Business owners are not looking for financial advisors to give them the life they want by making a killing in the stock market; these people have been able to create the life they want by themselves. In the early 1990s, at the beginning of my financial planning career, I was very fortunate to meet one of Canada's most successful businessmen. He was in his late 50s and had much more life experience than me. He shared that 99.9 per cent of the investment advisors he had met over the course of his career did not have the foggiest idea of how to make money nor did they understand what successful business people were looking for when they sought out professional advice.

A very simple meaning of arbitrage would be getting something from nothing! If you are surprised then don't be, for that's what arbitrage is. Technically, however, it can be defined as a synchronized purchase and sale of a security which will provide you with a profit derived from the price difference between the two.  

Here is a small example to show how it works. Let's imagine that the price of a stock on the NYSE is $15 per share, but the price of the same share is $10 per share in the Frankfurt exchange. Now the difference of a $5 could mean an instant profit for you requiring zero investment.  

Six of the major components of the CPI showed increases during the twelve-month period: the exceptions were shelter, and clothing and footwear. Shelter costs declined 1.1% as a result of lower mortgage interest costs, and natural gas prices. Women's and children's clothing prices were down 6.8% and 4.8% respectively.

The higher sales were widespread; only the personal and household goods sector declined. Machinery and electronic equipment contributed most to the growth with a 1.2% increase to $8.8 billion. This sector includes machinery and equipment, computers and other electronic equipment, and office and professional equipment.

In Forex, cash is traded for cash. Euros are traded for dollars, dollars for yen, yen for euros and so on. There are dozens of trading pairs, just as there are dozens of currencies around the world that participate in the currency exchange markets. Forex trading is always about buying one currency and selling another one simultaneously.

Some currency pairs are more popular than other currencies and you may see those referred to as the 'majors.' This is information that you will need to know when you want to be a part of Forex currency trading.

Total financial collapse, once a problem only for developing countries, has now come to Europe. The International Monetary Fund is imposing its "austerity measures" on the outer circle of the European Union, with Greece, Iceland and Latvia the hardest hit. But these are not your ordinary third world debtor supplicants. Historically, the Vikings of Iceland successfully invaded Britain; Latvian tribes repulsed the Vikings; and the Greeks conquered the whole Persian empire. If anyone can stand up to the IMF, these stalwart European warriors can.

Dozens of countries have defaulted on their debts in recent decades, the most recent being Dubai, which declared a debt moratorium on November 26, 2009. If the once lavishly-rich Arab emirate can default, more desperate countries can; and when the alternative is to destroy the local economy, it is hard to argue that they shouldn't. That is particularly true when the creditors are largely responsible for the debtor's troubles, and there are good grounds for arguing the debts are not owed. Greece's troubles originated when low interest rates that were inappropriate for Greece were maintained to rescue Germany from an economic slump. And Iceland and Latvia have been saddled with responsibility for private obligations to which they were not parties.

 The value of exports grew to $32.2 billion in December, from $31.7 billion in November, the fourth consecutive monthly gain, with a 2.8% increase in volume accounting for the difference, as prices actually dropped slightly. Two-thirds of the growth was in automotive products, with machinery, equipment and energy products contributing the rest. Exports of industrial goods and materials declined.