I have an iPhone. I know they’re all the rage and everything, and that’s actually not the reason I got one. I got an iPhone because my boyfriend and I are on the same cell phone plan and he decided that he wanted one and I figured hey why not, I’d love to be able to check my emails and look at the internet more easily anyways, considering how often I’m online to do my various business and non business activities. I’ve found the iPhone to now be indispensable personally, like I don’t know what I did with a “regular” cell phone before this or something. Talk about victim of technology!
One of the best things of course about the iPhone and probably what has make it catch on so fast are the vast number of “apps” it has to offer. You can do everything from download fun apps that are full of sound effects, to downloading compasses that will show you where to go when you’re on some national park trail. The thing really is quite amazing, and I think it’s the invention that has sort of defined the twenty first century, I dare say! One of the other things you can do with this phone is download several different kinds of apps that will help in your quest to lose weight.
The most notable of these types of apps are the ones that help you to calculate calories. There is also one that will help you to figure out how many calories a day you are allowed if you enter in your current weight, and the amount of time you want to go by to get your desired weight. Say for example, you want to figure out how many less calories you need to consume to be able to lose ten pounds in two months. There is an app that will calculate for you how many less calories you need to eat to achieve that in that amount of time.
There are also fast food calorie counter apps, where you can find the amount of calories in a vast array of common fast foods like McDonald’s double cheeseburgers (one of my weaknesses, I must admit), pizza chains pizza, and KFC, for example. Because we don’t necessarily realize how many calories are in these foods when we are forced to get them out of convenience, then if we have an application that can tell us, it may help us to make smarter choices when we’re on the road, or at least help us come to the conclusion that fast food usually is way high in calories for what you get and for how full it keeps you.
So, not only can the phone work for you in ways that make your life much simpler and much more high tech and information getting, it can also help you in your weight loss goals by providing you with the tools you need to make the right decisions when it comes to your diet. Hey, they probably even have exercise apps to help you out with that part of losing weight too!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Forex - Summer Trading Technique!
In the summer, all financial markets havea tendency to die down and become more calm. Why? Because the very biggest of traders tend to take long summer vacations. In fact, many of the biggest traders may be out the entire summer (in stocks, forex, etc.). They will leave only “junior traders” on their trading desks which don’t have the authority to throw around the big bucks.Therefore, the markets in the summer (FX included) tends to be somewhat range bound. Therefore, I’d suggest taking this approach. Buy fundamentally strong currencies on pull backs and earn their higher yields daily while playing only the “long” side of the range. That way, if you get a breakout in the direction of the major uptrend, you’re still in the game and never counter to it. So being a buyer of AUD/USD or AUD/JPY for instance, on its pull backs could be a way to play this.
Forex - British Pound “Pauses for Breath” [Part 1 of 2]
After a nearly 20% rise against the Dollar, the British Pound has been rangebound for nearly the entire month of June, with one columnist likening the situation to a “pause for breath.” For him, this amounts to a temporary cessation on the Pound’s inevitable upward path: “Compared to long term levels, the pound was still better value than its peers. He said: ‘It’s still cheap - about 10% below it’s trade-weighted average at present.’ ” For others analysts, however, the picture is not so cut-and-dried.
Forgetting about purchasing power parity for a minute, there are numerous factors which could halt the Pound’s rise. First and foremost is the British economy, which is still struggling to find its feet. “The U.K. economy will recover ‘mildly’ next year, according to the OECD, compared with a previous projection of a 0.2 percent contraction. Gross domestic product will drop 4.3 percent this year, versus a March forecast of 3.7 percent.”
Some economic indicators have begun to stabilize, but the two most important sectors, housing and finance, are still wobbly. Economists warn that “any recovery could be slow and uneven because banks are still unwilling to pump loans into the economy.” In the latest month for which data is available, mortgage lending slowed to a record low, with consumer lending not far behind. With regard to housing,”The annual fall in house prices in England and Wales slowed for a third consecutive month in June, according to property data company Hometrack, but prices were still 8.7 percent lower than a year ago.”
There is the possibility that the BOE’s quantitative easing plan and the government’s fiscal stimulus will provide the economy with the boost it needs. At the same time, both programs will have to be reined at some point, sooner rather than later in the case of government spending. With UK national debt predicted to reach 90% of GDP by 2010, “Most people - the prime minister excepted, apparently - believe that taxes will have to rise and/or public spending fall after the next election. This would at least threaten to hold back economic activity.” Not to mention that both QE and government spending could actually backfire and generate inflation without economic growth (i.e. stagflation). BOE Governor Mervyn King captured this overall sentiment, when he said, “I feel more uncertain now than ever. This is not the pattern of a recession coming into recovery that we’ve seen since the 1930s.”
In short, from a purely economic standpoint, it doesn’t look good for the Pound Sterling. But of course forex is about much more than GDP…stay tuned for Part 2, in which I’ll elaborate on this point, and bring interest rates and inflation into the discussion.
Forgetting about purchasing power parity for a minute, there are numerous factors which could halt the Pound’s rise. First and foremost is the British economy, which is still struggling to find its feet. “The U.K. economy will recover ‘mildly’ next year, according to the OECD, compared with a previous projection of a 0.2 percent contraction. Gross domestic product will drop 4.3 percent this year, versus a March forecast of 3.7 percent.”
Some economic indicators have begun to stabilize, but the two most important sectors, housing and finance, are still wobbly. Economists warn that “any recovery could be slow and uneven because banks are still unwilling to pump loans into the economy.” In the latest month for which data is available, mortgage lending slowed to a record low, with consumer lending not far behind. With regard to housing,”The annual fall in house prices in England and Wales slowed for a third consecutive month in June, according to property data company Hometrack, but prices were still 8.7 percent lower than a year ago.”
There is the possibility that the BOE’s quantitative easing plan and the government’s fiscal stimulus will provide the economy with the boost it needs. At the same time, both programs will have to be reined at some point, sooner rather than later in the case of government spending. With UK national debt predicted to reach 90% of GDP by 2010, “Most people - the prime minister excepted, apparently - believe that taxes will have to rise and/or public spending fall after the next election. This would at least threaten to hold back economic activity.” Not to mention that both QE and government spending could actually backfire and generate inflation without economic growth (i.e. stagflation). BOE Governor Mervyn King captured this overall sentiment, when he said, “I feel more uncertain now than ever. This is not the pattern of a recession coming into recovery that we’ve seen since the 1930s.”
In short, from a purely economic standpoint, it doesn’t look good for the Pound Sterling. But of course forex is about much more than GDP…stay tuned for Part 2, in which I’ll elaborate on this point, and bring interest rates and inflation into the discussion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
