Despite today being Martin Luther King day in the United States and the US markets being closed to mark the holiday, that didn’t stop the world markets from suffering some of the biggest single day losses in recent years. Investors around the world are beginning a panic sell-off, weary of news that the US economy is headed for recession or a major economic slowdown.

Brokers and dealers on the world markets claimed the spark for the global meltdown was an overall disappointment at US President George W. Bush’s tax plan to revive the world’s largest economy. Following heavy losses in Asian trade, the European markets opened lower and then went lower again in the course of the afternoon as investors opted for safety and took their money out. In London, the FTSE 100 index plunged a whalloping 5.48 percent to 5,578.20 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 index lost 6.83 percent to 4,744,45 points and in Frankfurt the DAX shed 7.16 percent to 6,790.19 points, with both the French and German markets seeing the biggest single day losses since the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States.

The Toronto stock market took a massive hit of more than 600 points Monday before recovering slightly in the afternoon, as analysts showed concern about economic troubles south of the border. The S&P/TSX composite index fell 617 points, before climbing slightly back by 3:30 p.m. to a deficit of 562.12 points at 12,175. Last week’s losses of 6.6 per cent wiped out the TSX’s entire gains for 2007.

Blue chip stocks lead the declines in most markets, dragging major indexes in Hong Kong, Shanghai and India down by more than 5 percent during the day, while those in South Korea and Australia fell by nearly 3 percent. In Japan, which itself may be facing a new recession, the majority of indexes were off by more than 3 percent. Elsewhere in Asia, Shanghai’s Composite Index closed down 5.1 percent at 4,914.44, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 5.5 percent to 23,818.86. Again, the biggest fall since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In the United States, with market pessimism at heights not seen in years, it is certainly possible the market is near its bottom. But there are few investors eager to bet on when stocks will resume their climb, and how long it will be before new records are reached again. The Dow is now 14.6 percent below its Oct. 9 record close of 14,164.53, and is less than 100 points away from slipping beneath the 12,000 mark, which it first surpassed in October 2006.

Will the resume of trading on Tuesday will bring some very interesting results on the US Markets? You can bet on it.

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Have you thought about learning how to trade Forex in the past but concluded the cost of starting a trading account was beyond your means? Did the potential risk of trading with large amounts of money to make nominal gains while potentially incurring large losses keep you from attmpting to learn forex? If you answered “Yes” to either of those questions, your opportunity to try your hand at Forex trading in real time might be closer than you think. Consider the following mission statement from the online broker FXOpen :

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It’s no suprise Google, Inc (ticker:GOOG) has been finally seeing a decline from it’s unprecedented advance to an all time high of $747 per share in November 2007 but nobody predicted the rapid descent the stock has seen over the last few days. Google shareholders are scrambling to recover their losses as the stock has lost over 5% and dropped from an opening price of $653 per share on January 14th to a close of $617 per share this afternoon. At one point in today’s trading (1/16/2007), GOOG was down as low as $601 per share and almost fell beneath the $600 per share mark. A glance at Google’s chart for the last three months will emphasize the trend downwards and shows a classic “Head and Shoulders Pattern” which is generally generally regarded as a reversal pattern and it is most often seen in uptrends. It is also most reliable when found in an uptrend as well. Eventually, the market begins to slow down and the forces of supply and demand are generally considered in balance. Sellers come in at the highs (left shoulder) and the downside is probed (beginning neckline.) Buyers soon return to the market and ultimately push through to new highs (head.) However, the new highs are quickly turned back and the downside is tested again (continuing neckline.)

GOOG 30 Day Chart - Showing “Head and Shoulders Pattern”

Glancing at the 1 year chart for GOOG, you can see the current “Head and Shoulders Pattern” pattern was preceded by a huge “Bull Run” leading up to the cuttent levelling off of this rapid climber.

GOOG 1 Year Chart - Showing Bull Run

Finally, if we look at the 5 day chart for GOOG we can see the results of the “Head and Shoulders Pattern” after the bullish uptrend. This one has sell written all over it. Notice the dissipating volume on the “tops”. The first close beneath the neckline was followed by a dramatic sell-off. And check out the big spike in activity on the collapse.

GOOG 5 Day Chart - Showing Downtrend

Why is Google’s stock on such a rapid decline? Call it the rosy scenario syndrome: Analysts expect double-digit earnings growth for a stock over the next few years and the market reacts by buying up a stock at an over-inflated value, thus leading to a rapid decline when the analysts begin to make adjustments in the company’s future. In the abstract, and if the analysts turn out to be right, that’s good news indeed. But the market is especially efficient when it comes to pricing in (or discounting for) growth stories. So, when macroeconomic data or industry-specific news comes along and shakes up the rosy growth story, highfliers like these will drop in a hurry.

Over the last few months, Google has engaged in some high flying press releases that had market makers and industry analysts alike charmed by the potential of this technology darling but like a fickle lover, the affiar is over and Google’s tactics have resulted in a reverse scenario for potential earnings. Coupled with the fact Google has been on the warpath against the webmaster community and competitors, many of whom are now disgruntled ex-shareholders, a recovery is unlikely in the near future and we can expect to see Google’s value depreciate over the coming weeks due to negativity in the blogosphere and webmaster community that will spread into the public sector.

Google versus Webmaster and SEO Community?
For anybody who is unfamiliar with Google and their necessary, yet hostile relationship with the webmaster and SEO community, you must remember that 90% of Google’s earnings are derived from their Adwords advertising program. When Adwords subscriptions are down, the company’s earnings are down. As an Adsense publisher, I have seen the decline in quality advertisments in the Adwords system as displayed on the Adsense ads on my websites. Where a year or two ago, the quality of ads and the revenue generated by clicks on those ads was unrivaled by the competition, 2007 saw many publishers and advertisers both seeking other alternatives to Adwords and Adsense due to misappropriations and unethical business practices by Google. The number of publishers unfairly banned from Google’s Adsense program with their earnings confiscated has only led to an unhealthy resentment for the search giant and many of those banned were also Adwords advertisers and have consequently pulled not only their ads from Adsense but have pulled their clients ads from the system.

Additionally, Google’s unscrupulous attack on bloggers and webmasters who were making a living from sponsored review programs such as PayPerPost and SponsoredReviews, lowering their pagerank and crippling their search engine visibility has led to yet another backlash that will have a permanent negative effect on Google’s future earnings. As if that weren’t bad enough, a week ago, Google announced they were cutting off their Adsense/Adwords referral program to affiliates outside of North America, Latin America and Canada. This move enraged the vast majority of bloggers and webmasters outside that realm because Google essentially took money right out of their pockets for no good reason other than they decided to do it.

Can Google Survive Without the Webmaster Community?
The answer here is a resounding NO. Google is an internet based company and without good working relations within the online community their business model is doomed to failure. Although there is widespread rumours of Google purchasing a significant spectrum of wireless bandwidth and launching a Google-Phone, those rumors are merely a fantasy of loyal shareholders and most likely will not materialize and even if they did, the animosity Google has conjured in the online community will likely mean a monumentous faliure were they to launch such a product or service. The damage to the company’s image has already been done and at this point Google will be lucky to retain the advertising business they currently posess.

What About Google Auctions?
Another widespread rumour from the fountain of mis-information is that Google is going to launch an online auction site to compete directly with auction giant EBay. Once again, the same people who were scorned by Google, webmasters and bloggers, make up a significant amount of Ebay’s membership and it is highly unlikely they will abandon Ebay for a new Google service. Yahoo tried their hand at creating their own auction services and it was a miserable failure because the only people who left Ebay to go to Yahoo auctions were scammers and thieves who were banned from Ebay’s system. If Google launches a similar service, you can bet it will be the criminal element and scammer refugees who will populate the system if and when it goes live.

Essentially, as the old adage goes, Google has “cut off their own nose to spite their face”. Google was built into the biggest search engine on the internet when they were the champiion of the webmaster community. Alienating themselves and damaging the very community they emergedfrom was a costly and ignorant mistake on the company’s part. If you remember the dotcom boom and the subsequent bursting of that bubble, the Web2.0 boom that has been spearheaded by Google and about ready to burst will see it’s flagship going down in flames as an indicator of the death of yet another viscous cycle in the technology industry.

Interested in More Effective Trading, Check This Out…

Technorati Tags for this article: Google, GOOG, Adsense, Adwords, SEO

Continuing with our current article series on refinancing a mortgage I stumbled across a fantastic website during my research on the topic of mortgages and refinancing. Luxury Mortgage Blog, operated by Luxury Mortgage Group who is a direct Colorado mortgage lender is not only an information source on high-end, jumbo mortgage and condotel financing, the blog additionaly contains numerous articles and videos related to the mortgage industry. The blog is authored by an extremely knowledgable team of expert financiers who are not just out to promote their Colorado mortgage business via the blog, they are sincerely sharing experiences and news from the mortgage industry in a frank an open manner. I’ve spent the last fews days reading through the blog and have found several inspirational articles that I’d like to share with my readers here.

For starters, the article 7 Things You Need To Consider When Financing A Condo-Hotel Property, is an extremely enlightening read regarding a subject I had not been previously aware of, condo-hotels. Condo-hotels (or condotels), which are mixed use properties, both commercial and residential in nature are a hybrid investment property that can be considered a second home even if it’s located in the same city as your primary residence. The article goes into depth about how income can be derived from the ownership of a condotel and how the tax structure on these type of properties can be more beneficial than a traditional condo unit. The author of the afformentioned article and President of Luxury Mortgage Group, Mr. Jason Fox, is extremely well written and you don’t have to be an expert in the field of mortgages and financing to comprehend the facts he delivers.

Another excellent article by Mr. Fox, Jumbo, Super Jumbo and now Ultra … what?, details terms used in the the mortgage industry to refer to loans over a certain amount as “Jumbo Loans”, “Large Jumbo”, “Super Jumbo Loans” and “Ultra Jumbo Loans”. Borrowing from Mr. Fox’s article, here is what he defines as the new Jumbo Mortgage Scale:

‘Jumbo Loans’ range from $417,000 to $650,000. ‘Large Jumbo’ range from $650,000 to $1M. ‘Super Jumbo Loans’ range from $1M to $10M. ‘Ultra Jumbo Loans’ range from $10M to $50M.

While the average consumer who is dealing with securing a first mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage does not fall into the categories mentioned above, the overall usefullness of the articles presented on Luxury Mortgage Blog is unparalleled. Considering the rising cost of housing, there are an increasing number of homeowners and perspective home buyers who now fall into the “Jumbo” and “Large Jumbo” categories and there is a wealth of information available for this demographic on the blog. Although I am not personally carrying a mortgage on either of my houses, It’s interesting to now know that if I were to sell my properties, the next buyer would have to take out a “Large Jumbo” mortgage to cover the costs. Hooray, I’m a double “Large Jumbo” homeowner !!!

Luxury Mortgage Blog also covers topics such as Pledged Asset Mortgages, which are an exciting alternative to liquidating assets in your investment portfolio to cover the normal down payment required on a jumbo, super jumbo or ultra jumbo residential mortgage. A Pledged Asset Mortgage can also help a buyer save thousands of dollars per year by allowing them to eliminate the need for costly private mortgage insurance or high interest second mortgages. I won’t go too far into detail on these type of mortgages because Pledged Asset Mortgages will be a topic discussed later in this current article series, however, Mr. Fox has once again presented a truly enlightening article that covers all bases.

If you’re involved in the mortgage or real estate industry, you will definitely want to point your browser at Luxury Mortgage Blog and subscribe to their RSS feed in the reader of your choice. The techniques, tips and general information delivered by Mr. Fox and his team of experts is by far and large the most comprehensive in the industry and you don’t need a mortgage brokers license to read and understand the topics presented on the Luxury Mortgage Blog.