by Gabriel Andre on November 25, 2008
Gold is bouncing back. According to the World Gold Council, which has released its last statistics recently, the demand has surged on the third quarter: from the jewellery industry first, but also from investors through certificates and ETF’s.
The physical demand has surged in Europe and in the US, but despite those flows prices remained between $700 and $800 an ounce on the market during the last month. After several months of correction and sharp countertrends, the last 4/5 weeks have been a consolidation phase.
Despite the turmoil on the finance sector and the banking crisis, the equity markets’ plunge and the growing global recession, gold prices did not soar as it could have been expected. Indeed, the deleveraging of the hedge funds that have been facing large redemptions has capped prices on the upside.
[click to continue...]
by Kris Sayce on October 29, 2008
Over at the Daily Reckoning Dan Denning has been asking readers about the idea of Robinson Crusoe Stocks. Crusoe, having spent 28 years stranded on an island, returned to find that his investments had grown in value leaving him a rich man. Sorry to give the ending away if you haven’t read it already.
So what are the type of Crusoe stocks on the Australian markets? Stocks that you can buy today and tuck them away for the next 10 or 28 years. One of them could be anything that involves beer.
According to the Westpac Consumer Confidence survey, beer sales have been recession beaters during the last thirty years. Perfect if you happen to have bought beer stocks 30 years ago just before getting marooned.
There are a few beer companies on the ASX. Fosters [ASX:FGL] and Lion Nathan [ASX:LNN] are the two biggest. But at the small end of town you’ve also Little World Beverages [ASX:LWB] and Empire Beer Group [ASX:EEE].
That isn’t a recommendation to buy any of them of course. Although we did take a look at LWB for inclusion in our small cap report the Australian Small Cap Investigator. Unfortunately the liquidity in its beer doesn’t translate to liquidity in the volume traded on the ASX.
[click to continue...]
