Shareswatch Australia

As the year has progressed I have noticed that my view of the Australian stock market and economy has become increasingly at odds with most of the mainstream market commentators back in Australia.  Whereas they see reasons to be optimistic and feel the economy is robust, I feel the situation is quite different and believe the Australian economy is dangerously unbalanced and possibly primed for a nasty correction.

Have you noticed of late how the Australian stock market is just not listening to the Reserve Bank’s Glenn Stevens? No matter how optimistic the RBA Governor sounds the ASX All Ords refuses to surge past 5000, so what is happening? Are investors wrong about the state of the Australian economy and simply not picking up on the positive economic indicators the RBA is apparently seeing?

If you were to believe the various ramblings of Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan, Glenn Stevens and Ken Henry, then you would be under the impression that the Australian economy is about to power ahead in 2010. But if the IMF expects global growth to be slow, why would Australia be set to do any better?

Sometimes it can seem like the stock market operates in a world of it’s own, totally disconnected from the real economy and the realities of world trade. However the stock market moves in cycles just like the wider economy and by understanding these cycles, investors can be better prepared for what the market will throw at them.

The world’s major stock markets have all enjoyed fairly strong rallies over the last week or so and in Australian the ASX All Ordinaries has run up around 30% since March. But there is a sense of unease amongst investors because there are still plenty of economic indicators that suggest the global economy still faces challenges.  That is because we have entered what I call the Economic Twilight Zone!

Over the last year or so I have noticed that many investors get very emotional when talking about bull markets, bear markets and stock market rallies simply because they misunderstand what the terms mean. Often this emotion stems from the fact they have made losses or their investment plan has not performed quite the way they would have liked, and sometimes the reason for this is they did not fully appreciate what bull and bear markets actually are.