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- Today
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Date : 17th January 2020. Positive bias on the back of US & Chinese Data 17th January 2020.Positive bias on the back of US & Chinese Data – Sentiment was supported by robust US retail sales on Thursday, ongoing good will following the Phase One trade deal and good earnings data, despite the slowdown of Chinese GDP growth to the lowest in 29 years.Always trade with strict risk management. Your capital is the single most important aspect of your trading business.Please note that times displayed based on local time zone and are from time of writing this report.Click HERE to access the full HotForex Economic calendar.Want to learn to trade and analyse the markets? Join our webinars and get analysis and trading ideas combined with better understanding on how markets work. Click HERE to register for FREE!Click HERE to READ more Market news. Andria Pichidi Market Analyst HotForex Disclaimer: This material is provided as a general marketing communication for information purposes only and does not constitute an independent investment research. Nothing in this communication contains, or should be considered as containing, an investment advice or an investment recommendation or a solicitation for the purpose of buying or selling of any financial instrument. All information provided is gathered from reputable sources and any information containing an indication of past performance is not a guarantee or reliable indicator of future performance. Users acknowledge that any investment in FX and CFDs products is characterized by a certain degree of uncertainty and that any investment of this nature involves a high level of risk for which the users are solely responsible and liable. We assume no liability for any loss arising from any investment made based on the information provided in this communication. This communication must not be reproduced or further distributed without our prior written permission.
- Yesterday
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I use Wyckoff for trading gold and forex. You are not wasting your time although this forum is dead.
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Date : 16th January 2020. Narrow US trade gap in Q4 – Its meaning and what to expect in 2020? 16th January 2020.A drop in the bilateral trade deficit between the US and China in Q4 sharply understates the underlying improvement, thanks to a powerful seasonal pattern in goods trade between the two countries that bloated the Q4 deficit. A plunge is anticipated in the gap to a February trough that should mark the narrowest deficit since 2013.Though the overall US trade gap will widen in 2020 if the economy grows, phase-one agreement will be followed by news over the coming three months of a collapsing US-China trade deficit.The US-China trade deficit for goods narrowed sharply last winter to just $20.7 bln in March of 2019 from a peak of $43.1 bln in October of 2018, with a gyration that was exacerbated by tariff front running.The seasonal widening into Q4 of 2019 failed to occur, while a seasonal narrowing is expected into the Lunar New Year that should prompt a February goods deficit in the $20 bln area — less than half of the peak just 16 months earlier.The seasonal pattern is mostly driven by the US import data from China. The unusually large gyration in 2018 was due to tariff front running, which pulled imports ahead into Q4 from Q1. Goods imports appeared to resume their seasonal climb until they reached a $41.5 bln level in July of 2019, leaving an -11.9% shortfall from July of 2018. From their, the seasonal climb oddly ended, and imports fell to just $36.5 bln in November to leave a y/y drop of an enormous -21.6%.If the seasonal drop now unfolds, imports from China should fall to the $28 bln area by February. The drop will be exacerbated this year by a relatively early Lunar New Year date of January 25.The seasonal pattern for imports has been quite stable over the years, until the big deviation in the pattern in 2019, which suggests that the atypical seasonal behavior this year is due to the “trade war.”The seasonal pattern is less stable, and less pronounced, for US goods exports to China, and the pattern of US exports has been fairly erratic over the last year. The dominant pattern over the past two years has been a drop in US exports to China between the start of the “trade war” in early 2018 to a trough in January of 2019, before largely stabilizing since then.The fact that Chinese policymakers cut all unnecessary trade with the US over this period, leaves little room for further cuts through 2019 and into 2020.Beyond the “trade war,” there have been two other major patterns in the US trade data that will likely have the effect of narrowing the US-China bilateral trade deficit over the coming year. One is the depressing effect on US exports from the 737 MAX grounding since March of 2019, leaving a likely dramatic rebound over the year following the lifting of the FAA ban presumably later this year. The other major pattern is the steep climb in US exports of petroleum products, as the Permian Basin is rapidly transforming into a major export center thanks to ongoing innovations in pressurized and lateral drilling.The seasonal patterns are expected to allow a deficit to return for the last time between December and April, before the US becomes a “permanent” net petroleum exporter. China is dependent on petroleum imports, and hence it is anticipated that US exporters capture more of this market over the coming years, especially given that the phase-one deal involves a shift in Chinese purchases toward US commodities.The combination of a narrowing US-China trade deficit, strength in US exports of petroleum-related products, and an assumed Boeing-led surge in capital goods exports at some point this year, may all suggest a narrowing US trade gap.Hence to be sure, as the trade gap declined to the lowest during Donald Trump presidency, will add to GDP if not in the long term definitely in the near term, possible during February-March with help from the Chinese New Year and Phase-1 deal.Overall however, a US GDP growth out-performance versus other countries in 2020 is anticipated, and a firm Dollar with strong capital account inflows, that should fuel a widening trade deficit through the year despite the narrowing bilateral gap with China.Always trade with strict risk management. Your capital is the single most important aspect of your trading business.Please note that times displayed based on local time zone and are from time of writing this report.Click HERE to access the full HotForex Economic calendar.Want to learn to trade and analyse the markets? Join our webinars and get analysis and trading ideas combined with better understanding on how markets work. Click HERE to register for FREE!Click HERE to READ more Market news. Andria Pichidi Market Analyst HotForex Disclaimer: This material is provided as a general marketing communication for information purposes only and does not constitute an independent investment research. Nothing in this communication contains, or should be considered as containing, an investment advice or an investment recommendation or a solicitation for the purpose of buying or selling of any financial instrument. All information provided is gathered from reputable sources and any information containing an indication of past performance is not a guarantee or reliable indicator of future performance. Users acknowledge that any investment in FX and CFDs products is characterized by a certain degree of uncertainty and that any investment of this nature involves a high level of risk for which the users are solely responsible and liable. We assume no liability for any loss arising from any investment made based on the information provided in this communication. This communication must not be reproduced or further distributed without our prior written permission.
- Last week
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Sobering reading isnt it crazy czarina?
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You cant argue with statistics (statistically speaking.. though) Find out what are your chances to make money with forex and stock trading and which is the “riskiest” and which is the “safest” broker out there. For the first time in the history of trading, you get to know the real statistics of how many investors actually make money by trading CFD’s like forex, stocks etc. One of the most popular questions bothering new forex traders has been “What percentage of forex traders make money?”, “How risky is forex trading?”. There was some speculation, but nobody had significant hard facts. Until now… Most traders have heard the popular estimate that 96% to 99% of traders lose money. This figure has been circling around for many years, but it was more like a folk legend than a hard fact. There was some data from a couple of brokers, but it was not possible to get the results from all the market participants. But now the secret can be revealed thanks to the new regulations. With the new European regulations that came into effect from August 1, 2018, brokers are required to display clearly on their marketing message what is the percentage of their clients that lose money. For example: “75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.” So we decided to gather the statistics from all of the established brokers to get a proper answer on what percentage of forex traders make money. It seems that we are the first ones to publish this information, so you are in the lucky place! 31 CFD brokers were surveyed overall and here are the results: It turns out that the losing account percentage varies from 65% to 89%. And the average percentage of losing accounts is 77%. 77% of accounts losing money still seems quite a lot, but it is much lower than the folk legend of 96%. So we can say that the myth has been busted! Given the fact that all business activities are risky and that more than 90% of startups fail, this number is not so bad after all. Who are the winning brokers / trading providers Now that we know the average losing percentages, let’s find out which trading providers report the lowest rates of losing investor accounts. Here are the Top5: As you can see in the image above, eToro stands out from the crowd with the lowest percentage of losing accounts. 65% losing accounts means that 35% of eToro users are profitable. That is 3 times more than the worst performing brokers and almost 9 times more than the folk legend predicted. What could be the reason behind the high profitability rate of eToro? The main difference of eToro from other trading providers is the possibility to connect with other traders, discuss trading strategies, and use their patented CopyTrader™ technology to automatically copy the trades of successful traders. Apparently, this actually works! Who are the losing brokers / trading providers Here are the Top5 brokers with the highest percentages of losing investor accounts: It might be that these brokers attract the least experienced traders and don’t offer them enough learning and training tools. Here is the full list of trading providers with the corresponding losing accounts: Now you know the true chances of winning in the forex and stock trading markets! Accept that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Winning at forex trading takes work just like anything else. Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Dont forget to like and subscribe
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Worth bumping because you all forgot to subscribe and like Will keep bumping until there is a change in attitude here.. just kidding jeez
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This is how to outshine amateurs My friend Peter just blew his account. After spending $15,000 on Forex courses, $10,000 on coaching, and losing $5,000 to a scam broker (InvesttechFX) – he was ready to call it quits. After all of that, he decided to give it one last try. He bought an Expert Advisor (EA, also known as a trading robot). After 6 months, boom… his trading account was gone – again. “I am just stupid! Bloody stupid.” he told me. However, Peter didn’t understand that it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t “stupid”. He was being harsh on himself. It wasn’t his fault for believing marketers and people with their “track records”, MyFXBook results, and hundreds of testimonials. It is hard to resist. Upon closer inspection though, it was obvious to me that this would never have worked. Do you really think Warren Buffet relies on MyFXBook or a MetaTrader 4 account to make his buying decisions? Do you think that anybody in the City of London or Wall Street make trading decisions based on that? Of course not. I do have an unfair advantage though. I spent 23 years on Wall Street trading wealthy client accounts. The last 13 years have been spent trading for myself. During that time I have seen a number of miracles happen. One of my biggest wins early in my trading career was a trade in 1982. I started with a paltry $8,000 to my name and I used it to buy silver on the futures exchanges. As it turns out my analysis was spot on, and I ended up running my $8,000 account to a little over $280,000 in only 30 days. Since that time I have modified my trading strategy – slightly. After 120,000 trades, 1,200 trading accounts, and 8 Wall Street Firms – I am going to give you an exact guide to walking away with 4 additional winning trades per month and avoid losing your shirt – like Peter did (I’ll tell you what happened to him in a minute). Before you read this article you must agree to the following statements: There’s no magic pill. The markets are full of sharks and they will eat you alive. You need to stick to simple and sensible rules. The Forex systems and robots churned out by internet marketer’s are laughable. – especially if you think that’s how they make money on Wall Street. And trust me, they DO make tons of money. Forget about making 20% per month. That’s how poor people think. I’ll let you know exactly how much you can actually make later in this article. Now, if you agree with all of those statements then I salute you. If you disagree with any of them, then close this page right now. Still here? Good… You are part of a small group of people who can separate reality from outright dreams and lies. And for that reason you will understand the words in this article better than anyone. I don’t have time for ‘internet traders’, the ‘Forex forums’, or any other breeding ground for newbies who pretend they really know how the markets work – and neither should you. This article is going to be simple. I am going to show you how to get 4 – yes, just 4 – additional winning trades every month. Don’t be fooled by the goofy EA developers and internet marketers out there. Having 4 profitable trades per month is more than enough to push you into the big boys club. You can make more, but my aim is to get you started with something consistent. Once you’ve got that mastered you can increase your output. Why you won’t make a dime from the information contained in this article Most people reading this won’t make a single dollar. Not because the content sucks – I believe it is some of the best trading tips in the world. It is because people are lazy and don’t implement what they learn. It is because people lose their shit and take too much risk. And it is because you might not be able to handle my style. My past results really are no indication of you making any money whatsoever. You might simply not have what it takes. However, there are a small percentage of people who do. And by following the rules you might be one of them. There are no guarantees. So read carefully and make sure you examine every word on this page as if your life depends on it. Because it might just change it forever – if you have what it takes. #1. The last opportunity for major profits in the Forex market Have you ever been stopped out of the trade, just for it to change direction immediately? Do you ever feel like every decision you make is the wrong one? There is this big lie out there that hundreds of thousands of Forex traders believe. And you may have believed this too at one point. “The Forex market is the most liquid market in the world and therefore it cannot be manipulated“. That is plain wrong. Governments have been cracking down on big banks because of their manipulation of a whole host of markets. Check out this article on the BBC: Have a look at this chart they supplied: Have you ever been knocked out of a trade that just seemed totally random? Well, chances are somebody rigged it. And chances are… you didn’t confirm your trade with a “2-pattern overlay”. More on that in a little bit. You and I are small fish who are competing with much MUCH bigger sharks. Sharks who know the waters better than you do. I used to swim with them. Merrill Lynch was only one of 8 companies I worked for on Wall Street. They did NOT take prisoners. There are entire teams who’s job it is to cheat the system. And those are some of the brightest minds in the world from the best universities in the world. You have to accept that you cannot beat them. That’s why, what I’m about to reveal, is the very last opportunity to profit in the Forex markets. Forget scraping a few pips off the charts. Forget taking daily pivot trades, or “snipers”, or FAPTurbos, or whatever else these idiots are selling these days. You have to stick to simple daily trades that unfold over a period of days, weeks, and sometimes months. By riding the wave on a boat, you’ll be safe from the sharks on Wall Street. If you want to get all 21 of my Power Strategies then click here and I’ll email them to you. #2. How to dominate a currency with profitable trades That’s a lie. You can never ‘dominate’ a market. That kind of thinking will get your account murdered. However, you can put the odds severely in your favor by doing one thing. You can use a simple “2-pattern overlay” before entering a trade I’ve been using this since the 80s and it still works better than anything. One million dollar client at EF Hutton & Co (another Wall Street company) dubbed me the “2-pattern wizard”. Every time I used it he knew he was about to make enough cash to buy another house. All you do is look for a minimum of two chart patterns to “confirm the trade”. Now, that doesn’t mean you confirm an entry. You simply confirm that you potentially want to take a trade. Here’s an example from one of my trades: I saw a triple “core support bounce”, and then a simple overhead resistance. (If you don’t know how to spot price patterns then don’t worry… I’ll get to that). DON’T jump into the trade just yet – it isn’t that easy. You still have to know when to enter. I use a very specific ‘trigger’ that usually means the market is coiled like a spring, ready to burst in the right direction. Keep reading and you’ll learn all about it. #3. Use this simple trigger Most newbies would simply jump into the trade because they saw a “double bottom” or some other pattern. You and I know better. You have to wait for the market to form a coil. There are several different types of market “coils”, however the one I’m about to reveal is the easiest to spot and tends to give me better results. It is called an “inside day bar”. So, looking at the daily chart I would wait for this bar to form. Here’s a real live example from a trade I took a while ago: Two inside day bars were the beginning of a nice coil. Here’s another example: #4. Have a tight stop loss and await the coming burst in movement Remember that silver trade I told you about in the 1980s? It was my first big win. Even though I turned $8k into $280k the risk was minimal. I did that by scaling into a rocketing market. Despite what people say… NEVER do that. Not until you understand the true risks involved. It can take a heavy psychological impact on you. I once saw a guy at Commodities Corp (now a division of Goldman Sachs) throw his computer across the room because he leveraged his position by scaling in too much. Theres no need to do it. Simply stick with what I am about to reveal and you could walk away with a handful of winning trades each month. Keep the initial stop loss tight, and then keep it loose… The initial stop loss is very tight. I anchor it close to the previous bar. If you’ve established the correct price action and trigger bar, you should see it shoot off in the right direction. Only 1 out of 2 trades tends to linger around. If they turn, then it means the trade is a dud and your stop loss will kick you out quickly. However, when it goes… it goes. Here’s an example of a good trade I took. I made a fat 5.2% in about one week. This example shows how it immediately jumped in my favor. That means I spotted a good coil. By the way… those are actual trades. My trading platform marks them with those little circled arrows. Here’s another example: EURGBP immediately jumped after a trigger coil for a 2.5% gain in just one day. I don’t usually exit trades in the same day, however, 2.5% is a lot of money in my world. You don’t often see 2.5% days. If everyday was like that my account would grow by a billion every month. So when it happens… I take it. #5. Exiting the trade for a fat profit This is how you get 4 additional winning trades. If you get the coil right. Your trade should shoot out of the block like Usain Bolt. This allows you to have a tight stop loss. It puts you in a great position to make huge gains with a tiny risk. If your stop loss was far away from your initial entry then your risk would be greater and you’ll have to reduce your position size. Therefore, I would recommend a hard and fast 3:1 risk reward ratio. If your stop loss is 35 pips away, your profit target will be 105 pips (three times the stop loss). Now, admittedly I use a way more complicated process for my exits. I could write an entire book on it. However, when I looked back at my last 300 trades, I noticed that if I used THIS exit strategy I would still have made a great return. It is simple and it takes psychology out of the equation. #6. How to ‘never’ lose I learned this while working at Bridgewater Associates (they manage about $170 billion) from a funny looking Irishman. Back in 2011/2012 I forgot this rule and I duly got slaughtered. There is a story inside of the book ‘Marketing Wizzards’. It talks about a great trader who locks himself in a room with no distractions. No windows. No TV. No Computer. He has his assistant bring him his chart-book without the instruments named. So he doesn’t know if he’s trading pork bellies or gold. He doesn’t care. All he cares about is the price and the fact that he has no distractions. It means he ‘never loses’. My rule gives me the same sort of piece of mind. Before I let you in on it you must know what I mean by ‘never’ lose. When you lose a trade – you aren’t ‘losing’. It is simply part of the process. It is the equivalent of a business expense. You will always lose trades. However, when you lose your mind and you don’t follow your own rules. That’s when you truly lose. So here are the exact rules you need to follow to NEVER lose, always stick to your rules, and always win in the long run. Do not share your trading results I did once. And only once. It was a huge mistake. All of the sudden I was answerable to thousands of people who happen to stumble across my profile. This doesn’t work when you are a trader. I lost focus. I kept fussing about whether a trade was a winner or a loser. I didn’t focus on whether it followed the rules or not. As long as you follow the rules… you are winning. When you don’t follow the rules – you are losing (even when you make a profit). Systems and routines are the only thing that make you profitable in the long run. It is the only thing that’ll protect you against the sharks. So whatever you do – don’t share you trading results. Not even with your husband or wife. It’ll put external pressures on you. Don’t even mention a winning trade or a losing trade. Simply tell them you’re winning because you followed the rules. #7. How to make $1m from trading Do you want to know the real secret? The one that most people ignore, because they don’t really take their trading seriously? Well, it is a system of recording and documenting your trades in detail. I call it a trade journal. Super original right? Every single time I am about to take a trade, I stop. I take a snapshot of the chart, I write out my analysis (the reason WHY), and then I enter the order. 90% of my orders are pending orders, which means they only enter when the market reaches a specific price. This is an example of three pages inside of my journal. By doing this with your trading you’ll be able to get a lot more focussed. When you look at the markets you will feel excited. You will get a rush of adrenaline. Stop. Take a deep breath and start recording the trade before it happens. It gives you the breathing room you need to make rational decisions. It helps you to be a winner every time by following the rules. If you want to receive my 21 Power Strategies then click here and I’ll send them to you. Seriously. Get my journal. It’ll show you how you should structure yours for maximum results. You’ll also get a better feel for the way I trade. #8. Past trading results on MyFXBook will drain your trading account This is the biggest difference between the Wall Street traders and normal folk. On Wall Street – we know that past results don’t mean anything. They really are no indication of future performance. Even if the results are third party verified. Think about it. How many times have you bought a system or a program based on their past results? And… how many times has it worked out? Now you have two choices I should congratulate you. You’ve read the entire article. However, this is just the start. You now face two choices. Choice #1 Forget what I told you and keep doing what everybody else is doing. It is easier to follow the herd after all. Some of the things I talked about aren’t easy. Some of them are plain boring. Yet this is what it takes. And I think you know that, which is why you’ll probably go for… Choice #2 This is the choice smart Forex traders go for. You grit your teeth and follow the rules. So that you can finally break away from the ‘internet herd’ and actually start taking pride in being a trader. Don’t fall into the same trap as Peter. Be the person that “actually makes money”. How nice would that feel for a change? I’ll help you out by giving you my 21 Power Strategies without asking you for a dime. Just let me know which email address I should send it. Dont forget to like and subscribe
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THAT MEANS forex ..plus Not Forex forex forex all day long loosers tend to choose Forex It's A fact 80% of all day traders quit within the first two years. 1 Among all day traders, nearly 40% day trade for only one month. Within three years, only 13% continue to day trade. After five years, only 7% remain. 1 Traders sell winners at a 50% higher rate than losers. 60% of sales are winners, while 40% of sales are losers.2 The average individual investor underperforms a market index by 1.5% per year. Active traders underperform by 6.5% annually. 3 Day traders with strong past performance go on to earn strong returns in the future. Though only about 1% of all day traders are able to predictably profit net of fees. 1 Traders with up to a 10 years negative track record continue to trade. This suggests that day traders even continue to trade when they receive a negative signal regarding their ability. 1 Profitable day traders make up a small proportion of all traders – 1.6% in the average year. However, these day traders are very active – accounting for 12% of all day trading activity. 1 Among all traders, profitable traders increase their trading more than unprofitable day traders. 1 Poor individuals tend to spend a greater proportion of their income on lottery purchases and their demand for lottery increases with a decline in their income. 4 Investors with a large differential between their existing economic conditions and their aspiration levels hold riskier stocks in their portfolios. 4 Men trade more than women. And unmarried men trade more than married men. 5 Poor, young men, who live in urban areas and belong to specific minority groups invest more in stocks with lottery-type features. 5 Within each income group, gamblers underperform non-gamblers. 4 Investors tend to sell winning investments while holding on to their losing investments. 6 Trading in Taiwan dropped by about 25% when a lottery was introduced in April 2002. 7 During periods with unusually large lottery jackpot, individual investor trading declines. 8 Investors are more likely to repurchase a stock that they previously sold for a profit than one previously sold for a loss. 9 An increase in search frequency [in a specific instrument] predicts higher returns in the following two weeks. 10 Individual investors trade more actively when their most recent trades were successful.11 Traders don’t learn about trading. “Trading to learn” is no more rational or profitable than playing roulette to learn for the individual investor.1 The average day trader loses money by a considerable margin after adjusting for transaction costs. [In Taiwan] the losses of individual investors are about 2% of GDP. Investors overweight stocks in the industry in which they are employed. Traders with a high-IQ tend to hold more mutual funds and larger number of stocks. Therefore, benefit more from diversification effects. Conclusion: Why Most Traders Lose Money Is Not Surprising Anymore After going over these 24 statistics it’s very obvious to tell why traders fail. More often than not trading decisions are not based on sound research or tested trading methods, but on emotions, the need for entertainment and the hope to make a million dollars in your underwear. What traders always forget is that trading is a profession and requires skills that need to be developed over years. Therefore, be mindful about your trading decisions and the view you have on trading. Don’t expect to be a millionaire by the end of the year, but keep in mind the possibilities trading online has. ———— – 1Barber, Lee, Odean (2010): Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability? – 2Odean (1998): Volume, volatility, price, and profit when all traders are above average – 3Barber, & Odean (2000): Trading is hazardous to your wealth: The common stock investment performance of individual investors – 4 Kumar: Who Gambles In The Stock Market? – 5 Barber, Odean (2001): Boys will be boys: Gender, overconfidence, and common stock investment – 6Calvet, L. E., Campbell, J., & Sodini P. (2009). Fight or flight? Portfolio rebalancing by individual investors. –7Barber, B. M., Lee, Y., Liu, Y., & Odean, T. (2009). Just how much do individual investors lose by trading? – 8Gao, X., & Lin, T. (2011). Do individual investors trade stocks as gambling? Evidence from repeated natural experiments – 9Strahilevitz, M., Odean, T., & Barber, B. (2011). Once burned, twice shy: How naïve learning, counterfactuals, and regret affect the repurchase of stocks previously sol. – 10Da, Z., Engelberg, J., & Gao, P. (2011). In search of attention – 11De, S., Gondhi, N. R. & Pochiraju, B. (2010). Does sign matter more than size? An investigation into the source of investor overconfidence https://www.tradeciety.com/24-statistics-why-most-traders-lose-money/ Dont forget to like and subscribe
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In the end DIVERSITY IN YOUR PORFOLIO....OH WHAT??!!! Top 10 Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace [INFOGRAPHIC INCLUDED] Kristina Martic 7-9 minutes What is diversity in the workplace? Diversity in the workplace means that a company employs a wide range of diverse individuals. In other words, a diverse workforce includes people with different characteristics. Diversity in the workplace means that a company’s workforce includes people of varying gender, age, religion, race, ethnicity, cultural background, sexual orientation, religion, languages, education, abilities, etc. Workplace diversity - inclusion fad or a competitive advantage? Diversity in the workplace was always one of the hottest topics in the HR industry, but in recent few years, it has become a major goal for many companies. Actually, workplace diversity was one of the key workplace trends in 2018. ➡️ Download free eBook: 15 Recruiting Trends You Should Implement in 2019! Workplace diversity is now something most companies strive to achieve. Why is that? Is it just about improving a company’s reputation and promoting inclusion at the workplace? While your company’s reputation and workplace inclusion are definitely important goals worth pursuing, workplace diversity has many other immediate and tangible benefits related directly to your company’s bottom line. Thus, workplace diversity is not just a politically correct fad - it is a serious competitive advantage. Companies with more diverse workplace outperform its competitors and achieve greater profits! What are the benefits of diversity in the workplace? Here is the list of the top 10 benefits of diversity in the workplace: Workplace diversity benefit #1: Variety of different perspectives Diversity in the workplace ensures a variety of different perspectives. Since diversity in the workplace means that employees will have different characteristics and backgrounds, they are also more likely to have a variety of different skills and experiences. Consequently, employees in a company with higher workplace diversity will have access to a variety of different perspectives, which is highly beneficial when it comes to planning and executing a business strategy. Workplace diversity benefit #2: Increased creativity Diversity in the workplace leads to increased creativity. People with different background tend to have different experiences and thus different perspectives. Exposure to a variety of different perspectives and views leads to higher creativity. When you put together people who see the same thing in different ways, you are more likely to get a melting pot of fresh, new ideas, thus improving the creativity of your workforce. Workplace diversity benefit #3: Higher innovation Diversity in the workplace leads to higher innovation rate. According to Josh Bersin research, inclusive companies are 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market. In a diverse workplace, employees are exposed to multiple perspectives and worldviews. When these various perspectives combine, they often come together in novel ways, opening doors to innovation. Workplace diversity benefit #4: Faster problem-solving Companies with higher workplace diversity solve problems faster. Harvard Business Review found diverse teams are able to solve problems faster than cognitively similar people. Employees from diverse backgrounds have different experiences and views, which is why they are able to will bring diverse solutions to the table. Thus, the best solution can be chosen sooner, which leads to faster problem-solving. Workplace diversity benefit #5: Better decision making Workplace diversity leads to better decision making results. A white paper from online decision-making platform Cloverpop has found a direct link between workplace diversity and decision-making. Researchers found that when diverse teams made a business decision, they outperformed individual decision-makers up to 87% of the time. When employees with different background and perspectives come together, they come up with more solutions, which leads to more informed and improved decision-making process and results. Workplace diversity benefit #6: Increased profits Companies with greater workplace diversity achieve greater profits. McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, conducted research which included 180 companies in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They found out that companies with more diverse top teams were also top financial performers. Companies with diverse workforce make better decisions faster, which gives them a serious advantage over their competitors. As a result, companies with diversity in the workplace achieve better business results and reap more profit. Workplace diversity benefit #7: Higher employee engagement Workplace diversity leads to higher employee engagement. Deloitte conducted a research which captured the views and experiences of 1,550 employees in three large Australian businesses operating in manufacturing, retail and healthcare. This research showed that engagement is an outcome of diversity and inclusion. The link between workplace diversity and employee engagement is pretty straightforward - when employees feel included, they are more engaged. Workplace diversity benefit #8: Reduced employee turnover Workplace diversity is beneficial for employee retention. Companies with diverse workforce are generally more inclusive of different individual characteristics and perspectives. Diversity and inclusion in the workplace cause all employees to feel accepted and valued. When employees feel accepted and valued, they are also happier in their workplace and stay longer with a company. As a result, companies with greater diversity in the workplace have lower turnover rates. Workplace diversity benefit #9: Better company reputation Workplace diversity boosts the company’s reputation and brand. Companies who are dedicated to building and promoting diversity in the workplace are seen as good, more human and socially responsible organizations. Workplace diversity also makes your company look more interesting. Finally, if you present a diverse workforce, you will make it easier for many different people to relate to your company and your brand, opening doors to new markets, customers and business partners. Workplace diversity benefit #10: Improved hiring results Workplace diversity leads to better hiring results. Diversity in the workplace boosts a company’s employer brand and presents a company as a more desirable place to work. Workplace diversity is an especially beneficial asset for attracting top talent from diverse talent pools. According to a survey conducted by Glassdoor, 67% of job seekers said a diverse workforce is important when considering job offers. Workplace diversity infographic How can you leverage the advantages of workplace diversity? Workplace diversity can take your company culture and your business results to a whole new level. If you want to leverage all the advantages of workplace diversity, first you need to learn how to build and manage workplace diversity in an effective way.
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A slightly repetitive answer (as is usually the case)
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agreed🙂
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completely unagreed
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A good post here because it has more than one line with the word forex in it Other posters should note and learn...
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trading forex gives good profits!
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loving the dream>
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fasvinating insight well don!! living the dream?
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Good news!1 (for forex traders) This article is equally fascinating 2020 Technology Industry Trends 5-6 minutes Last year, we emphasized the growing importance of partnerships as a strategic tool that every technology company should employ. Until recently, strategic discussions typically began with the following question: “Should I buy or build?” As we head into 2020, that question should be modified: “Should I buy, build, or partner?”. With fast-paced developments in emerging technologies, partnerships can be critical for tech companies looking to enhance their existing solutions or provide more targeted offerings. Based on the key strengths and expertise of partners, companies can pursue research and development; offer more integrated solutions across their hardware, network, platform, or software stack; or target different markets altogether. Tech companies have leveraged this model extensively to offer improved products and services across areas like AI, cloud, and processing. For many companies, this approach will require a permanent shift in their overall mindset. But today’s ultra-competitive, highly complex technology environment demands nothing less. After all, why buy an asset that’s not best-in-breed when you can team with someone who has the specific capabilities you need? Partnering represents a more efficient use of capital and will probably drive better outcomes. This “partnership” concept also extends to multiplayer alliances—complex ecosystems of providers who combine best-of-breed assets to create end-to-end solutions for clients. Successful ecosystems are those that simplify issues like systems integration and contractual obligations so that the customer experience is transparent. When it comes to strategies for developing and expanding their cloud business, many tech companies are increasingly shifting toward the everything-as-a-service (XaaS) model, which encompasses capabilities such as platform-as-a-service (PaaS), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and software-as-service (SaaS). Within the PaaS environment, database and application platform services represent the largest market segments, with blockchain, digital experience, serverless, and AI/machine learning platform services the most recent offerings.13 The global IaaS market is mainly driven by advantages such as improved disaster recovery, ease of deployment, and platform scalability.14 Larger than PaaS and IaaS,15 the worldwide SaaS market features solution providers that leverage microservices to offer customizable end-to end solutions, increased agility, and better ROI measurement.16 Tech companies are also offering new solutions like security-as-a-service, data-as-a-service, and device-as-a-service to help companies deliver XaaS benefits, such as operational efficiency and faster innovation. In the new world of XaaS, tech companies should deliver highly tailored solutions that reflect a deep understanding of each customer’s business and desired outcomes. Most tech firms can’t do this on their own: They have long relied on indirect channel partners to help drive their business growth. And with the shift to XaaS, tech companies will likely continue to depend on partners’ domestic presence and localized knowledge to serve customers across regions. Some channel partners are changing their business models to match tech companies’ XaaS transformation efforts and deliver new forms of value. But many partners are struggling to adapt their business approach for the new as-a-service world. Their concerns range from a lack of specialized talent to worries about the near-term financial implications of transforming their business models. To address this situation, tech companies should invest the time required to make their channel partners an integral part of the XaaS transformation journey. This includes providing a clear XaaS transformation vision to partners, as well as articulating the potential long-term benefits. Some major tech companies are already investing to strengthen their indirect channels in areas such as understanding customer requirements, recommending services, deployment, integration, and simplifying billing and management of diverse cloud services.17 Of course, mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures (M&A&D) will remain a viable growth strategy for tech companies in the coming year, with revenue growth, tech assets, and IP expected to be the top drivers. However, companies are looking to do more than simply enhance technology through M&A&D. Increasingly, they’re employing this strategy to expand into new markets and build their consumer bases.18 In particular, divestitures can be important where best-of-breed assets are becoming a drain on capital and partnering is a preferable alternative. One other strategy that no tech company can afford to overlook is building a diverse workforce. There is empirical evidence that inclusive companies generate up to 30 percent higher revenue per employee, are more profitable than competitors, and are eight times more likely to achieve positive business outcomes.19 Diversity in the workforce and among partners can also promote ethical use of AI by reducing the potential for bias in certain applications. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/technology-industry-outlook.html Dont forget to like and subscribe
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Good NEWS!!! You can make good profits in forex if you can fully understand the implications here. in this article An absolutely fascinating read here. Absolutely (fascinating) Financial services technology 2020 and beyond: Embracing disruption PricewaterhouseCoopers 17-22 minutes Our global report Financial services technology 2020 and beyond: Embracing disruption examines the forces that are disrupting the role, structure, and competitive environment for financial institutions and the markets and societies in which they operate. The post-crisis regulatory frameworks have been gradually settling into place, and financial institutions have been adjusting their business models accordingly. It is now becoming obvious that the accelerating pace of technological change is the most creative force—and also, the most destructive one—in the financial services ecosystem today. In this paper, we set out to capture the real world implications of these technological advances on the financial services industry and those who must supervise and use it. Playback of this video is not currently available What our Financial Services Technology Leaders have to say Playback of this video is not currently available Julien Courbe, Global Financial Services Technology leader on technology becoming a transforming agent for the industry Playback of this video is not currently available John Lyons, Europe Financial Services Technology leader on why digital should be put at the heart of operation models The ten competitive technology-driven influencers for 2020 1: FinTech will drive the new business model For a long time, new market entrants found it difficult to break into the financial services industry. Well, not any more. FinTech disruptors have been finding a way in. Disruptors are fast-moving companies, often start-ups, focused on a particular innovative technology or process in everything from mobile payments to insurance. And, they have been attacking some of the most profitable elements of the financial services value chain. This has been particularly damaging to the incumbents who have historically subsidized important but less profitable service offerings. In our recent PwC Global FinTech Survey, industry respondents told us that a quarter of their business, or more, could be at risk of being lost to standalone FinTech companies within 5 years. Global investments in FinTech more than tripled in 2014, reaching more than $12 billion. In comparison, banks spent an estimated $215 billion on IT worldwide in 2014, including hardware, software, and internal and external services. This is a material number, and because it is so highly targeted, the FinTech spending will really make an impact. 2: The sharing economy will be embedded in every part of the financial system By 2020, consumers will need banking services, but they may not turn to a bank to get them. Or, at least, maybe not what we think of as a bank today. The so-called sharing economy may have started with cars, taxis, and hotel rooms, but financial services will follow soon enough. In this case, the sharing economy refers to decentralized asset ownership and using information technology to find efficient matches between providers and users of capital, rather than automatically turning to a bank as an intermediary. 3: Blockchain will shake things up Several industry groups have come together to commercialise technology and apply it to real financial services scenarios. We expect this surge in funding and innovation to continue as blockchain and FinTech move from a largely retail focus to include more institutional use. And while many of these companies may not survive the next three to five years, we believe the use of the blockchain “public ledger” will go on to become an integral part of financial institutions’ technology and operational infrastructure. 4: Digital becomes mainstream Two decades ago, many large financial institutions built “e-business” units to ride a wave of e-commerce interest. Eventually, the initial “e” went away, and this became the new normal. Internet development, and large technology investments, drove unprecedented advances in efficiency. Today’s “digital” wave has the same markers: separate teams, budgets, and resources to advance a digital agenda. This agenda extends from customer experience and operational efficiency to big data and analytics. In financial services, we have seen this approach applied to payments, retail banking, insurance, and wealth management, and migrating toward institutional areas such as capital markets and commercial banking. 5: “Customer intelligence” will be the most important predictor of revenue growth and profitability Do you know what your customers value? Are you sure? Once, customer intelligence was based on some relatively simple heuristics, built from focus groups and surveys. These were proxies for real, individualised data about consumer behaviour, and the results were pretty hazy. Now, technology advances have given businesses access to exponentially more data about what users do and want. It is an amazing opportunity for whomever can use analytics to unlock the information inside, to give customers what they really want. 6: Advances in robotics and AI will start a wave of ‘re-shoring’ and localisation We are already seeing alliances between leading incumbent financial services and technology companies, using robotics and AI to address key pressure points, reduce costs, and mitigate risks. They are targeting a specific combination of capabilities such as social and emotional intelligence, natural language processing, logical reasoning, identification of patterns and self-supervised learning, physical sensors, mobility, navigation, and more. And they are looking far beyond replacing the bank teller. Already, some robots can sense the details of their environments, recognize objects, and respond to information and objects with safe, useful behaviours. (Sceptical? You shouldn’t be. Self-driving cars have performed very well in real-world tests.) Over time, they will be able to perform not only more tasks, but more complex tasks. Service robots are in the early stages of a long development cycle, and they still face some big technological hurdles. In the next three to five years, we expect modest, evolutionary gains. After that, though, we anticipate rapid gains, as new models combine increasingly powerful and standard modular platforms with the ability to learn. 7: The public cloud will become the dominant infrastructure model As significant as the shift toward cloud-based computing has been, it is just getting started. Today, many financial institutions use cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for business processes that might be considered non-core, such as CRM, HR, and financial accounting. They also turn to SaaS for ‘point solutions’ on the fringes of their operations, including security analytics and KYC verification. But as application offerings improve and as COOs and CIOs get comfortable with the arrangements, the technology is rapidly becoming the way that core activity is processed. By 2020, core service infrastructures in areas such as consumer payments, credit scoring, and statements and billings for asset managers’ basic current account functions will be well on the way to becoming utilities. 8: Cyber-security will be one of the top risks facing financial institutions Financial services executives are already depressingly familiar with the impact that cyber-threats have had on their industry. In our 2016 global CEO survey, 69% of financial services’ CEOs reported that they are either somewhat or extremely concerned about cyber-threats, compared to 61% of CEOs across all sectors. Unfortunately, it is not likely to change for the better in the coming years, due to the following forces: Use of third-party vendors Rapidly evolving, sophisticated, and complex technologies Cross-border data exchanges Increased use of mobile technologies by customers, including the rapid growth of the Internet of Things Heightened cross-border information security threats 9: Asia will emerge as a key center of technology-driven innovation Around the world, the middle class is projected to grow by 180% between 2010 and 2040; Asia’s middle class is already larger than Europe’s. By 2020, the majority share of the population considered “middle class” is expected to shift from North America and Europe to Asia-Pacific. And over the next 30 years, some 1.8 billion people will move into cities, mostly in Africa and Asia, creating one of the most important new opportunities for financial institutions. These trends are directly linked to technology-driven innovation. Initially, as developments in agricultural technology improved labour productivity, rural workers began migrating to cities in search of better opportunities. At first, they found jobs in capital-intensive industries like manufacturing for the local market—and then, as technology drove quality improvements, for the global market. Meanwhile, advances in computing and telecommunications made it possible for Western companies to offshore certain support functions to places like the Philippines and India, creating relatively well-paying jobs. Over time, the trend has become self-reinforcing: more jobs in cities have led to better technology infrastructures in cities, which has attracted employers who can now serve global markets. The result: more urbanisation, and a growing middle class across the emerging markets. 10: Regulators will turn to technology, too The use of technology and its implications are not limited to financial institutions. Regulators are rapidly adopting a wide range of data gathering and analytical tools, too. They are trying to learn more about individual institutions’ activities and overall systemic activity. They also hope to monitor the industry more effectively and to predict potential problems instead of regulating after the fact. Examples of this include the supervisory procedures and data requests tied to ‘stress tests’, asset quality reviews and enhanced reporting requirements coming out of Washington, London, and Basel. Using sophisticated analytical tools on large volumes of data, regulators can compare scenarios and address potential issues before they become full-scale market problems I told you it was fascinating Dont forget to like and subscribe https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/financial-services/publications/financial-services-technology-2020-and-beyond-embracing-disruption.html
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Quandl.com is a good source for intraday data for US and foreign stocks (although it is priced with an annual subscription, not for individual downloads). FirstRateData.com has 1-minute bars going back 20 years for most S&P500 stocks and major indices and is priced on a per-download basis.
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Date : 15th January 2020. GOLDMAN SACHS and the 4th Quarter of 2019 15th January 2020.As Earnings season is kicking off again, focus is on the Banks’ reports this week. JP Morgan, City Group and Wells Fargo published their Q4 2019 reports yesterday before the US market open. JP Morgan and City Group beat expectations strongly, whilst Walls Fargo missed and saw its shares falling over 4% right after the report.Today, investors’ attention is on whether Bank of America and GS will follow JP Morgan’s success story.Goldman Sachs is scheduled to release its Q4 and full-year 2019 results before the US market open. In Q3 2019, the bank beat revenue forecasts but missed in earnings, while it posted a decline in Revenue and earnings in comparison with the previous quarter, affected by weakness seen in Investment Banking and Lending. Overall, in the past 2 years it has beaten earning and revenue estimations 88% of the time.GS , in an attempt to improve its profitability and stock performance, has proceeded with several changes and several restructure and expansion plans for the near future and also the next 5 years. One of their latest projects, which was launched in August, was the development of credit cards with Apple, while they also introduced a long-awaited app last week (January 8), which according to Reuters, ” will integrate with the financial giant’s digital bank, Marcus”. Marcus is Goldman Sachs’s consumer banking unit, which was founded by Goldman Sachs in 2016, named after the bank’s founder Marcus Goldman.In the long term meanwhile, GS has focused on its request to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). As the China Morning Post stated, GS is one of the US banks which has an official branch in China and has been applying to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) since last August to take majority control of its venture known as Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities, seeking to raise its stake to 51% from 33%. The hiring push on the mainland is part of the US bank’s new five-year plan in which Chief Executive David Solomon is looking to improve its profitability and share price performance.It will be interesting to see whether all the above expansion plans will affect the bank’s earnings report today, but also how they could expand its wealth management business and broaden its revenue streams in 2020.Zack’s estimates for Q4 Earnings are:EPS Estimate: $5.20Sales Estimates: Low: 8.70B High: 8.82B Year over Year Growth: 8.37% Earnings Estimates: Low: $4.54 High: $5.42 Year over Year Growth: -13.91% Technical overview:The monthly chart shows the free fall seen on GS shares in 2018 to $151.60 from its all-time high in March 2018 at $275.60. In 2019, shares managed to recover by nearly 78%, as the price moved successfully to $274.64.However, in the Daily chart, momentum indicators suggest that positive bias is starting to lose some ground , with OBV indicator unable to move further to the upside, suggesting nearterm weakness. The asset price is still moving upwards, however it’s moving outside the upper Bollinger Bands area, with RSI crossing above 70, both suggesting that the asset looks overbought. This comes in line with OBV. Hence from a technical perspective a correction could be seen in the medium term as the asset is overbought. From the data perspective, positive bias could theoretically strengthen if the upcoming earnings report beats expectations.Resistance levels: $249, $261, $275Support levels: $236, $227, $214Always trade with strict risk management. Your capital is the single most important aspect of your trading business.Please note that times displayed based on local time zone and are from time of writing this report.Click HERE to access the full HotForex Economic calendar.Want to learn to trade and analyse the markets? Join our webinars and get analysis and trading ideas combined with better understanding on how markets work. Click HERE to register for FREE!Click HERE to READ more Market news. Ahura Chalki Regional Market Analyst HotForex Disclaimer: This material is provided as a general marketing communication for information purposes only and does not constitute an independent investment research. Nothing in this communication contains, or should be considered as containing, an investment advice or an investment recommendation or a solicitation for the purpose of buying or selling of any financial instrument. All information provided is gathered from reputable sources and any information containing an indication of past performance is not a guarantee or reliable indicator of future performance. Users acknowledge that any investment in FX and CFDs products is characterized by a certain degree of uncertainty and that any investment of this nature involves a high level of risk for which the users are solely responsible and liable. We assume no liability for any loss arising from any investment made based on the information provided in this communication. This communication must not be reproduced or further distributed without our prior written permission.
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Binary .com Broker - Binary Options 20$ No Deposit Bonus Binary.com initially emerged on financial market back in 1999 and are controlled by the Binary Investments Ltd.. The most useful characteristic of the outstanding broker is its own elastic and distinctive proprietary binary options trading platform. Their years of expertise is readily portrayed on their own Binary.com trading trading platform. This stage provides a few of the very advanced services and products we’ve experienced up to now.Binary.com also excels in the region of instruction and service. Customer service representatives can help you from the beginning, however also the business’s library of support and learning materials are comprehensive enough which you’re able to find your path quite readily, whether newcomer or experienced. The offering comprises webinars, daily market reports, e-books, trading graphs, and much more. Bonuses & Promotions: 20$ Binary Options No Deposit Bonus – Click Here To Open An Account Low minimum deposit – 5$ Only Small Minimum Trade Size – Just 5$ Free Demo Account Without Deposit Up to 100% Profit / Trade Deposit Bonus Mobile Trading Platform Many Banking Methods Regulated Broker – No Complaints Customer care agents speak several languages and also can be found “24X7” via email, callback provider mobile, phone, and live chat. Together with offices in Malta, Malaysia and Japan, the sun literally never lays with this business throughout any given trading day. Still another sign of the scope of this business’s worldwide advantage is that its site is read in several dozen languages. If you’re interested in finding your best that the binary options industry could provide, then you’re going to be happy with the administration team in Binary.com. Experience will bring benefits in the shape of better technology, grade of service, and invention, all very apparent for this specific venture and evidenced by exceptionally positive reviews and industry awards for excellence. Read Binary.com Broker Review -
Stellar (XLM) Bounces, Uptrend Uncertain Key Resistance Levels: $0.09, $0.10, $0.11 Key Support Levels: $0.06, $0.05,$0.04 XLM/USD Long-term Trend: Ranging Today, Stellar is making a positive move to come out of the oversold region. On December 17, the coin fell to the low $0.042 but has risen to a high of $0.050. The price movement had been rather slow because of indecision candlesticks. The market has been characterized by small body candlesticks like spinning tops and Doji candlesticks which have been responsible for the consolidation. Daily Chart Indicators Reading: In its upward move, the bulls have broken above the 21-day SMA. XLM is likely to rise if the bulls break above 50-day SMA. The coin will rise if the price bars are above the SMAs. The MACD line and the signal line are below the zero line which indicates a sell signal. . XLM/USD Medium-term bias: Bullish On the 4 hour chart, Stellar bounces at the bottom of the chart. The coin is making a series of higher highs and higher lows. Stellar is facing resistance at $0.050 price level. A break above $0.050 will catapult the coin to a high of $0.052. 4-hour Chart Indicators Reading Stellar is in a bullish momentum as it trades above 40% range of the daily stochastic. The bullish momentum is fluctuating. On the ascending channel, if price breaks above the resistance line and closes, the stellar will be in an upward move. Conversely, a break below the support will attract selling pressure. General Outlook for Stellar Stellar is still in a bear market. To come out of the downtrend zone, the bulls have to break the resistance at $0.060. Meanwhile, the Fibonacci tool indicates that XLM ought to have reversed at the 1.272 extension level. Nonetheless, the selling pressure of Stellar has been overdone. Buyers ought to emerge as the coin is oversold. Stellar Trade Signal Instrument: XLM/USD Order: Buy Entry price: $0.050 Stop: $0.042 Target: $0.06 Source: https://learn2.trade
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No Sign Of Recovery As USDCHF Stays On The Low Level At 0.9680 USDCHF Price Analysis – January 14 At the time of composing, the FX pair was trading at 0.9683 level, dropping 0.25% per day after discovering support around 0.9670 level. The USDCHF pair recovered its daily losses and was last seen trading at 0.9683 level, where it remained virtually unchanged during the day. Key Levels Resistance Levels: 1.0231, 0.9841, 0.9770 Support Levels: 0.9659, 0.9600, 0.9541 USDCHF Long term Trend: Ranging The trend stays neutral because the USDCHF is actively in the trading range, starting at 1.0231 level(high). The fall from the level of 1.0126 is held inside the pattern and may approach the level of 0.9600 (low). In case of another increase, a breakthrough of the level at 1.0231 is required to indicate the resumption of an uptrend. Otherwise, further trading by the range may be recorded with the risk of another fall. USDCHF Short term Trend: Bearish USDCHF today drops significantly but stays above the level of the temporary low of 0.9659 level. Its intraday bias stays neutral initially. Although at a resistance level of 0.9770 intact, this trend stays bearish and a steady decline is anticipated. On the other hand, a breakthrough of the level at 0.9600 can continue the general decline from the level of 1.0231 and approach the 100% forecast of the level at 1.0231 to 0.9659 from 1.0027 to 0.9600. However, on the other hand, a break of 0.9770 level may indicate a short-term decline and a change in the upward bias. Instrument: USDCHF Order: Sell Entry price: 0.9680 Stop: 0.9770 Target: 0.9600 Source: https://learn2.trade
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If you voted for clinton you're probably a losing trader- losers average losers Dont forget to like and subscribe On November 8, 2016, American voters took to the polls to elect our next commander in chief with a general consensus having pervaded public discourse that, love her or hate her, Hillary Clinton would become president. Her erstwhile opponent, Donald Trump, a reality television star viewed as crass and inept, having boasted about possibly sexually assaulting women in a now-infamous Access Hollywood tape, had all but forfeited the race. In the weeks leading up to the election, Clinton exhibited dominance over her Republican challenger that lead some to speculate that she was running up the score as her campaign expanded into typically red states like Texas and Arizona. Following resounding victories in the election season’s presidential debates, Vox Editor-in-Chief Ezra Klein proclaimed to the world that “Hillary Clinton’s 3 debate performances left the Trump campaign in ruins.” Her polling numbers indicated a landslide was imminent. Pundits speculated that Donald Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes was slim to non-existent. On Election Day, news outlets blasted footage of Donald Trump, morose, defeated, slumping across the finish line in his hometown of New York, knowingly awaiting his fate. The night before, Clinton seemed to shake the earth with massive, unified rallies in Philadelphia and North Carolina, first with the Obamas and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and the second with Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen, and massive crowds of college students chanting “I believe that she will win!” well into the early hours of the morning. At 3:40 a.m., Clinton landed back home in Westchester, New York, where hordes of fans were lined up yet to wish her well and show their support. The mood was electric. On the eve of the 2016 presidential election, an exuberant group of Democratic power players celebrates following a massive rally in Philadelphia. From left to right: Michelle and Barack Obama; Hillary, Chelsea, and Bill Clinton Fast forward twenty-four hours. Stunned supporters, myself included, trickled out from the official Hillary for America election night party at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, where Clinton did not make an appearance, leaving many to wonder if she planned to wait out the counts. It wasn’t until around 3:00 a.m., as my Bros4Hillary colleagues Rance Collins, Jason Murray, and I sat silently in the cab ride back to our apartment in Brooklyn, that the news alert flashed across my iPhone. “Fuck,” I muttered. “She conceded.” As the three of us burst into tears of grief and rage, our bewildered cab driver, quiet and stone-faced till that moment, shook his head and pondered just under his breath, “how could this happen?” The Vultures Circled Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) appears on CBS This Morning and offers his prescriptions for what went wrong for Democrats in the 2016 presidential race. Just hours after the stunning upset that proclaimed Donald Trump president-elect, the vultures began to circle around the scene of Secretary Clinton’s political death, the body, so to speak, not even cold yet. Senator Bernie Sanders, her democratic rival in the primary, who spent the tail-end of that campaign impugning Clinton’s integrity and questioning her qualifications to lead, hit the talk show circuit immediately. Despite having begrudgingly supported Clinton following his primary defeat, he gloated now with a “told-ya-so” self-righteousness, openly implying that he should have been the nominee and offering prescriptions to the Democratic party. “I’m deeply humiliated that the Democratic party cannot talk to [white working class people],” Sanders professed dramatically on CBS This Morning. “I think that there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite.” Sanders, a lifelong Independent who changed his registration status to Democrat in order to run for the party’s nomination, reverted his status back to Independent only days after the Democratic National Convention in July. His online supporters reveled. “I think the DNC made a fatal mistake ganging up on him and being biased towards Hillary,” said one Facebook user. “Even now, after the Dems lost the election, he is still more popular in the news than Hillary is. As much as I’m nervous about Trump being president…I’m glad Hillary didn’t win only because her supporters made me want her to lose.” The morbid pile-on continued for weeks: “She didn’t campaign hard enough in swing states,” “the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders,” “she lost the white working class,” ”she just wasn’t likable enough,” “she had no plan for the economy,” “voters just didn’t want her,” or my personal favorite, “she was a flawed candidate.” The problem with these analyses is that they are painfully reductive, overly-narrow crimes of revisionist history. In fact, most of these arguments are just plain wrong. Entertaining them without looking at the broader systemic failure at play is contributing to a pattern of failure by the media to fulfill their journalistic responsibility as editorial gatekeepers and is an historic injustice against one of the most qualified and winningest candidates to run for the presidency ever. Most importantly, they allow a problematic narrative shift that holds us back from looking at, or solving, the real problem. Hillary Clinton did not lose the 2016 presidential election. Hillary Clinton Won More Votes. A Lot More. Any discussion seeking to analyze the outcome of the election MUST begin and end with the following as its central premise: “Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million.” Or, put in another way, “Hillary Clinton won more votes than any other presidential candidate in history, second only to Obama.” (Note: Final tallies reported by Cook Political Report show Clinton virtually tied with President Obama’s 2012 total, for good measure.) Final Score: @HillaryClinton beat Trump by nearly 3 MILLION (2.1%) & won more votes than any other candidate in history, 2nd only to Obama. pic.twitter.com/13S5Dy87cv — Alex Mohajer (@AlexMohajer) December 18, 2016 Hillary Clinton, the first female major-party nominee for president in American history, won more votes than any white male to ever run for that office, ever, including her opponent, the man who would go on to become the president-elect, Donald Trump. The Sanders Effect For posterity, while Hillary Clinton bested Donald Trump by nearly 3 million votes in an election where 136 million ballots were counted, she defeated Bernie Sanders in the 2016 democratic primary with an even broader margin of nearly 4 million votes (and about 1,000 delegates) in a primary where only about 30 million ballots were counted. The Sanders tribe who now insist he would have fared better than Secretary Clinton in the general election still ignore the fact that Bernie Sanders was never even close to overcoming her in the primary, where she won by a veritable landslide. via Wikipedia As early as March, Clinton pulled ahead with such a commanding lead that political insiders knew he had virtually no chance of winning. She quietly began implementing a general election strategy while publicly supporting the process, never once speaking ill of her opponent for wanting to see the primary through to completion, something she herself had done in the 2008 Democratic primary against then-Senator Barack Obama. When she did it, however, she was at times within 100 delegates of overtaking Obama, and by some measures went on to win the popular vote. Even then, pundits said Clinton would never overcome Obama, despite a much smaller gap in delegates separating the two candidates. Sanders knew this too, to be sure, but he let his frustration, ambition, and contempt for his rival in the final months of the campaign get the better of him, lodging all-too-familiar allegations against the Democratic National Committee of “rigging” and incessantly bashing Clinton, even calling her “unqualified.” He knew the harm that he could do to her with his impressionable and generally politically-inexperienced base, who didn’t realize that the primary was over. Democrats watched in horror as their presumptive nominee was attacked relentlessly for months by the Sanders campaign, who knowingly peddled the fiction that he could still win the primary to a fan base that simply didn’t know any better. By May, an understandably annoyed Clinton told Chris Cuomo in an interview with CNN that she was going to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, prompting Sanders to call her “arrogant” on national television. Whether Bernie Sanders believed he could make a legitimate play for super-delegates (a system he spent months bashing until it became clear it was the only mechanism by which he could win), or wishful thinking that Clinton would be indicted for the fictitious criminal conduct he knew did not exist, he knew she had won the primary. But he fed his base the red meat. And they ate it up. Soon enough the liberal progressive voter base supporting Sanders began to regurgitate the same right wing talking points and lies used to impugn Clinton’s integrity for decades. Once maligned for being a liberal harpy and socialist, Clinton was now subjected to the cruel injustice of having fellow progressives label her “too conservative,” a “war hawk,” a “criminal,” an “imperialist.” This of course was the same lot who believed it an omen of their candidate’s rightful claim to the presidency when a bird landed on his podium at a campaign event in Portland. Fun Facts, or Lack Thereof Birdie Sanders! A cogent and even-tempered Bernie Sanders gesturing towards a bird at a campaign rally in Portland, Oregon on March 25, 2016. The Birdie Sanders phenomenon was unsurprising in an election season that seemed to view facts as a nuisance, as merely an inconvenient afterthought. When Clinton supporters grimaced at the Birdie Sanders memes, the Sanders faithful were outraged. “Paid shill!” they cried. “Hillbot!” I myself was accused numerous times across social media of being a paid subsidiary of the Clinton campaign or David Brock’s Correct the Record, something that is categorically false and easily discoverable in a 10-second Google search. A week before the election, I was caught completely off-guard by a close friend and fellow liberal who revealed that she refused to vote for Clinton. “She’s just corrupt. There’s too much evidence if you look out for it,” she stated, sending me this photograph to support her reasoning: Circa 2004, Senator Hillary Clinton from New York sharing an embrace with the late Robert Byrd, the renowned Senator and parliamentarian from West Virginia. Byrd passed away in 2010. This photograph was shared extensively in the dark corners of the fake internet and by the Republican nominee himself to support claims that Clinton had ties to the KKK. To hear this propaganda from an educated, liberal-minded, millennial-aged woman who lives in California, however, was nothing short of problematic. The photo depicts then-Senator Hillary Clinton of New York sharing an embrace with her colleague Robert Byrd in 2004. Byrd, a Democratic Senator from West Virginia, passed away in 2010 as the longest serving Congressman in history. Senator Byrd was well-respected and a master parliamentarian. He did join the KKK in the 1940s, but then proceeded to quit in 1952, spending the rest of his life repenting for his brief involvement and acknowledging it was wrong. The NAACP even mourned Byrd after his passing. He had been out of the KKK for more than fifty years when this photograph was taken. This is just one of literally hundreds of examples of lies that have been propagated about Clinton over the years that have been packaged as news, or that legitimate news sources will falsely equivocate with the truth. These items spread like wildfire through fake news channels. The time required to engage with and disprove each accusation point by point with each person who consumed it would be impossible. “Fake news” is a major problem that has had an out-sized impact on our politics and our presidential election. It is not a new phenomenon, but it has reached fever pitch. Until legislation is passed that addresses the problem and/or the heads of various social media companies implement policies to forbid them, the proliferation of fake news will continue to meddle with our elections. MAN, I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN Democratic faithful thought by November that the damage done by Sanders’ hail-Mary strategy would soften and fade. A week before the election, “Benghazi” and “Hillary Clinton’s e-mails” were still ridiculous fodder being churned out by the mainstream media and consumed ravenously by the electorate. The media failed time and time again to call these stories for what they were: Outright lies. The media failed to distinguish between false equivalencies, and Clinton’s adversaries subsequently were able to malign and abuse her unchecked and ad nauseam, for one obvious reason. No one wants to admit it, her adversaries scoff at it, and even women seem to downplay it’s significance in the election: misogyny. The 2016 presidential election, much like in 2008, revealed staggering gender biases, mostly in the constant and baseless scrutiny of Clinton’s character. This now-infamous photograph spurred the “Texts from Hillary” internet meme and demarcates a time when Clinton was beloved as Secretary of State, receiving high marks from the media and the public alike. In 2012 her approval ratings soared to 69%. Women, after all, cannot seek power without being innately bad, evil, or corrupt. Gender studies experts have talked about this phenomenon at length, and yet we failed to highlight the way it was taking shape in the campaign before our eyes. Sanders and Trump both made habits out of interrupting Clinton during their respective debates, wagging their fingers at her, criticizing her voice, accusing her of “shouting,” of not “smiling enough.” Trump famously called Clinton a “nasty woman” when she got under his skin at the third presidential debate, and vowed to put her “in jail,” one of may campaign promises on which the president-elect has already reneged. Indeed, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders made campaign tactics out of implying or expressly stating that she was corrupt, she was bought out by the banks, she was a criminal, or she was under indictment, allegations that have never been substantiated by fact. By campaign’s end, people genuinely believed some of the propaganda leveraged against her, even having never seen a piece of factual evidence to support it. Studies show that then a woman excels in a job we praise her, but when she seeks to gain more power, whether through a promotion, a raise, or even running to be President of the United States, we punish her and criticize her character. We simply cannot get comfortable with the idea of a woman calling the shots. The electorate seemed to forget that when Clinton left the State Department in 2013 she was widely adored, celebrated as being the most traveled Secretary of State in American history, with soaring approval ratings well above normal for American politicians. In 2012, an unsurprisingly prescient Nate Silver opined that she would make a formidable candidate for president and enjoyed inordinately high approval ratings, but noted a puzzling historical trend in which said approval ratings inexplicably suffered whenever she was seeking office. Indeed, Hillary Clinton has been named the most admired woman in the world by Gallup a record-breaking twenty times. And yet, Clinton’s likability and trustworthiness were constantly called into question throughout both the 2008 and 2016 campaigns to the point of being farcical. The abuse culminated in a truly heart-breaking moment when Clinton became the first candidate in history to say “I’m sorry” during a concession speech. Still, despite centuries of patriarchal gender norms at play, she won the democratic primary. She won by a landslide. And in the general election, she won nationally by around 2.1%. One can only imagine what these figures might look like had she been born with the benefit of being a man. So if she won nationally, why didn’t she win the presidency? What happened? Of course, the popular vote doesn’t pick the president. So what does? THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DEMANDS REFORM Clinton’s massive popular vote victory is important in that not only does it dispel shameful myths that this superb, historic candidate FAILED us in some way, but serves to highlight one of the real problems: the electoral college system of apportioning votes is no longer fair or representative. This is not to say that the electoral college must necessarily be abolished. But at the very least, it must see reforms that address the country’s vastly shifting demographics. Donald Trump won the electoral college with 306 votes. 270 are needed to win the presidency. The states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, with their 10, 16, and 20 respective electoral votes, all went for Trump and gave him the edge he needed. The chilling truth: Donald Trump won those three states with a total of 79,646 votes in an election where more than 136 million people cast their ballots. That’s less than a fraction of a percentage point. An honest assessment of this presidential election must look at the disproportionate power the Electoral College currently allocates to rural areas. Indeed, a vote in Wyoming has four times the power of a vote from New York, thanks to the way electoral college votes are apportioned in each state. When the Constitution was written in 1787, the drafters conceived of it in an America that was 95 percent rural. Today, less than 20 percent of America is rural. Yet in the hundreds of years since the Constitution was ratified, or since the 12th Amendment was passed defining the application of electoral college votes, there has been no reform to reflect the massive population and demographic shifts in America. Moreover, the winner-takes-all formula of allocating electoral votes in each state is a practice that Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig says is violative of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protections Clause, and a system of statewide proportional allocation of Electors would have rendered Hillary Clinton the victor in 2016. HILLARY CLINTON WON THE WORKING CLASS Hillary Clinton, accused of having lost the 2016 presidential election because she neglected to address the needs of the white working class, did in fact WIN the white working class. CNN exit polls out of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania showed that she fared better than her opponent on the economy throughout the rust belt and nationwide. The truth is Hillary Clinton made the working class and middle class jobs a central tenet of her campaign. She talked about these issues, and she talked about them a lot. To claim otherwise is a troubling revision in history that overlooks 16 months of campaigning on this issue. From Derek Thompson’s piece in the Atlantic: She detailed plans to help coal miners and steel workers. She had decades of ideas to help parents, particularly working moms, and their children. She had plans to help young men who were getting out of prison and old men who were getting into new careers. She talked about the dignity of manufacturing jobs, the promise of clean-energy jobs, and the Obama administration’s record of creating private-sector jobs for a record-breaking number of consecutive months. She said the word “job” more in the Democratic National Convention speech than Trump did in the RNC acceptance speech; she mentioned the word “jobs” more during the first presidential debate than Trump did. She offered the most comprehensively progressive economic platform of any presidential candidate in history—one specifically tailored to an economy powered by an educated workforce. The truth is that white working-class voters did favor Clinton on the economy, but on issues of terrorism or immigration, defected to Donald Trump, indicating that his often-times xenophobic, anti-immigration, and racially charged message resonated with a certain portion of the electorate. Indeed, no one has been able to answer to which era Trump was referring when he campaigned on the slogan “Make America Great Again,” but it is clear that this was merely pretext for a message of white nativist protectionism. These are the same voters who crave social democracy, just so long as it isn’t called socialism, a dirty word amongst the majority of the American populace, and a flaw that Sanders, untested on the national stage, would have seen exposed in a general election match up. Moreover, the cumulative total of 79,646 votes by which she lost Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania cannot in good faith be conflated to represent the white working class as a whole, especially when she won a historic number of votes and virtually tied 2012 Obama. With a margin so narrow, isn’t it possible a variety of factors were at a play, any one of which might have shifted the outcome? THE REST OF IT There has been a real and demonstrable systemic failure to protect the integrity of our elections that Americans must wholly reject. This isn’t conspiracy theory. This isn’t conjecture. This isn’t poor sportsmanship. This isn’t even about Hillary Clinton anymore. This is about protecting our democracy. Free and fair elections are one of the cornerstones of American democracy and we have now seen credible reports that our rights thereto have been impeded upon by: 1) Voter suppression in North Carolina and Wisconsin*; 2) Russian hacking*; 3) FBI Director Comey’s willful and intentional release of documents meant to suggest criminal wrongdoing by the Democratic nominee a week before the presidential election; 4) The use of Wikileaks as an agent for a hostile foreign power to meddle with our election; 5) A systemic failure by the news media to serve as editorial gatekeepers, differentiate false equivalencies, or to report on falsehoods propagated about the Democratic nominee.* 6) A voter-cross check system that allowed millions of valid absentee, provisional, and machine-error ballots to be wrongfully disqualified. Is it possible that any one of these may have contributed to the 79,646 votes across Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania that contributed to Donald Trump’s victory? Is it possible that FBI Director Comey’s letter to Congress affected the election? There’s more evidence, too: Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA. pic.twitter.com/8r801ahDQO — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016 Is it possible that third party votes spoiled the election? Jill Stein is now officially the Ralph Nader of 2016. Stein votes/Trump margin: MI: 51,463/10,704 PA: 49,678/46,765 WI: 31,006/22,177 — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 1, 2016 Is it possible that any number of these issues, none of which are the fault of the superb candidate who won record-breaking votes, lead to Donald Trump skipping past her with 79,646 votes? And what of exit polls conducted by Edison Research, which show that “Clinton won four key battleground states (NC, PA, WI, and FL) in the 2016 Presidential Election that she went on to lose in the computerized vote counts.”* Why does exit polling data show HRC won NC, PA, WI, & FL, states she lost in computerized vote counts? DEMAND AUDIT. https://t.co/6vCJgXoS5O pic.twitter.com/NOlRvowbGg — Alex Mohajer (@AlexMohajer) November 16, 2016 “Trump voters lied in the exit polls!” say Trump’s acolytes, the same core of online miscreants who are just now decrying fake news in opposition to very real reports of Russian hacking, but did not care to make the differentiation when lobbing accusations of being foreign-born against Barack Obama or murder and corruption against Hillary Clinton. It’s true that exit polls are not necessarily reliable historically. But with the totality of the circumstances being as they are, and with some of these findings existing outside the margin of statistical error, enough doubt has been cast on the validity of the 2016 presidential election to keep at least 66 million American voters up at night. Allowing revisionists to shape the narrative and lay fault at the feet of Hillary Clinton for losing, whether expressly or impliedly, is a historic injustice that, if allowed to continue, only hurts us as a nation and as a democracy. It allows a shift in conversation away from crucial global and sociopolitical issues facing our society, and towards petty partisan squabbles and the unproductive blame game. If we do not respond to threats to our democracy, the epidemic of fake news, the various interventionist forces in our election, and demand action be taken, we are more culpable than either of the candidates in this election. Indeed, we are complicit in the downfall of democracy itself. The truth? Hillary Clinton did not lose the 2016 presidential election. We did. Alex Mohajer is a contributing political writer and commentator for the Huffington Post. In 2016, he served as Political Director of Bros4Hillary, a political advocacy organization, and is the Co-Founder of Bros4America. Named to LGBTQ Nation’s Top 8 Organizations Working to Elect Hillary Clinton. Follow him on Twitter @alexmohajer. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-hillary-lost-the-great-american-
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This is written by a student- you are all students here, so I think its appropriate Dont forget to like and subscribe reflect the views of UK Essays. The Rorschach Ink Blot In 1921, Herman Rorschach published Psychodiagnostik. The Rorschach test was included as a monograph. Herman Rorschach received his inspiration for the ink blot test by J. Kerner. Kerner believed that responses to interpretation of ink blots could reveal important individual meanings. Rorschach applied this theory to diagnose psychological disorders. David Levy brought the Rorschach test to the United States. The test originally was received with skepticism and criticism from the European and American psychological community. The community found it useless due to the lack of scientific evidence. The cost, according to Psychological Assessment Resources, is around a hundred dollars. There are also many supplemental workbooks to aid in the administration and scoring. These workbooks run from around sixty to a hundred dollars. Herman Rorschach designed the ink blot test to measure individual’s responses and identify psychological disorders. The Rorschach has 10 separate cards. Five of the cards are black and gray. Two of the cards are black, gray, and red. Three of the cards are a mixture of pastel colors. Rorschach can be used for many ages. Only Professionals can administer the test due to the intense administration and scoring. Rorschach is most often used in clinical settings. The administration for the Rorschach is an extensive process. The examiner must make sure that the test is administered as ambiguously as possible. Subjects may ask many questions to get a basic structure. The examiner must only give away basic instructions, such as “what might this be?” Examiners must not respond to the subjects responses verbally or nonverbally. This might led to the subjects attempting to please the examiner’s expectations. Also Exner recommended that the examiner sat next to the subject instead of the traditional position of face-to-face. This was to reduce the non-verbal cues from the examiner. There are two parts of the test. The first part is the free-association phase. The examiner may ask the subject what he/she might see in the first card. Each card is administered individually. The subject then tells what he/she sees on the inkblot card. If his/her answer is insufficient the examiner makes a remark for the subject to attempt to look for more on the card. It is important that the examiner write down everything the subject says and every noise the subject makes. Also the examiner must record the subject’s reaction time. The position that the card is in while the subject is examining it must be recording precisely. For example, the examiner would have to report that for card 3 the subject’s reaction time was 2 minutes and the card was sideways. The second part of the test is the inquiry phase. The cards are shown again individually to the respondent. There are five dimensions on which the subject’s response is scored on. The dimensions are location, form quality, content, and frequency of occurrence. The first dimension, location, is where on the inkblot the subject saw his/her perception. The scores for location are W, D, Dd, or DW. A score of W means the subject saw his/her perception using the whole blot. A score of D means the subject saw his/her perception using a common detail. A score of Dd means the subject saw his/her perception using an unusual detail. A score of DW means that the subject gave a confabulatory or over generalized response. For a normal subject there is usually a balance between W, D, and Dd responses. By calculating frequencies of these responses, quantitative data is available to work with. Location alone is not enough to determine a specific mental problem. The second dimension is determinant, which is what determined response. There are four properties that can make up a response, form or shape, perceived movement, color, and shading. The score is determined off of which property the subject utilizes to develop a response. For example if the subject’s response was just based of the perceived form it would be a pure form response. There are also subdivisions within the properties. Perceived movement can be further divided into human (M), animal (FM), or inanimate (m) movements. The determinant is the most difficult to score because administration instructions are so vague. Also a major part of scoring determinant is the examiner’s interpretation of the inkblot. It would be best if the examiner had intense experience, but this is not very likely. Determinant scoring stirs up controversy. Many experts believe that scoring perceived movement does not measure psychological issues. Perceived movement may measure motor activity and impulses in the brain. It was believed that subjects that gave two cooperative movement responses were easy to interact with. Research studies illustrates that this theory wrong. The third property, form quality, is the measure of how well the subject’s response equates with the stimulus properties of the inkblot. If the examiner is able to see the subject’s perception then there is adequate form quality. If the examiner is unable to see the subject’s perception then there is poor form quality. This is not a reliable measure due to the dependence on the state of the examiner. Exner designed a comprehensive system to increase reliability of scoring. The fourth property, content, is what the perception was. This is simple to score. The perception must fall into three categories: human (H), animal (A), or nature (N). The final property, frequency of occurrence, is how popular the response is. This is a quantitative measure, therefore easy to score. Despite the fact that the Rorschach test is widely used, it has never been adequately normed. Exner attempted to norm the Rorschach in 1986. It was based off of the average adult American. Exner then used his findings to apply to the scoring of each variable. This proved to be helpful to the examiners of the Rorschach. Exner had to renorm the Rorschach due to faulty norm samples in his first attempt. With his new sample, it was found that his original system overpathologized subjects. The consequences from overpathologizing are immense. If the Rorschach is utilized to diagnose one with a psychological disorder, there is a good chance it over-diagnosed the subject. The Rorschach has been known to be used in forensics. If someone wishes to use the insanity plea, the Rorschach could benefit the perpetrator. The Rorschach’s reliability is even controversial. There are many studies arguing for and against its reliability. A meta-analysis was conducted of all past research done on Rorschach’s reliability. Exner argued that the test-retest coefficients are in the .70’s and that is acceptable. The odd-even technique results were in that range. Exner’s Comprehensive system produced adequate reliability, .61 to .74. The environment in which the test is administered profoundly affects the reliability. It can be found that the reliability in forensic and clinical settings is .80 to .90. Rorschach main component is relating to psychological disorders. Although when studies were conducted to prove Rorschach as a sufficient diagnostic tool, the results were not in favor of Rorschach. Even with the revised Comprehensive System by Exner, the test fails to relate to diagnoses. Major depressive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder and antisocial disorders are just a few disorders that do not link to Rorschach’s test. The incremental validity of Rorschach with MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) have been proved and disproved by studies. This is another example of the controversy surrounding the Rorschach impact on the psychological community. LA Times writer, Rosie Mestel reveals interesting background information about how Rorschach developed this theory. As a boy, Rorschach enjoyed a game in which players made ink blots then described what they say. Then as a psychiatrist he noticed that schizophrenic patients saw unusual things in ink blots. He then studied the responses of ordinary people and his schizophrenic patients. He then published his book with less than an enthusiastic response from the Swiss psychological community. Less than a year later the original publishing company went bankrupt and Rorschach died from a ruptured appendix. It wasn’t until the test reached the United States that it became famous. With all the controversy surrounding the test, it almost died out in the United States. John Exner saved the Rorschach from dying out. Yet, even today Exner’s version is under heat for unreliability and invalidity. Studies have been done to identify if the Rorschach could aid in differentiating psychological disorders from each other. A study was done in 2001 to determine the Rorschach’s ability to distinguish boys with Asperger’s Disorder from other psychological disorders. According to the results those boys who “underreport[ed] human content (H) or human movement (M), and cooperative movement (COP) in humans or animals” were more likely to have Asperger’s Disorder (Holaday, Moak, & Shipley, 2001). Although the Rorschach doesn’t coincide with DSM-IV criteria, it provides psychologists to differentiate those boys with Asperger’s Disorder. A major disorder that the Rorschach has evidence to identify is Narcissism. It is reiterated that the Rorschach was not derived from DSM-IV criteria, but it relates well in the area of narcissism. Those who are more apt to narcissism relate ink blots on a personal level (Hilsenroth, M. J., Fowler, J.C., Padawer, J.R., & Handler, L., 1997). The two variables in the Rorschach that predicted narcissism are reflection and idealization (Hilsenroth et al.). These studies illustrate that Rorschach might not be perfect in diagnosing and identifying psychological disorders, but it is still helpful. The Rorschach can be used as a supplemental tool to further discriminate a subject from multiple disorders. Regardless of the Rorschach’s reliability or unreliability, it is a widely used test in the world of psychology. When people think of psychological testing, a vision of inkblots comes to mind. The media has hyped the Rorschach to be a magnificent tool to diagnose “crazy” people. This accounts for the common view of the Rorschach being an accurate measure of psychological health. According to the studies done on the Rorschach’s reliability, it is not a safe measure. The United State’s Law system utilizes the test as a measure of criminal’s sanity. This is not safe for the general public. There is too much evidence to disclaim the test’s ability. The test also leaves too much room for error on the part of the examiner. If the examiner had malicious intentions, he/she could detrimental effect the subject. This is why the Rorschach should only be used as a supplemental tool. The Rorschach can be extremely beneficial to clinicians. Only so much information can be obtained from a personal interview and questionnaire. The Rorschach could reveal interesting parts of a person’s psyche. The information obtained from the test could be used in counseling that works on unresolved issues buried in one’s psyche. These issues could have been buried until many years of counseling forced them out. Under these circumstances the Rorschach is beneficial to both the subject and to the participating clinician. Time, money, and work could be saved by utilizing the Rorschach as a supplemental tool. It is also very important that only professionals administer the Rorschach. Many psychological programs spend a few weeks teaching the Rorschach, but if one wishes to administer the Rorschach regularly it must be mastered. As stated before there is an enormous amount of room open for error on the examiner’s part. Scoring and administration must be practiced numerous before results are taken seriously. This is for the benefit of the clinician and to the subject. Slightly biased results are just detrimental as incorrect results. In conclusion, the Rorschach remains a ground-breaking, controversial, and fascinating psychological test. One should not trust the results completely. Like any test there is always room for error, either on the examiner or subject’s part. It is extremely difficult to administer, score, and even take it. The Rorschach test should be respected for its ability to differentiate disorders and use as a supplemental tool in therapy. Unfortunately, the Rorschach’s reliability and validity prevent it from use as a sufficient diagnostic tool in the psychological community. References Hilsenroth, M.J., Fowler, J.C., & Padawer, J.R. (1997). Narcissism in the Rorschach revisited: Some reflections on empirical data. Psychological Assessment, 9, 113-121. Holaday, M.E., Moak, J., & Shipley, M.A. (2001). Rorschach protocols from children and adolescents with Asperger’s disorder. Journal of Personal Assessment, 76, 482-495. Mestel, R. (2003). Rorschach lore and the test’s legacy. LA Times, f5. Kaplan, R. M. & Saccuzzo, D. P. (2005). Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications, and Issues. United States: Thomson Wadsworth.
