THEBULLIONDESK.COM
Ross Norman, Dominic Hall, and John Fairley, three former members of the London Bullion Market, founded The Bullion Desk (TBD) in October 1999. They wanted TBD to be the "definitive online resource for live precious metals information and services." What they have become is a precious metals service company driven by information technology and specializing in providing information, market intelligence, and associated products and services.
The Bullion Desk has three main elements. It provides online precious metals information through its website; risk management and trade capture software; and independent analysis and research in the precious metals markets. Though their offices were located in London originally, the company now operates out of an office near Cambridge and another near Salisbury. In the meanwhile, the TBD website has grown steadily.
Figure 1: TheBullionDesk.com home page shows both the efficient layout and the variety of information the site contains.
In 1995, Ross Norman founded Precious Metals Research (PMR), a consultancy and reporting service, after working at Johnson Matthey, NM Rothschild & Sons, and Credit Suisse. Dominic Hall started Workware Trading Systems in 1997 after a stint as a gold options and forwards dealer with ScotiaMocatta. John Fairley was the general manager of the gold refining business at Johnson Matthey. TheBullionDesk has now grown to five full-time employees -- six, if you count Tricky the dog.
Figure 2: The click-down menu on the left side of the page gives access to even more information, such as this mining equities page on Kinross Gold.
The website is extremely efficient and well designed. The click-down menu on the left side of the screen provides quick access to a range of news, reports, research, reference, charts, and data. While not every precious metals-related site is covered, the Mining Equities links provides a lot of information for investors. If you click on some of those links, you are informed that you can only access them if you subscribe to one of the premium services. But there's a lot available without paying the premium fees.
Figure 3: Links to precious metals sites around the world can be accessed by country. This is part of the list of links from companies active in China.
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of the global expanse of the site is the Links menu. When you click on one of the links, the page that comes up requests a location. When you click on the location window, an alphabetical list of the countries of the world comes up. Once you pick a country, the information you requested comes up for that country.
In addition to the huge amount of free news and data available, there are three higher levels of services offered to premium members of TBD. All three premium levels include interactive charting, extended historical data, fast price streaming, extended static charting, email alerts, premium news & reports, precious metals crosses, and more. The middle premium level also includes delayed quotes from COMEX, NYMEX, and TOCOM. The top level gets live quotes from those three exchanges, and its cost includes exchange fees. Prices for the premium levels start at $16 a month and goes up to $220 a month. One month is free at each level if paid on a yearly basis.
--Bruce R. Faber, Staff Writer
FOREX-CITY.COM
Forex and foreign exchange trading have been the "in" thing among many traders over the past few years. Some of this is certainly due to initiatives on the part of forex trading brokerages to make forex trading easier and less expensive for average retail traders likely to be burned out by the expense (commissions, margin rates) and hassle (uptick rules on shorting) of daytrading stocks.
But much of this interest likely comes from the behavior of the forex markets themselves. Weakness in the US dollar has meant bull markets in currencies such as the British pound, the Australian dollar, the euro, and -- most recently -- the Japanese yen. While some investors have sought to protect their dollar gains by taking out accounts denominated in global currencies like the euro at online ebanks, traders have taken to forex "dealing" in order to make quicker profits from the fast-moving, 24-hour trading world of foreign exchange.
Forex City is the educational façade of Forex City Asset Management, a capital management firm with offices in Russia (Khabarovsk, to be specific), London, and New York. Forex City Asset Management provides capital, fund, account and money management services to both private and corporate investors, boasting five years of experience trading the forex markets. The firm features five different programs for investment and managed trading, including opportunities for accounts as low as US$20,000. The company even provides performance data based on two Forex City indexes, one that began in 2000 and a second that began recently in June 2003.
The HomePage of Forex-city.com
But it is Forex City -- the website, that is -- of most interest here, and Forex-city.com sets itself up as a place where those interested in trading forex can learn about the particular approach of Forex City's foreign exchange traders (an approach that is heavily influenced by Elliott wave methodologies), as well as some background information on what the foreign exchange market is and who participates in it.
Forex City -- the website -- also features a daily and weekly forex market analysis and strategy section (in Russian and English), a page of links to online charts and quotes data as well as to software vendors such as TradeStation, MetaStock, and CQG. There's also a currency museum and special Elliott wave analysis section for those looking to see exactly how Forex City makes its Elliott wave-oriented trades.
FOREX STRATEGY
Two sections of Forex-City.com that stand out the most are the technical analysis/Elliott wave section and the daily FX/FX market commentary section. While the first may be a turnoff for those who are underwhelmed by Elliott wave analysis, the fact that Forex-City.com -- and their lead trader, Konstantin Komogorov -- are willing to lay out Elliott wave counts as they derive them, all the while knowing these counts will be used to trade real accounts -- the performance of which can be determined by consulting the "Performance (Forex City - Index)" link, suggests to me that even Elliott wave doubters may find reason to track Forex-City's wave counts. This section includes daily and weekly charts of the main forex currencies pairs (pound/US dollar [GBP/USD], euro/dollar [EUR/USD], dollar/Swiss franc [USD/CHF], and dollar/yen [USD /JPY]). Helpfully for those studying Elliott wave theory, Forex City presents chronological charts -- for example, both Elliott wave counts derived in September can be compared with updated charts one month later.
Forex-City.com also features daily and weekly FX strategy and market commentary. Like the Elliott wave section, the daily and weekly FX strategy and market commentary is worth reading not only as a second opinion, but also as a way of understanding how the forex markets work and are professionally analyzed. Often, those looking to get into a new market attempt to bring their old trading habits -- habits that may have been extremely profitable -- from the world of stocks or futures or options or mutual funds to the world of forex trading, without realizing there are new rules to be learned. Worse still, some traders merely cobble together a hodgepodge of techniques and approaches without studying the particulars that make forex trading unique. By reading the analysis, market commentary, and strategy provided at Forex-City.com, those new to foreign exchange trading can develop a sense of how an experienced forex trader reads and interprets market action.
FOREX-CITY SITE SEEING
The second part of Forex-City that may prove interesting to those learning about the forex markets consists of its links to websites and vendors that provide forex quotes and charts. As mentioned, the vendor list at this point is relatively short, with only the industry heavy-hitters like TradeStation, MetaStock, and CQG being featured. The list of online sources for forex quotes and charts is more bountiful, including sites such as Yahoo! Finance, Ino.com, Standard Bank, Trading Central, and Forex ATS. A number of outstanding forex sources are out there on the Internet, although many of them are also connected to forex brokerages in their own right. It will be interesting to see how this list of nonbrokerage-related forex quotes and charts websites grows as Forex-City grows and forex trading in general continues to move toward the mainstream.
The list of magazines, journals, organizations, and websites that provide information to forex traders is especially magnanimous (and that's not just because Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES is near the top of the list). The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times are also on the list of helpful magazines and newspapers, as well as a number of more specialized publications such as The Banker, Euromoney, and Global Investor. Brokerages, regulatory institutions, and foreign exchange organizations in the United Kingdom, Europe, the US, Japan, and Russia also are listed by website, along with links to various market indexes, economic data sources, and foreign exchange services.
FOREX-CITY SPRAWL
To the forex trader, veteran or novice, the representation of the foreign exchange markets online is far behind that of the online stock world. Whereas over the past few years it has seemed as if every website, regardless of subject, has offered little boxes describing the latest action in the Dow Jones indexes and Nasdaq, forex trading online is still the province of a relatively few intrepid traders -- at least in terms of private, retail-level participation.
But this is changing. More and more forex-oriented websites are coming online -- either as stand-alone products, opportunities to sell more advanced quotes and charts products, and/or as "educational façades" for forex brokerages and asset management companies. At this point, those interested in forex still have to hunt-and-peck their way through the world of online finance to find the information and commentary they need.
Nevertheless, as more and more organizations that work in foreign exchange take the effort to educate the trading public about the forex world and the opportunities it provides -- not the least of which are 24-hour trading, low to zero commission costs, flexibility in account size given the proliferation of mini-accounts with many forex brokerages, and the ability to go long or short with equal ease -- there is no doubt that more traders will find time spent involved in forex to be equally if not more rewarding than time spent trading stocks.
In this way, Forex-City is an encouraging sign of the times. It is not an especially complex website, and the analysis and commentary provided -- including the Elliott wave analysis -- is clear, straightforward, and easy to understand. Given these aspects, the growth of interest in foreign exchange trading and the breadth of information available, it should be no surprise if Forex-City becomes a destination site for those looking to learn how the forex world really works.
--David Penn, Technical Writer
FUTURESREF.COM
Was there anything cooler in the financial world in the 1970s than being a futures trader? Rampant inflation fueled manias in commodities from soybeans in 1973 and sugar in 1974 to orange juice in 1977 and silver in 1979. ... Major new financial products came online (currencies at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1972, Treasury bonds at the Chicago Board of Trade in 1977), with others (stock index futures at CME in 1982) just around the corner.
The launch of stock index futures perhaps should have been a sign to all those rocking commodities traders that the halcyon days were, if not over, then at least a-changin'. And change they did, as the great bull market in stocks took off shortly thereafter and the inflation that made the commodities markets the place to be during the 1970s was finally defeated.
FUTURES-REF.COM
So, after 20-odd years of full-court focus on the stock market, it is hard to blame futures traders for chuckling as attention swings back in their direction. Whether it is talk about diversifying battered stock portfolios with managed futures accounts, or simply buying gold as a hedge against the financial consequences of a government that seems bent on ever-higher levels of spending, futures trading is enjoying a renaissance in ways that many traders who hung up their wheat and corn trading hats years ago might not have believed possible.
At the same time, futures traders in the 21st century can't help but feel underserved by the financial press. Sure, there are plenty of websites, many of which -- for a fee or a newly opened futures trading account -- will provide futures quotes, charts, margin requirements, news, and a host of information vital to those trading futures. But what about something for the merely curious? What about something for those who are sated by the variety of stock market information available on the Internet, but find their interest in futures stymied by the lack of easy-to-find, easy-to-understand futures resources?
FINDING FUTURESREF
Part of what makes FuturesRef so attractive and easy to use is its simplicity. The homepage is bordered on both sides by more than 100 futures-related links. Links to discount, full-service, and specialty brokerages are provided, as are links to a variety of futures consultants and advisors. On the other side of the homepage are lists of links, including Education & Tools, Forums & Chat, Research & Reports, Advice & Newsletters, and of course Charts & Data. The vast majority of these links (emphasis on vast) send browsers to other sites, and, yes, many of the places these links connect with are membership, subscription, or similarly pay-to-play in structure and design. However, the sheer number and variety of these links is such that anyone looking into the futures markets would be well advised to keep FuturesRef.com prominently in mind.
The center of the homepage of FuturesRef.com consists of a table that lists all of the main tradable futures products, including financials and stock market indexes, currencies, metals, energies, grains, meats, and softs. Clicking on any name, such as lumber or silver, will send your browser to the quotes and charts page of FutureSource.com. Clicking on any group name will also send you to FutureSource.com; however, the specific destination is a highly helpful page that presents "minicharts" of each commodity within the group. So, for example, clicking on "Metals" will bring up four minicharts, one each of copper, gold, platinum, and silver.
Further down the homepage, FuturesRef provides more links of interest to futures traders. There are links to firms dealing with managed futures, as well as links to the main futures exchanges and to significant futures industry organizations such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Futures Industry Association, and the Options Industry Council. Other links provide access to information on trading systems and strategies, including the Turtle Trader website and Virtual Trading University.
A number of different trading simulations -- from AudiTrack to the Futures Game -- also have their websites linked to FuturesRef.com. Finally, in this section are links to trading software packages such as Gecko Software, NeuroShell Trader, and TradeStation (all of which have been reviewed by Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities).
FuturesRef succeeds precisely as it sets out to. By being a reference for futures traders (rather than being preoccupied with generating its own content per se), FuturesRef should grow as interest in the futures markets continues to grow. Basic futures news headlines, which can be difficult for those just getting interested in futures to find, are another staple of the website, as are -- surprise, surprise -- links to news organizations such as DailyFutures Commodity News Summary, Bridge/Crb News, and Kiplinger's Futures. Fundamentally oriented futures market traders will also appreciate the weather-related links to websites including AgriClick, Noaa Soil Moisture, and the US Weather Radar Loop.
Clearly, traders who are looking for a basic yet fairly complete reference to trading and analyzing futures and commodities could do far worse than to make room in their web browsers' "Favorites" list for FuturesRef.com.
--David Penn, Technical Writer
Originally published in the December 2003 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2003, Technical Analysis, Inc.