Indices went through a fashionable phase about 30 years ago. At one stage, they were the defining story for market analysts. As most investors know, market fashions don’t last, and the market’s enthusiasm for analytical tools tends to be endless until it’s discovered they don’t work. If you’re a trader, your information needs to be based on something very like Search Engine Optimization, a range of key facts. Indices have their place in the schematic, but not as the sole source of materials to make judgment calls.

The applications of indices- The positives

Indices do in fact have direct, useful applications. Ironically, their most obvious uses are much better leads than they look. The mere fact that an index moves up or down on a particular day doesn’t necessarily mean much, but the elements within it are often good indicators of trends. If you know how an index is weighted, you can pin down useful facts and find good information.

For example:

One glance at an index can tell you a lot. If the Aerospace index goes solidly up, it means that the heavyweights in that index are on the move. That in turn means new business, and new business for a company like Boeing is good news for related industries, localities and subcontractors and related manufacturers. It’s like a Yellow Pages of investment opportunities.

There are some market products like commodities and index based investments like mutuals and Exchange Traded Funds, which are obviously hardwired into their various indices. Their indices have direct dollar-based applications to these types of investments, and you can predict, fairly accurately, without even looking, sometimes, what’s happened, simply on the basis of the size of the index move. Again, if the Aerospace index takes a hit, you already know that Boeing or one of the other giants has tripped over something and things are looking very iffy.

So indices do tell pretty accurate stories, within these frames of reference. That is quite specifically not the case with a range of other scenarios, which are much more individualized and behavioral.

The negatives and the misleading scenarios

If indices are pretty faithful reflections of some types of information, they can be very misleading in some contexts:

• A boom market will keep telling traders they’re on a good thing in any index they look at, until the inevitable downward correction/disaster happens.
• Indices are weighted. Good stocks in dismal indices aren’t exactly unknown, and vice versa.
• Investment performance and ROI aren’t well defined by indices except in the specific hardwired investment types.
• Indices cannot track issues with their component companies very effectively, if at all.
• Nobody was aware of the scale or depth of the financial market fiasco in 2007. The indices were all pointing straight up, when the biggest downward correction since 1929 hit.
• An index can’t tell you if the semi-literate/amnesiac CEO of your investment is trying to replay the Enron saga or not with their capital management until it’s too late.  

Yes, indices matter, and yes, they can provide useful information, particularly if you’re experienced enough a trader to be skeptical on principle. Otherwise, stick to your SEO approach to key data and other information. It’s a lot safer.

Over recent months the FDI in Iraq has jumped 241% to $156.7 Billion.

The foreign Investment in Iraq from around the world has been as follows:

2009

UAE: $37.6 bn

S.Korea: $24.7 bn

USA: $22 bn

UK: $10.5 bn

Lebanon: $10.1 bn

The biggest jump has been made by oil and gas.  Since 2003 it was real estate.  But since their 1st and 2nd oil licencing rounds have made a dramatic increase in the countries revenue and investment.

Energy investment into the country has been $73 billion so far this year.  You may remember i previously wrote about a company called Gulf Keystone (GKP) which has established itself in northern iraq back in 2007 and is taken advantage of Iraqs energy supply.  Last week it was annouced that it found oil, which is predicted to be between 12 and 15 billion barrells of Oil.  The shares have increased dramatically the past several months from lows of 0.03p earlier this year to a year high of £1.24.  Currently trading today at around £1.12

A recent interview on CNN with exectuive chairmen Todd Kozel was quoted in saying “In Kurdistan we have discovered about 25 million barrells of oil a day for a $30million dollar well, our 2 current projects combined in Algera are $70 million barrels to our interest”

They will need $120 million cash injection to help fund their ongoing project.  Todd Kozel has said “we are pretty much the most popular guys right now, we have all the attention we need right now, our institutional share holders are very supportive and thats where we will probably where we will go to raise that capital”

In 6 months time Todd reckons “initially Gulf Keystone will be an independent company but later down the line it will be more difficult to keep up with it financially HR, Technology, Engineering.  Weve got hold of something that is as big as Gulf Keystone right now but we are growing into it quickly”