Shareswatch Australia

The Australian stock market has finished trading for the year with the ASX All Ordinaries & S&P & ASX 200 both closing around 15% lower for 2011. It has been a disappointing year for share market investors (yet again) with even the mining stocks stumbling lower over the last 12 months. Many investors might be under the impression that the market slid back over the last few months of 2011, however the Australian stock market has been trending down since as far back as April.

In the midst this stock market turmoil there may be some battered down stocks which present the opportunity for investors to buy shares in quality companies at bargain prices. Three Australian companies that might fall into that category are Qantas Airways, Telstra Corporation and Onesteel Limited.

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.

Well today the stock market correction that I mentioned was coming in February has certainly hit and the ASX All Ordinaries Index has fallen below the 5000 level yet again.  Is this latest share market correction something Australian stock market investors should worry about, or is it simply an over-reaction to global events which will have little long term impact on stocks and shares?

Now that the ASX All Ordinaries Index has broken through and closed above 5000, more than a few market watchers seem to be quite bullish about the prospects for the Australian stock market.  But will the share market rally from here or will another correction roll along and push it below 5000 yet again?

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.

Today the Australian stock market is slipping back towards 4500 as once again investors are becoming concerned that the feeble global economic recovery is faltering. But rather than focus on the short term movement of the stock market let’s once again look at the 52 week share prices of some commonly held Australian stocks.

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?

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?

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.

Like many Australians I have been frustrated for many years over the slow progress that was made in getting affordable high speed internet connections widely available across Australia.  However in order to get a world class communications network deployed we need the private sector to be in the driving seat and for the government to be involved as little as possible.  Yet thanks to government mismanagement, Australia is now about to spend a fortune of taxpayers money to roll-out a national broadband network.

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.

Well it seems the inflation genie is back in the bottle and that the bottle is back in the cupboard. Therefore our wise leaders in Canberra have in less than 12 months gone from fighting inflation, to trying to stimulate growth and save the Australian economy from recession. Of course none of the economic problems Australia faces today have anything to do with government blunders, it is all China’s fault.