Shareswatch Australia

After some promising gains in the first part of 2010 the Australian stock market closed down today to finish the year basically unchanged. In plain English the share market essentially did nothing in 2010 and so if the Australian economy is really booming, then this is not being reflected in the performance of the ASX All Ordinaries or S&P/ASX 200.

As the Australian ASX All Ordinaries Index slowly crawls towards the 5000 level again, now is a good time to look at how some stocks have come through the global financial crisis. Does it look like a global recovery has finally taken hold, and is the Australia stock market poised to surge higher over the next few weeks?

Now that it appears we are in the midst of the long awaited stock market correction it seems an ideal time to check how the 52 week stock prices have been tracking for a number of ASX listed stocks as this may tell us if the rally of the last 7 months is running out of steam.

If you think that the Government’s plan to break-up Telstra is aimed at giving consumers a better deal then you are thinking just the way they want you to. The real reason the Government wants Telstra weakened is so that it’s poorly planned National Broadband Network (NBN) has an easier path into the broadband market.

In September last year I looked at the 52 week share price highs and lows for a range of well know stocks trading on the ASX. As luck would have it, a few days later Lehman Brothers went under and stock markets around the world tumbled. But now that the dust has settled (I hope), it might be interesting to go back and look at these companies and see what has happened to their stock prices since September 2008.

Most investors in the stock market are today looking at some nasty losses in their portfolios. Some investors may have already sold shares and incurred losses while others may be nursing stocks that have lost 50% or more of their value since late 2007 and hoping they will recover some value. The question that confronts all of us now is: what do I do from this point onwards?

In Part 1, I looked at the 52 week high and low prices for a few financial stocks and of course, these companies have seen their stock prices slashed. But surely if the market is being hit by issues related to the credit crisis then there must be some sectors, like food for example, that have held up rather well. (as long as the company involved does not have large amounts of debt)