From a Western financial professional’s perspective, South Korea has traditionally been overlooked. The most familiar big three finance hubs in the East were forged in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. However, Korea is redefining itself as a major marketplace for a specific breed of financial product, broadly labeled as “derivatives”. Here we’ll give a crash course on derivatives and their place in financial markets, inspect their recent appearance in emerging markets, and theorize as to the effect they will have on Korea’s global financial presence and the economy as a whole.

Most will probably tell you that ABACUS was a fancy deceptive ploy by Goldmand Sachs (GS) to cheat other banks out of their money and make bets against the U.S. housing market, which would ultimately lead to the recession.

Call us what you will, but we’re going to take a different stance on the issue, first explaining what ABACUS really is and then placing it in the context of financial markets.

The last week has seen 100 day moving averages torn apart, surprises from economic data reports, and one of the most notable sell-offs for stocks in some time. Recently, many home gamers and pros alike, have put financials out of their purview. The erratic and effectively risky nature of these names are less than inviting, but
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Crude Oil The oil issue has been speculative to this point. It's hard to argue against 90 dollar oil when we saw 145 in July 2008, but the fundamentals aren't congruent with the price growth we've seen and this trader finds it easier to argue FOR $60/ barrel oil. Crude supply in the U.S. remains
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