The currency markets runs 24 hours a day for 5 days a week. It has high liquidity, a very important factor when applying technical analysis to charts. Since technical analysis could be interpreted as a study of mass psychology, it is imperative to have significant volume for any reliable technical studies to work in your favour. For this reason, many trade the currency markets as currencies tend to trend over long periods of time and produce highly probably trading signals during a trending phase. While experimenting with a brokerage account, I pulled up a chart of Goldman Sachs on the daily time frame and observed what has happened in the past few weeks.

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The goal of the investment funds competition is to provide an opportunity for participating teams to develop and apply the full range of their technical, fundamental and risk management skills in a more realistic setting.

The winning fund will be assessed on its performance, the timely submission of documentation and the adherence to the fund’s policy and strategies. The reward for the commitment and effort of the participating funds will be a £500 first prize, £200 second prize and a couple of small prizes for weekly performance (i.e. investment of the week, etc.).

The funds will be able to invest $1m of starting capital in companies listed on the main American stock exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX), as well as in options and ETFs. Teams need to register on the Investopedia Trading Simulator (a link is provided below) and join the MUTIS game called MUTIS Spring 2012. In order to do that you need to provide us with the email under which your team is registered when you submit the Prospectus and you will receive an invitation from us shortly after.  The game will go live this Monday 20/02 and you can start investing as soon as you submit your prospectus. The game will end on Friday 13/04 11:59pm and winners will be announced during the final meeting.
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Thank you for reading my first post “How I started my initial trading strategy” where I highlighted how I interpret price movements based on charts alone. That provides the building block of my trading strategy. Accepting the fact that price can be interpreted in a repetitive manner with respect to the mean is crucial to proceed with the trading strategy. Do read my first post again to gain clarity of what I mean. This is very important: http://mutis.co.uk/2011/11/10/the-way-i-started-and-my-initial-trading-strategy/. In this post I will illustrate the ‘mean reversion’ from my perspective in a short trade I recently placed.

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When I started trying to tackle the markets 2 years ago, I found myself bewildered by the vast amounts of information. I dwelled into technical analysis and devoured all the information I can. Within 6 months, like many wannabe traders who read up on technical analysis, I knew all sorts of chart patterns on the back of my hand. These patterns, though good to know, did not bring stability. My frustration grew worse, and I became desperate realising that my time spent on education was not paying off despite Google’s AdSense flooding me with loads of Forex advertisements such as ‘Make 1000 pips in 2 hours with this one weird tip!’.

Later, I moved onto webinars, seminars and courses. I attended webinars by many traders but to no avail. I bought a course and went for a weekend class which fooled me into thinking that the systems sold would actually work! They did not work, and it was miserable for another few months. I continued to lose virtual money, and later, real money. After a while, I began to ask myself what I was really missing and my entire perspective of trading changed with this one (weird) tip!
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It came to our attention that people find it difficult to find the precise list of investment banks and financial services firms that offer career related opportunities at various undergraduate levels. MUTIS therefore decided to publish a list of investment banks and trading firms that summarises opportunities (Spring Weeks, Summer Internships and Graduate Opportunities) offered by each company and provides a convenient way get your applications started. If there are any companies that you think are missing, feel free to comment underneath and we will be more than happy to add them to the list.

Dear Members

From its relatively recent inception, MUTIS has quickly established itself as one of the largest and most prestigious societies at the University of Manchester. We are proud to provide our members a hands-on experience to investing by organizing a wide variety of events, ranging from trading competitions, high-profile speaker events, educational seminars and CV workshops, all through the society’s extensive alumni network and our expanding corporate relations. It goes without saying that the support from our sponsors has been integral in this development and I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of them.

We would also like to thank the previous committees for their tireless and committed work in setting up valuable links and affiliations with the Manchester Business School and the University Careers’ Service. To acknowledge these efforts, MUTIS has been awarded the “UMSU Gold Award 2011”, the most respectable society award on campus.

At MUTIS, our goal is to bring together students with a common interest in and enthusiasm for the financial markets. We provide a platform for the sharing, discussion and analysis of thoughts and ideas relating to the financial markets.  As the global economy is recovering from what has been one of the most severe economic impasses, the current MUTIS committee is determined to seize this opportunity to further invest into the most valuable asset – our members.

From the committee as a whole, we look forward to meeting you during one of our weekly meetings.

Emily Bunting                                                                                     Jan Klincker

President                                                                                           Chairman

To learn more about our sponsors, please click here.

The Careers Discussion forum is intended for all MUTIS members and non members alike to interact, discuss and share their opinions and questions about anything careers-related, ie. Applications, Assessment Centres, Numerical Tests etc.)

MUTIS Committee

Micro-breweries are outfits of small size and personnel but their product is of increasing significance in British consumer tastes. Consumers have begun to move away from the mass marketed products (such as your Stella Artois and Budweisers) in favour of local names that offer a more distinctive tasting beverage.

Around 600 microbreweries exist around the UK, an increase of over 70 since last year, supplying local pubs across the country and gaining ground against big names that have seen declines in sales worldwide. Small producers benefited from legislation that ended the ability of brewing giants to stronghold pubs and which allowed for guest ale pumps to appear Additionally the introduction of Progressive Beer Duties shrank the tax liabilities of the outfits producing less than 60,000 hectolitres of alcohol a year. With the aid of the national Campaign for Real Ale and positive legislation, the average sales of microbrews is growing 3-7% percent a year, clutching onto a considerable shift in the drinking habits of the population.

Since the shocking scenes in Japan last week, investors have been looking to companies who will benefit from Japan’s huge rebuilding efforts.

With early reconstruction costs estimated to be at $180bn, companies in the sector have proved a target for investors following expectations that the earthquake will boost construction demand. This has further intensified following the Japanese Prime Minister vow to “rebuild from scratch” following the devastation.

Over the past week Japanese construction company Kajima Corp, which since the tragedy has already witnessed its biggest surge in two years, has risen by a further 6.3% and Nishimatsu Construction Co. Ltd. by 12.4%

Steel providers have also been attracting attention. Nippon Steel, the nations biggest steel provider has made gains in the last week as has Japan’s second largest steel provider JFE Holdings that has gained over 11%.

It is worth monitoring the performance of any company that provides technologies and materials likely to be in demand as a result of the rebuilding process; especially manufacturing companies that specialise in earthquake related technologies such as Taylor Devices Inc which operates in Japan.

Please consider donating a portion of any investment profits to the Japanese Tsunami Appeal: www.redcross.org.uk

The shocking images of the devastation in Japan on Friday 11^th March spread quickly, with many world leaders quickly extending their condolences and assistance to the country. President Obama went so far as to say that he was personally “heartbroken” to see the destruction caused by the earthquake and subsequent 10 metre high tsunami.

As the death toll from the tragedy climbs, with some predictions estimating up to 10,000 casualties, the human cost from the most powerful earthquake Japan has experienced in recent times is almost incomprehensible. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan was quoted as saying that this was Japan’s “worst crisis since the end of World War II.” When the staggering human cost is combined with the economic damage caused by the destruction, it is likely that his statement will not be too wide of the mark.

The effects of the damage were felt quickly in Japanese industry, with internationally recognised names such as Sony, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all being forced to close their factories due to the damage. Indeed, the worst hit area of the country, Tohoku, has with a thriving industrial sector encompassing everything from car plants to breweries, and accounts for around 8% of the country’s GDP.

Markets were also adversely affected following the disaster, with indices such as the Nikkei slumping in value when they re-opened. The Nikkei 225 index suffered its largest drop in 2 years, with the government intervening to inject 15 trillion Yen ($182bn) to prop up the markets. But it is not just the immediate problems from the quake, which threaten the Japanese economy.

The enormous public debt of Japan, around three times that of the country’s GDP, is a serious worry for the economy. The negative outlook imposed by Moody’s rating service on 22^nd February can only add to the worries of financial markets, as concerns over how the government will fund the rebuilding of the affected region no doubt spread. Moody’s may have actually helped to calm matters here, by pushing the absorptive capacity of the government and of private insurance as a safeguard against the sovereign rating of the nation.

To the world economy, the problems Japan now faces puts into question how this will affect the growth of world GDP. Japan is the world’s third biggest economy, and in 2010 provided 8.7% of world GDP, at $5.4tr. Analysts will now be attempting to see how damage done will alter the IMF prediction of 4.4% growth in world GDP this year, and the 4.5% predicted to occur in 2012.

Interestingly, the long-term nature of any significant damage to the Japanese economy is highly questionable. Leading analysts predict that although the disaster will obviously have negative growth implications in the short run, growth could have returned to positive levels within 12 months, as a Keynesian style reconstruction package boosts long term growth prospects in the region. Indeed it is possible that the rebuilding of the North Japan area could reignite growth in the region. However, distasteful it may seem to suggest this, it remains that there will be excellent investment opportunities from the reconstruction projects in the coming months. Implications for the IMF therefore point to potential damage to growth forecasts this year, possibly offset by renewed growth in 2012.

One of the most significant economic impacts from the earthquake comes in the form of the damage to the Hitachi owned Fukushima nuclear power plant, and the crisis this may create for the nuclear energy industry as a whole. Whilst at the time of writing a large leak from the reactor is deemed only a small possibility, how the situation progresses will no doubt have a great effect on current and future global demand for nuclear energy. All eyes will be on Japan over the coming weeks.