types of traded gold?

1. Dinar gold. It's the most expensive type in Indonesia.
2. Gold bar

3. Gold medal.

Does Islam let us to trade gold? YES, of course!

Islam definitely forbids us to "touch" interest (it's often called riba). Riba isn't involved in gold and forex trading, but islam will ban us to trade them if we don't receive the object in cash. Sounds simple but it's not that simple. For all moslem in whole world, all kinds of investment always have risk; economic risk and religion one.

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CONGRATULATION, NIGERIA!

 image source: image.alarabiya.net

I can say nothing but "Congratulation, Nigeria!". We know that Super Eagles was having their hard times before; Not qualified to World Cup 2006 in German, Failed in previous Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), and Nigeria got only one point in FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa.

This February has been a good month for them. As we know, Ghana and Ivory Coast were nominated for AFCON trophy. But, we all just watched the super final in February 10th between Nigeria versus Burkina Faso.

Johannesburg's Soccer City was the one of the witnesses! You know, I thought Burkina Faso would be a new champion just like Zambia in AFCON 2011. And my prediction went wrong since Sunday Mba's goal ruined Burkina Faso in first half. FYI, this AFCON trophy was the third for Nigeria.

All of this makes the "black continent" has many good teams that will be a big bomb in Brazil's World Cup 2014. I predict that Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and South Africa/ Egypt will be a great team in the next world cup. Don't forget, guys! There will be a Confederation Cup this year in Brazil and there will be 8 teams from 6 continents heating up the contest.

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LET'S TRADE, LET'S BUILD OUR FUTURE! Forex Trading Tips Part 5

FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS

Now, I'd like to tell you how to trade forex by fundamental-analyzing. Fundamental analysis is a method to analyze an economic's condition of a company based on its economic fundamental. Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statement and health, its management and competitive

advantages, and its competitors and markets.

When it's applied to forex trading, the analysis focuses on the overall states of the economy, interest rates, production, earnings, and management. Fundamental analysis is performed on historical and present data, but with the goal of making financial forecast. The point is, fundamental analysis emphasizes how to read an economic condition. Fundamental analysis for forex trading means we forecast the price movement of a pair by analyzing a country's economic condition (mostly based on the latest condition). We have to be a;ways up to date to the world's economic news.

For example, before we open a position of EUR/USD pair, we know that Eurozone's economic condition is in trouble such as the declining of the Purchasing Manager Index (PMI), so it would be better if we open EUR/USD in sell position. PMI is one of the most notable economic data because of its sentivity to inflation rate change. PMI is a report of a purchasing manager survey of a big company in big countries. Let me tell you how to use PMI. For example, if Eurozone PMI's rate is above 50, then it will indicate that the price of EUR will move up. The conclusion is we can open EUR/USD in LONG/ buy position. The rate of PMI will affect the fiscal and monetary policy and it makes PMI become one of the most popular indicator for fundamental analysis.

There is another important economic data as well as PMI. That is Nonfarm Payroll employment (NFP). It is an economic indocator released monthly by the United States Department of Labor as part of a comprehensive report on the state of the labor market. It is a compiled name for goods-producing, construction and manufacturing companies. The Bureau of Labor Statistic releases the data on the first Friday every month. The NFP number is meant to represent the number of jobs added or lost in the economy over the last month, not including jobs relating to the farming industry. NFP is much influential, it affects the US Dollar, the forex market, and the stock market.

Anybody knows how to interpret this data to forecast the price movement of a pair?

If NFP number of this month is higher than the previous month (the present data is higher than the previous one), the US Dollar will always be stronger against other currencies. So, if the number of NFP moves up, you can open EUR/USD, GBP/USD, or NZD/USD in SHORT/ Sell position while USD/JPY or USD/CAD in buy position. As we know, US is now currently facing a problem such as "fiscal cliff" or the declining the number of the latest NFP. As the result, EUR reaches the strongest point in last 6 months against EUR/USD.

There is another screenshot below, when the data of NFP was released, EUR/USD goes up!

There are more indicators actually such as Consumer Price Index (CPI), Producer Price Index (PPI), etc.

But unfortunately. I don't know much about them, and I usually use NFP data release. Just pay attention when will the data be released in a certain country or what economic policy will be made by a government.

You can see the schedule in forexfactory.com or http://www.fxstreet.com/fundamental/economic-calendar/.

Just remember, the better data, the more profit you can take from BUY position. On the contrary, the worse data, the more profit you can take from SELL position.

Good luck and have a nice trading!

Source: wikipedia.org
             Futures Monthly MIF

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