The News Review:

- FOREX:Ringgit To Ease Next Week Against A Stronger Greenback
- PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
- Volatility is how they make a quid

FOREX:Ringgit To Ease Next Week Against A Stronger Greenback
Bernama – Mar 22, 2008
The Wall Street’s rebound on Friday is expected to contribute to restoring the investors’ confidence in the dollar, although dealers are expected to be still wary of external factors such as the prices of commodities. “It’s actually hard to say, let’s see how the commodity prices like oil and gold go. It will give some sort of direction where the stock markets and the currency will head. “If gold price drops again, I think people will start buying the dollar and this will weaken the ringgit,” said another dealer.

PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Taipei Times – Mar 22, 2008
3 percent of total market turnover yesterday, which was a setback compared with its recent level of 50 percent, Chou said. “It showed investors were not very convinced about this sector’s future performance,” he said. “People still have to consider the sector’s fundamentals and risks, such as first-quarter earnings and forex losses as the market opens next week. ”
Taiwan stocks yesterday outperformed those of major regional markets. Japanese share prices closed up 1. 81 percent, South Korean stocks ended 1. 4 percent higher and the Shanghai bourse was down 0.

Volatility is how they make a quid
The Australian – Mar 22, 2008
"We have had a commodity boom that started 10 years ago, and commodities booms usually go on for 15 to 30-year cycles. When hedge funds become aware of where to invest their money, they are going to go into alternative investments where they get better returns than they have in the share market. "
The fund uses technical analysis to predict the next price movements in fixed interest, forex and stock indices but the bulk of the fund’s investments are made in commodities futures contracts. It has identified heating oil and soy as the next commodities that will experience price shifts and says the prediction of trends by analysis takes the human emotion out of the investment equation. Hage says that while it’s clear that some commodity price rises may not be sustainable in the long term, the level of cash standing on the sidelines of the market since being pulled out of equities is exacerbating the situation. The current price boom has moved past the traditional hard commodities such as coal and iron ore, which are fetching up to 70 per cent more this year than in the previous year during the current negotiations for the Japanese financial year. In Australia over the past year, the price of wheat that is sold overseas has risen by 200 per cent, while the product that is kept and used domestically is now 150 per cent dearer.