by Gabriel Andre on September 8, 2008
What happens on the cereal markets? Look at the wheat prices. They took off from $5.65 a bushel in April 2007 to a high of $14.06 in late February 2008. It’s almost a 150% rise in less than one year.
However prices have been falling back for roughly 6 months, and the closing price last Friday has been posted at $7.51. A good overview of the fundamentals of this volatile market is essential before analysing the technical aspects.
First, the global demand, because of the world population growth, is easily predictable. Those past few years, it has moved between 615 and 625 million tonnes per year.
[click to continue...]
by Kris Sayce on September 8, 2008
Speaking of government bail outs (which we weren’t, but anyway) the long anticipated move by the US government to fully finance and support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac appears to have finally come to pass this morning.
The US government has in all but name nationalized both institutions. It effectively means that the US government owns nearly half of all outstanding mortgages in the United States and follows on the heels of news last week that the UK government was offering “free” mortgages to first home buyers.
As Moody’s chief economist points out “the federal government has now become the nation’s mortgage lender.”
[click to continue...]
by Kris Sayce on September 5, 2008
The issue of short-selling has come back on to the agenda in the last few days with news that Fortescue Metals [ASX:FMG] CEO Andrew Forrest has led an all-out attack on funds that he believes have been short selling Fortescue shares.
[click to continue...]
by Gabriel Andre on September 5, 2008
Henderson Group PLC (ASX:HGI) is a financial services group that sells a range of products focused on asset management. The company is headquartered in London and is listed on both the Australian and London stock exchange. It is one of Europe’s largest investment managers, and is also present in Asia and the US.
Despite the large sell-off that has occurred since last November on the ASX financial sector (XFJ), there are a few stocks that succeed to escape the broad credit crisis and global uncertainty and mistrust climate. HGI is one of those stocks.
Well, actually the stock also strongly suffered from the equities markets turmoil between October 2007 and February 2008. It declined by 56% during this period (between points D and A on the chart). However while the XFJ Index continued to fall after February, HGI posted a medium-term low, rebounded and is trading now in a positive consolidation channel.
[click to continue...]
by Gabriel Andre on September 4, 2008
Fletcher Building Limited (ASX:FBU) is involved with building products, concrete, steel, construction, property and housing and distribution.
The long-term chart of FBU is quite simple. From 2001 to July 2007, the stock experienced a long-term bullish trend that drove the price from $1.75 to $12. It’s a 585% gain in 6 years.
However the stock has been retracing a large part of this gain. From July 2007 and the historical high price posted at $12, it has declined by 61% to reach a recent low at $4.66 on July 16 this year.
[click to continue...]
