Shareswatch Australia

So far 2011 has not been a good year for the Australian stock market despite the ASX All Ordinaries  & S&P/ASX 200 flirting with the 5000 points level earlier in the year.  Over recent months the market has fallen back into bear market territory so a review at this stage of some 52 week stock price highs & low may give us an insight into how the market is tracking.

At the start of this year I had a somewhat bearish view of how the Australian stock market would perform during 2011 but the slump over the last few months has caught me by surprise.  Even stocks in the mining sector are being dragged down by global economic concerns at the moment and I don’t expect things to improve much this year.

Stock markets around the world have had a very volatile run over the last few weeks with everything from debt levels in Europe to housing statistics in the U.S.  giving scaring investors. But during times of market volatility it is important to try and spot the longer term market trends and not get carried away by sensational headlines or daily market swings.

It has been a while since I have looked at the 52 week prices for some widely held ASX stocks, but now that the stock market has taken a bit of a tumble over the last week or so it seems like a pretty good time to have a look at them again. Have stocks hit new lows or have we simply seen some heat taken out of the market?

Over the last few weeks I have found it difficult to write much about the Australian economy or stock market simply because events have pretty much unfolded as I guessed they would some months ago. Despite the hype from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and some sections of the business media the fact is that the Australian stock market is still trading around 30% below the highs of 2007.

After enduring over a year of falling stock prices we are finally seeing some tentative signs that the stock market is coming back to life. The lows of March 2009 now seem almost a distant memory and as the world’s markets continue to rally more bullish commentators come out of the closet and a few bearish ones crawl into one. But does the current stock market rally have legs?

QBE Insurance Group (ASX.QBE) is an Australian general insurer that over the long term, has been good to investors. However the stock price has not been immune from the recent stock market rout and the share price was clipped from a 52 week high of over $33 in late 2007 to under $20 in March 2008.