Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The importance of technology in the Forex broker selection process | SIGMAFOREX




There are approximately 100 forex brokers worldwide -40 of which reach to international audiences and the rest concentrates on domestic markets. This forex broker mix is now enhanced by major banks that are partnering with established forex brokers.

Clearly, as the number of participants grow the forex broker choice gets tougher.

The competitive forex broker landscape showcases firms highlighting their perceived strengths and what (broker firms perceive) traders wish to hear: broker financial strength, technology prowess, great customer service, and the list goes on. But what are the hot buttons of forex traders nowadays and is technology one of them?

To answer those questions, SIGMAFOREX partnered to conduct a special study. The results were also complemented by market research Forex Datasource had generated previously.

Sigma Forex provide completely answer for the most popular frequently asked questions to help and clarify frequent areas of confusion.

You are not going to search for any question, all FAQs are divided into eight parts to make it more easy & specific. Just click on the field that you are seeking help in it & you will find the most common questions with full answer.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Debit consolidation in UK

Guaranteed Instant Decision Debt Consolidation for UK Homeowners!

If you are a borrower looking out for a cheap debt consolidation loan, you can benefit immensely by availing a cheap debt consolidation loan. This type of loan is most suitable for those borrowers who are overburdened with innumerable debts. A cheap debt consolidation loan replaces several loans with a single loan. It helps a borrower reorganize his debts by consolidating various debts into one. One can avail a cheap debt consolidation loan with a lower monthly payment and longer repayment duration.

As the name suggest, one can avail this type of loan at a cheaper rate of interest. You can manage multiple debts with a single loan at a favourable rate of interest. It helps you to reduce your debts instantly.
If you have multiple debts to manage and insufficient funds to match, it can be a tough situation for you. The situation can get worse if you don’t have sufficient assets to pledge as collateral against the loan amount. However, there is a way out of it. Yes, now with the help of unsecured debt consolidation, you can avail loans without pledging any collateral. It reduces the burden of the borrower to a large extent.
An unsecured debt consolidation loan enables a borrower to get rid off multiple debts. Even a tenant and non home owner can benefit with the help of this type of loan. Since, on can consolidate the multiple debts with the help of this loan, you are saved of all the hassles you would otherwise have to go through.
Having a bad credit history can affect your chances of availing loans quickly. Bad credit debt consolidation loans offer a ray of hope to such borrowers. These loans enable them to avail loans despite a bad credit history. No sooner the loan is approved; the borrower can start rebuilding his credit history and also improve his financial situation.
Guaranteed Debt Consolidation
A bad credit debt consolidation loan enables a borrower to avail the following benefits:
• Improve the credit score • Better your financial status • Get over bankruptcy

• Avail loans at a lower rate of interest

A guaranteed debt consolidation loan enables a both a non homeowner and bad credit holder avail loans easily. A bad credit holder can choose from either a secured guaranteed debt consolidation or an unsecured guaranteed debt consolidation, whichever suits his needs best. One can even apply online for a guaranteed debt consolidation. Applying online helps a borrower avail the loan instantly. It saves a lot of time and helps avoid the unnecessary hassles.


[Sigma Forex Practice Accounts]

Learn And Develop your trading skills with Sigma platform!

A Free practice account is a great way to experience the Forex market without risking any money.

For Novice Traders
For those who did not trade in the forex market before can get accustomed to following a market, and open themselves to a whole new way to invest, and it also gives them the chance to understand how the trading platform works.

For Regular Traders
For those who are familliar with trading in forex market, a practice account can help them to get use to the particular characteristics of the Forex market or our trading platform.

For Experienced and Professional Traders
A practice account can even help experienced and professional traders as they can test and practice their trading strategies without risking capital.
Generally the Demo Account has the same capabilities of the real account, the only difference between them is that the real account is with real money and the practice account is with virtual money.

Open Now A Free $ 500'000 Account With Sigma Forex and discover a whole new way to invest.
Sigma Account allow you to open Micro, Mini and Standard lot through only one account and trade in Forex Market
In order to register for a practice account, please Download Sigma Forex Platform and open new account as illustrated below and you will have unlimited access to our Platform for the next 30-days.

If you have any problem regarding Sigma Practice Account you can see User Guides or click on the Live Chat button on the right menu and our customer support staff will help you through the process.

The Currency Converter

Pound Sterling is the currency in Channel Islands (Aldernay, Guernsey, Jersey, Sark), Isle of Man, and United Kingdom (England, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, UK, GB, GBR). Pound Sterling is also known as the British Pound, the United Kingdom Pound, UKP, STG, the English Pound, British Pound Sterling, BPS, and Sterlings. The symbol for GBP can be written £. Pound Sterling is divided into 100 pence. The exchange rate for the Pound Sterling was last updated on February 2, 2009 from The International Monetary Fund. The GBP conversion factor has 6 significant digits.

The South African Rand is the currency in South Africa (ZA, ZAF). The South African Rand is also known as Rands. The symbol for ZAR can be written R. The South African Rand is divided into 100 cents. The exchange rate for the South African Rand was last updated on February 2, 2009 from The International Monetary Fund. The ZAR conversion factor has 6 significant digits.


[Sigma Services]


As a professional online trading service Sigma strives to give an eminent beyond comparison of professional and individualized trading services, Sigma also provides several facilities for all kinds of traders.
Sigma helps private and institutional clients achieve their trading goals by offering an inclusive forex trading package, along with the state-of-art trading platform, real-time news and wireless access. We relegate to meeting and exceeding our customers' expectations with the utmost professionalism and integrity.

Sigma provides appropriate services satisfying the needs of all business partners’ specified requirements. A client's profit is our success and a client's loss is a significant call of action for us, we consider every client as a special case and a partner.
Sigma's Customer Support is our business core, as we provide 24/7 customer support. We keep in touch with all our clients to make sure that we are on the right pass.

Open Live Account
Open Demo Account

The history of the Euro

The development of the Euro originates from the preamble of The Treaty of Rome. In 1957, the Treaty aimed to achieve "an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe" by creating a unified European common market with economic prosperity. This goal was furthered by the Single European Act (1986) and the European Union Maastricht Treaty (1992), which introduced the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with the ultimate aim of introducing a single currency. This occurred in December 1995 at an EU summit in Madrid when the dates to introduce the single monetary unit were fixed.

On January 1, 1999 the Euro became the official currency for more than 300 million people in Europe. It was first introduced as an accounting or electronic currency in 2001 (ECU), and in 2002 became legal tender in 12 EU member states. Within the next few months participating countries phased out their existing currencies - and for the most part the transition was smooth. Based on the market rates of 31 December 1998, the Council of the European Union set the conversion rates for one € equal to:

1.95583 German marks
6.55957 French francs
1936.27 Italian lira
166.386 Spanish pesetas
200.482 Portuguese escudos
5.94573 Finnish markka
0.787564 Irish punts
40.3399 Belgian/Luxembourg francs
2.20371 Dutch guilders
13.7603 Austrian schillings
340.750 Greek drachmas
The European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt controls the Euro monetary policy, while the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) is responsible for printing, minting, and distributing the currency. The Eurosystem is composed of the ECB and the national banks of the 12 participating EU countries. The ECB aims to maintain stability of the Euro, ensure growth and keep inflation low.

Participating Members:
The Euro is currently the official currency in 13 countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Together they form the Eurozone, which is also known as 'euroland' or the 'euro group'. The Eurozone's overseas territories of French Guiana, Réunion, Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Mayotte have also adopted the Euro as their legal currency. Non-EU member state Montenegro, the principality of Andorra, and the UN administered province of Kosovo have also adopted the Euro as their currency.
EU member states, Sweden, Denmark and The UK have, however, chosen not to adopt the Euro - Britain and Denmark negotiated an opt-out clause from the single currency and Sweden rejected the Euro in a referendum in 2003. The other more recent members to join the EU in 2004 are expected to switch over to the Euro between 2007 and 2012. Slovenia was the first to do so in January 2007.



[Why Sigma]


  1. Lowest spreads in the forex market, No other broker offers such competitive spreads .
  2. Sigma is the only broker that allows you to customize your trading account as you wish.
  3. Maintaining the security of your money is a major objective at Sigma.
  4. Our devotion to our clients has made our firm a respected industry leader, that we have a strong commitment to maintain a long term relationship with our clients.
  5. Low margin requirement.
  6. Full Hedging capabilities.
  7. Sigma is a registered financial institution, and registered with the European registration authorities. The regulations set out into notice by these agencies are created to help ensure the safety of our clients’ deposits.
  8. We maintain enough liquid capital to meet the needs of the amount required to cover all client deposits, potential shift back and forth in the firm’s currency positions and outstanding expenses.
  9. We put forward our financial information to regulatory bodies on a weekly and monthly basis.
  10. In addition to all the above, Sigma holds all deposits with only highly reputable financial institutions. We are appreciate the trust of our clients place in us.

The wonderful world of two-term recurrences

The Fibonacci and Lucas sequences are elements of R(1, 1), and many of their properties
follow immediately from the recursive rule that each term is the sum of the two
preceding terms. Similarly, it is often easy to establish corresponding properties for elements
ofR(a, b) directly from the fundamental identity (1). For example, in R(1, 1),
the Sum of Squares identity is
F2
1 + F2
2 +・ ・ ・+ F2
n = FnFn+1.
The generalization of this to R(a, b) is
bnF2
0 + bn−1F2
1 +・ ・ ・+bF2
n−1 + F2
n =
FnFn+1
a
. (2)
This can be proved quite easily using (1) and induction.
VOL. 76, NO. 3, JUNE 2003 171
Many of the other famous properties can likewise be established by induction. But
to provide more insight about these properties, we will develop some analytic methods,
organized loosely into three general contexts. First, we can think of R(a, b) as a subset
of R∞, the real vector space of real sequences, and use the machinery of difference
operators. Second, by deriving Binet formulas for elements of R(a, b), we obtain explicit
representations as linear combinations of geometric progressions. Finally, there
is a natural matrix formulation which is tremendously useful.We explore each of these
contexts in turn.
Difference operators We will typically represent elements of R∞ with uppercase
roman letters, in the form
A = A0, A1, A2, . . . .
There are three fundamental linear operators on R∞ to consider. The first is the leftshift,
. For any real sequence A = A0, A1, A2, . . . , the shifted sequence is A = A1, A2, A3, . . . .
This shift operator is a kind of discrete differential operator. Recurrences like (1)
are also called difference equations. Expressed in terms of , (1) becomes
( 2 − a − b)A = 0.
This is analogous to expressing a differential equation in terms of the differential operator,
and there is a theory of difference equations that perfectly mirrors the theory
of differential equations. Here, we have in mind linear constant coefficient differential
and difference equations.
As one fruit of this parallel theory, we see at once that 2 − a − b is a linear
operator on R∞, and that R(a, b) is its null space. This shows that R(a, b) is a subspace
of R∞. We will discuss another aspect of the parallel theories of difference and
differential equation in the succeeding section on Binet formulas.
Note that any polynomial in is a linear operator on R∞, and that all of these operators
commute. For example, the forward difference operator , defined by (A)k = Ak+1 − Ak, is given by = − 1. Similarly, consider the k-term sum, _k, defined
by (_k A)n = An + An+1 + ・ ・ ・ + An+k−1. To illustrate, _2(A) is the sequence A0 + A1, A1 + A2, A2 + A3, . . . . These sum operators can also be viewed as polynomials
in : _k = 1 + + 2 +・ ・ ・+ k−1.
Because these operators commute with , they are operators onR(a, b), as well. In
general, if _ is an operator that commutes with , we observe that _ also commutes
with 2 − a − b. Thus, if A ∈ R(a, b), then ( 2 − a − b)_ A = _( 2 − a − b)A = _0 = 0. This shows that _A ∈ R(a, b). In particular, R(a, b) is closed under
differences and k-term sums.


[Sigma Contract Specification]

Sigma Forex provide the clients with the lowest spreads in Forex Market for the most traded pairs and Forex spots.

Trading Hours
Sigma Dealing Room operate 24/5 from Sunday 23:00 CET until Friday 23.00 CET.
You Can contact us directly: + 41 435 004 145

Margin Requirements
The margin requirements must be respected by Friday at 23:00 GMT and before holidays.
One of our dealers will contact you if you are below your margin requirements at that time. Your margin requirements will depend on the client's account equity. However, if you approach the level where the loss of your open positions approaches the balance of your account, you will be stopped out and your positions will be closed. Stop positions will be executed when there is only around 50% equity of the required margin left in your account.

Streamline Dealing
Clients will not suffer Price Re-Quote that you can buy and sell directly on real-time prices without a request for quote (RFQ).
Clients taking advantage of wrong price quotes in the Market Watch will be requoted.
Sigma Forex effort is taken to ensure correct pricing at all times. However, there are rare circumstances when wrong prices are given.

Stop Order Execution
Volatile market conditions can result in prices gapping, which may prevent the execution of stop orders (sell stop, buy stop, stop loss) at the price you initially requested. However, our dealers strive to execute all stop orders at the price, or failing that, at the best attainable rate the market allows.

Lot Types
Sigma Forex has generated an ultimate account type that allow you to trade Standard, Mini and Micro lot in the same account which is Sigma Account to make it more simple and easy for traders.

Multi Currency Denomination

Sigma offers the ability to set-up accounts denominated in the following currencies:

• United States dollar (USD)
• Euro (EUR)
• Great Britain pound (GBP)
• Australian dollar (AUD)
• Swiss Frank (CHF)

There is no minimum deposit for opening an account, in order to review the spreads, pip value & margin requirement choose the required pair, leverage & the lot type.

If you have any problem regarding Sigma Contract Specification click on the Live Chat button on the right hand side and our customer support staff will help you through the process.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Bye, Bye, Petro-Czars

There is one silver lining to the global recession: The economic and political fortunes of America’s oil-rich antagonists have been tarnished, Rana Foroohar writes in Newsweek. Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez have all been humbled by the falling price of oil, which has plummeted to $37 a barrel from from $147 last summer.

“High oil prices and oil wealth reshaped geopolitics,” said one expert. “Now we’re seeing the reversal of all that,” including diplomatic openness to “imperial” America and the possible sacking of Ahmadinejad and Chávez. Concludes Foroohar: Recession presents “the opportunity to exploit the even more glaring weaknesses of one’s rivals, to talk to enemies whose problems at home open them to compromise.”

[SigmaForex Partnership Services]


Overall View:

Sigma helps a various groups of partners around the world to enlarge their business and expand the full
potential of the Forex market.
Sigma’s services include:

Introducing Brokers: Join our IB network and receive compensation for directing new clients to Sigma.
Money Managers: Full service trading capabilities, plus dedicated account management, client fund
administration and reporting.
White Labels: White Label Program helps fitted firms set up an online presence in the Forex industry
quickly and cost effectively.

A dedicated Partner Services team supports Sigma partners with a full range of account management services.
- Daily P&L, credits, commission allocation, etc.
- Account funding, transfers, allocations, etc.
- Customer on-boarding.

Introducing Broker.
Money Manager.
White Label.

Cold War Ends: Russia, Ukraine Settle Gas Dispute

Russia and Ukraine have settled their feisty gas dispute, allowing fuel supplies to start flowing to shivering European nations “within hours,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Both sides agreed to international teams monitoring the pipeline system in Ukraine, which Russia accuses of stealing EU gas for its own use. About 80% of the EU’s Russian gas is channeled through Ukraine.

“The longer they stay, the better it is for us, Ukraine, and European consumers,” said Russian PM Vladimir Putin. Ukraine will now resume funneling Russian gas to the EU, but remains locked in a price dispute over its own domestic consumption. The rift has particularly devastated Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, as wintry temps forced schools and factories to close.


[Sigma Forex Practice Accounts]

Learn And Develop your trading skills with Sigma platform!

A Free practice account is a great way to experience the Forex market without risking any money.

For Novice Traders
For those who did not trade in the forex market before can get accustomed to following a market, and open themselves to a whole new way to invest, and it also gives them the chance to understand how the trading platform works.

For Regular Traders
For those who are familliar with trading in forex market, a practice account can help them to get use to the particular characteristics of the Forex market or our trading platform.

For Experienced and Professional Traders
A practice account can even help experienced and professional traders as they can test and practice their trading strategies without risking capital.
Generally the Demo Account has the same capabilities of the real account, the only difference between them is that the real account is with real money and the practice account is with virtual money.

Open Now A Free $ 500'000 Account With Sigma Forex and discover a whole new way to invest.
Sigma Account allow you to open Micro, Mini and Standard lot through only one account and trade in Forex Market
In order to register for a practice account, please Download Sigma Forex Platform and open new account as illustrated below and you will have unlimited access to our Platform for the next 30-days.

If you have any problem regarding Sigma Practice Account you can see User Guides or click on the Live Chat button on the right menu and our customer support staff will help you through the process.

Power, politics fuels Russia-Ukraine war

More than a week after Russia halted natural gas shipments to Europe through Ukraine, about one-fifth of Europe's supplies remains hostage to a conflict that goes far beyond energy prices.
While the dispute has commercial roots, it is revealing itself increasingly to be a political struggle rooted in Ukraine's embrace of the West, domestic politics on both sides, and the Kremlin's ambition to expand its role as an energy superpower.
So far neither side seems in a hurry to resolve the crisis, which has crippled parts of eastern Europe particularly. Instead, each may be jockeying for long-term advantage in a high-stakes confrontation that could reorder Europe's energy grid.

Negotiations broke down Dec. 31, leading Russia's Gazprom to cut off the delivery of gas intended for Ukraine's domestic consumption the next day. Gazprom cut off all shipments through Ukraine to Europe a week later, claiming Ukraine was siphoning gas that had been meant to transit its territory westward to Europe.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has taken a tough line on negotiations — demanding Ukraine's Naftogaz pay Russia the same as far wealthier western European customers, publicly accusing Ukrainian officials of corruption and refusing to ship gas without a contract.
Efforts by the European Union to mediate the dispute have resulted in frustration and confusion. An agreement collapsed Tuesday just hours after gas shipments resumed — when Russia pumped 1.6 million cubic meters (56.5 million cubic feet) of gas, and then accused Ukraine of failing to ship it west.
Some in Europe see this as a heavy-handed Russian power play and Moscow meanwhile has lost significant revenue. But Europe's frustrations could play to Putin's advantage if they help to swing EU opinion in favor of Gazprom's $15 billion Nord Stream pipeline project.
That project would carry gas directly from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine and other former Soviet bloc countries that have developed frosty relations with the Kremlin since the collapse of communism.

Germany supports the project. But some European critics, including Poland, worry that it would increase the continent's reliance on Russian gas.
By playing hardball, Moscow risks spurring Europe to seek alternate sources of natural gas. But they're difficult to find. Efforts to build the so-called Nabucco pipeline to carry gas from Central Asia to Europe has had routing problems. And Russia has signed high-priced contracts with Turkmenistan, the region's main supplier.
Since the end of the Soviet era, Moscow has repeatedly pressed Kiev to sell all or part of its pipeline network. Ukrainian leaders have resisted, regarding the pipelines as their trump card in relations with an increasingly assertive Russia.
Control of the pipeline would save Russia's gas giant Gazprom at least part of the $3 billion it now pays Ukraine in annual transit fees. Last year, Ukraine bought about $8.5 billion worth of gas from Russia.

Russian control of the pipeline network would increase Moscow's economic and political influence in Ukraine, a one-time ally that has tried to forge closer ties to the West since the Orange Revolution of 2004, which brought Yushchenko to power.
Ukraine's president has sought membership for Ukraine in NATO and the European Union, and supported Georgia in its August war with Russia — moves that have infuriated the Kremlin.
For more than a decade after independence, Ukraine was Russia's largest and closest ally in the former Soviet Union, and Moscow sold Kiev gas at a steep discount.
Low prices proved addictive, and today Ukraine's inefficient industries and government-run district heating plants burn vast quantities of the fuel.
A 2007 report by Simon Pirani of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies said Ukraine has "the world's most energy-intensive economy." In 2005, the report said, Ukraine consumed 73 billion cubic meters of gas, "an amount similar to Japan, Italy, Saudi Arabia or the entire African continent."
Experts say Ukraine wastes so much gas because low prices gave it little incentive to conserve fuel.
Domestic politics in both countries also have made it harder for Russia and Ukraine to settle their dispute.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko — former Orange Revolution allies — now control competing power centers and are rivals in presidential elections that could come as early as the end of this year.

Neither can afford to be seen surrendering to the Kremlin, nor do they want to be blamed for higher natural gas prices.
Economists warn that the Ukrainian economy, hit hard by the global economic crisis, could be crippled by the price Moscow is demanding. Dozens of major businesses could be forced into bankruptcy.
Russia, too, may be approaching a political watershed in which the gas dispute could play a role.
Some analysts predict that Medvedev will step down in the next few months and call special elections, paving the way for Putin to run for the presidency. Putin stepped down last year, honoring a constitutional limit on Russian presidents serving more than two consecutive terms.
But Putin remains Russia's most prominent political figure, and has taken the leading role in the current gas crisis. A victory over Ukraine in the gas war could rally popular support for Putin's return to the Kremlin.


[Sigma Services]


As a professional online trading service Sigma strives to give an eminent beyond comparison of professional and individualized trading services, Sigma also provides several facilities for all kinds of traders.
Sigma helps private and institutional clients achieve their trading goals by offering an inclusive forex trading package, along with the state-of-art trading platform, real-time news and wireless access. We relegate to meeting and exceeding our customers' expectations with the utmost professionalism and integrity.

Sigma provides appropriate services satisfying the needs of all business partners’ specified requirements. A client's profit is our success and a client's loss is a significant call of action for us, we consider every client as a special case and a partner.
Sigma's Customer Support is our business core, as we provide 24/7 customer support. We keep in touch with all our clients to make sure that we are on the right pass.

Open Live Account
Open Demo Account

Energy in the European Union

Gas wars

A GAS row between Russia and Ukraine has become a Christmas ritual. That may explain why, until this week, the European Union seemed to pay the latest tiff so little heed. Indeed, the people in Brussels talked of it as a normal bilateral commercial dispute in which the EU should neither interfere nor take sides. Yet Russia’s abrupt decision on January 5th to cut off almost all the gas it supplies to EU countries via Ukraine has sharply raised the stakes, inviting the Europeans to intervene more directly. The shutdown should force a rethink of the EU’s overall energy policy as well.

Neither side is blameless. Ukraine should be paying higher market prices for its gas; and it should neither have reneged on the gas-transit deal it has with Russia nor pinched gas destined for the EU. But equally Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled energy giant, should not be engaged in overt political bullying just because the Kremlin wants to punish Ukraine’s political leaders for leaning towards the West. And both countries should do a lot more to eliminate the shady intermediaries that have made the business of gas supply so opaque—and rife with corruption.
As so often, the two sides’ positions have become dangerously entrenched. Even so, precisely because the gas cut-off is damaging the reputations of both Russia and Ukraine, it is unlikely to last long (see article). Yet it would be wrong to forget quickly the stark reminder, in the depths of a bitterly cold winter, that the EU depends on Russia for a quarter of its gas (some 80% of which flows through pipelines across Ukraine). All EU countries should now urgently look for ways to make themselves less exposed to supply disruptions.
Gazprom, which has been on a charm offensive this week, suggests that the answer is to speed up the building of new pipelines to the north and south of Ukraine, enabling Russia to supply western Europe directly. This appeals particularly to the Germans, the keenest supporters of the planned Nord Stream pipeline. Yet the commercial and strategic case for either pipeline is weak. Worse, they would make it easier for Russia to cut off gas to the eastern European countries through which existing pipelines pass. The real need is for Europe to reduce its dependence on Russia—which would point instead to persisting with Nabucco, a pipeline intended one day to supply gas from Azerbaijan and (perhaps) Central Asia via Turkey, bypassing Russian territory altogether.

Pipelines or pipedreams?
In practice, pipelines are hugely expensive, environmentally risky and take years to construct. So other measures are needed in the meantime. One is to press Russia and Ukraine to sign long-term contracts, with accepted pricing formulae, similar to those that Gazprom already has with most EU countries. The EU must also continue to object forcefully to the gas cut-off, making clear that it undermines Russia’s credibility as a reliable energy supplier. And it must stress that it will not allow the Russians to pick off individual EU countries through cosy bilateral deals.
Beyond this, Europe needs to work harder to diversify its sources of energy, something that it must do anyway if it is to meet its ambitious climate-change targets. And it cannot be repeated too often that a fully liberalised energy market, with better linkages between countries, offers all of Europe not only a more efficient energy future but also a more secure one.



[Why Sigma]


  1. Lowest spreads in the forex market, No other broker offers such competitive spreads .
  2. Sigma is the only broker that allows you to customize your trading account as you wish.
  3. Maintaining the security of your money is a major objective at Sigma.
  4. Our devotion to our clients has made our firm a respected industry leader, that we have a strong commitment to maintain a long term relationship with our clients.
  5. Low margin requirement.
  6. Full Hedging capabilities.
  7. Sigma is a registered financial institution, and registered with the European registration authorities. The regulations set out into notice by these agencies are created to help ensure the safety of our clients’ deposits.
  8. We maintain enough liquid capital to meet the needs of the amount required to cover all client deposits, potential shift back and forth in the firm’s currency positions and outstanding expenses.
  9. We put forward our financial information to regulatory bodies on a weekly and monthly basis.
  10. In addition to all the above, Sigma holds all deposits with only highly reputable financial institutions. We are appreciate the trust of our clients place in us.

Monday, February 23, 2009

George Bush Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at George Bush hailed a hero

Muntadar al-Zeidi, 28, was arrested after throwing his shoes at Mr Bush during a press conference with Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. Mr Bush ducked twice as the shoes narrowly missed his head and hit the wall behind him.
Mr Zeidi was wrestled to the ground before being dragged from the press conference and detained by Iraqi security forces. But the Shia television reporter’s protest – during which he shouted at Mr Bush “This is a gift from the Iraqis.This is a farewell kiss, you dog” – was praised across the Middle East, including in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Jordan. A Libyan charity nominated him for a bravery award.
It was disclosed yesterday that Mr Zeidi “detested America”. He was once briefly detained by the US military and was also kidnapped by militants.
Khalil al-Dulaimi, Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer, offered to represent Mr Zeidi and said about 200 lawyers had volunteered their services free of charge.
“Our defence of Zeidi will be based on the fact that the United States is occupying Iraq, and resistance is legitimate by all means, including shoes,” he said.

Mr Bush tried to laugh off the incident, saying: “That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me you may want to know.”
But an Iraqi government spokesman demanded an apology: “At the same time that we condemn this ignominious act, we call on the television channel of this reporter to deliver a public apology for this act which sullies the reputation of all Iraqi journalists and the whole media.”
The station, Al-Baghdadia, defiantly replayed the broadcast and made repeated pleas for Mr Zeidi’s release “in accordance with the democratic era and the freedom of expression that Iraqis were promised by US authorities”.
Mr Zeidi’s brother Udai said: “Thanks be to God, Muntadar’s act fills Iraqi hearts with pride. I’m sure many Iraqis want to do what Muntadar did. Muntadar used to say all the orphans whose fathers were killed are because of Bush.”
In Sadr City – the Baghdad home of the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr – thousands gathered to burn American flags and call for the release of Mr Zeidi. In the holy city of Najaf, several protesters threw shoes at an American patrol, while others demonstrated in the southern city of Basra.
Colleagues said he “detested America” and blamed Mr Bush for the damage done to his country by the 2003 invasion.

Mr Zeidi was kidnapped by militants in November last year but released after three days.
Iraqi officials said Mr Zeidi faced up to seven years in prison if prosecuted for insulting a visiting head of state.
Yesterday, Mr Bush continued his tour of the Middle East with a visit to Afghanistan, where he warned of the difficulty of restoring stability to a country ravaged by seven years of war.


[Sigma Contract Specification]

Sigma Forex provide the clients with the lowest spreads in Forex Market for the most traded pairs and Forex spots.

Trading Hours
Sigma Dealing Room operate 24/5 from Sunday 23:00 CET until Friday 23.00 CET.
You Can contact us directly: + 41 435 004 145

Margin Requirements
The margin requirements must be respected by Friday at 23:00 GMT and before holidays.
One of our dealers will contact you if you are below your margin requirements at that time. Your margin requirements will depend on the client's account equity. However, if you approach the level where the loss of your open positions approaches the balance of your account, you will be stopped out and your positions will be closed. Stop positions will be executed when there is only around 50% equity of the required margin left in your account.

Streamline Dealing
Clients will not suffer Price Re-Quote that you can buy and sell directly on real-time prices without a request for quote (RFQ).
Clients taking advantage of wrong price quotes in the Market Watch will be requoted.
Sigma Forex effort is taken to ensure correct pricing at all times. However, there are rare circumstances when wrong prices are given.

Stop Order Execution
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shoethrower Bush deflects shoe toss into a civics lesson

I know, I was thinking the same thing when those shoes came flying at George W. Bush during his Baghdad press conference.

Who let Rocky Anderson in?

But wait. That wasn't one of ours. That was one of theirs. The shoe thrower was a TV journalist from Egypt named Muntadhar al- Zeidi, a man who obviously shares Rocky's negative sentiment about America's involvement in Iraq.
I've shared that sentiment myself, but I've also tried to never lose sight of Bush's agenda to bring freedom to a land and people once oppressed by the dreaded dictator Saddam Hussein.
A month away from turning over the front door key to the White House to Barack Obama, this trip to Iraq was something of a victory tour for Bush, a way of showing how much relative peace and quiet $568 billion (the war's cost so far) buys these days. He had just finished his opening statement to the gathered media, talking about a timetable for troop withdrawal -- "A withdrawal that is possible because of the surge" -- when the shoes started flying.
"This is your farewell kiss, you dog!" al-Zeidi shouted in Arabic before he was tackled by Iraqi reporters.

Who would have thought that such an ugly, unpleasant incident would turn into Bush's finest hour?

Nothing was scripted. No one rehearsed anything. No one was prepped. There wasn't a Teleprompter in sight.
And there was George W. Bush acting like, well, like you'd hope the president of the United States of America would act.

He displayed terrific athleticism in dodging both shoes, he exhibited remarkable composure, and he calmly resumed the press conference without skipping a beat.
When the Secret Service "body man" finally appeared and made a move to wrap the president in a human shield -- as if it had just dawned on the Secret Service that they were in the middle of Iraq (new Secret Service motto: "We said we'd take a bullet; nobody ever said anything about a shoe.") -- Bush subtly waived him away. No way was he leaving Iraq cowed and covered.
"OK, everybody calm down for a minute," the president said. "And if you want some -- if you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw."
Then as he assessed a room full of nervous laughter and building embarrassment, he added, "Thank you for your concern, do not worry about it. So what if a guy threw a shoe at me?"
A sea of calm in the country of his discontent.

This wasn't Lincoln, it wasn't Roosevelt, it sure wasn't Churchill. This was George W. Bush from Midland, Texas, and like him or love him, hate him or despise him, you have to admire the way he always -- always -- stuck by his guns.
The Iraqi war and subsequent peacekeeping occupation might have been the most debated, controversial and divisive military operation in American history, and George W. Bush might have parlayed that debate into becoming one of the least-liked presidents ever. But you never saw him waver, and you never saw him sweat.
Sunday in Baghdad he was all of that and more. "Bush at his best," is the way Peter Watkins describes it. Watkins is the Utahn who threw his clothes in his car, the ink on his degree from the University of Utah not yet dry, and drove across the country to stick his foot in the White House, unannounced, after Bush won his first term in 2000. Willing to work at first for free, in time Watkins became a significant Bush press operative. Among his duties was helping organize the president's White House "press opportunities."
"Most Americans only see him when he's using Teleprompters," says Watkins, who returned to Utah two years ago after almost six years in the Bush administration. "That's when he's at his worst, communication-wise."
He's at his best in unscripted moments, as transpired Sunday.
"I think in those types of moments you see who people really are," says Watkins. "What you saw is a man who's funny, who's quick and who is calm under fire. I mean you're in Iraq, you've got someone yelling at you in Arabic, you've got shoes coming at your head -- and he ducked, and he told everyone in the room to calm down."
Probably the most impressive part of all was when Bush used the incident's aftermath to deliver an impromptu civics lesson in a downtown Baghdad he couldn't have set foot in eight years ago.
"Let me talk about the guy throwing the shoe," he said to the assembled journalists. "That's what happens in free societies."

Says Watkins: "Can you imagine what would have happened to someone who threw a shoe at Saddam's head?"

[SigmaForex Partnership Services]


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Introducing Broker.
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China Stock Index Drops; Baoshan Steel, Beiqi, Vanke Decline

-- China’s stocks fell the most in almost two months, led by property developers, as investors judged recent gains excessive relative to earnings potential.
Poly Real Estate Group Co. and China Vanke Co., the nation’s two biggest publicly traded developers, retreated more than 4 percent. Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. dropped 5.3 percent, paring a surge of 38 percent this year through yesterday. Beiqi Foton Motor Co., China’s biggest commercial-vehicle maker, slid 6.8 percent after sales fell by more than a third last month.

The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks the bigger of China’s stock exchanges, declined 69.95, or 2.9 percent, to 2,319.44 at the close, the steepest drop since Dec. 23. The gauge is still up 27 percent this year, the most among 90 stock gauges worldwide tracked by Bloomberg. Stocks on the measure traded at 18.3 times earnings yesterday, the highest since August.
“The big risk is that share prices are rising fast, but fundamentals are not catching up,” said Fan Dizhao, an investment manager at Guotai Asset Management Co. in Shanghai, overseeing the equivalent of $4.7 billion. “When the price- earnings ratio reaches 20 times, it could be an up-limit.”


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