Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Australian Stocks Attempted to Break Losing Streak

Stock-Markets / Austrailia Jan 14, 2008 - 08:42 AM GMT

By: Geoffrey_Transom

Stock-Markets We mused on Friday if perhaps the Australian market might be able to break its losing spell this week - and it did its damnedest to do just that today, albeit after a very poor opening.


In the early part of the session, the All Ordinaries was down about 80 points - and then it turned in a ten cent piece and shot back towards the surface, lungs bursting. From a decline of 83 points it actually made it back above the unchanged level less than 90 minutes later. Pretty impressive, but also very worrying; the last thing the Australian economy needs is for its financial markets to have become the plaything for hot money.

Major Market Indices

The broad market - the All Ordinaries ( XAO ) - finished in the red, dropping 13.5 points (0.22%) to close the day at 6040.9 points. The index hit an intraday high of 6072.6 at 12:38 pm, while the low for the day was 5970.8 - set at 10:43 am.

Now read that last paragraph again - in two hours between about half-ten and half-twelve, the Ordinaries rose over a hundred points.

And what was the catalyst? Nothing. Someone decided to have a short squeeze in the SPI, is all.

One ought not complain - after all, this represents the sixth straight session of decline for the Australian market - but there is something seriously wrong when a financial market behaves like the Aust market behaved today. it is a sign that 'investors' really have no idea what they are doing. This is evidenced by the fact that once it got back to (roughly) unchanged, the Australian indices had no idea what to do with themselves. They wandered in a 40-point zigxag for the rest of the session.

Total volume traded on the ASX was a little below average at 1.5 billion units: there's your reason as to why the thing could be pushed as easily as it was during those two hours... someone spotted the soft volume, and took 'er up.

The ASX's daily listing of all stocks included 1447 different 3-letter FPO's which traded (i.e., had non-zero trade volume). Of these, 308 issues rose, with volume in rising issues totalling 435.5 million units. Conversely 881 stocks were dragged to a loss for the session, with aggregate volume traded of 834 million shares.

Of the 478 All Ordinaries components, 130 rose while 298 fell. Volume was tilted in favour of the losers by a margin of 1.3:1, with 295 million shares traded in gainers while 374.24 million shares traded in the day's losers.

The Index that forms the cash basis for the SFE's Share Price Index Futures - the S&P/ASX 200 ( XJO ) - fell mildly, losing 1.6 points (0.03%), closing out the session at 5980 points.

The "heavy hitters" of the Australian market - the ASX 20 Leaders ( XTL ) - actually managed a teensy gain for the day adding 1.8 points (0.05%), closing out the session at 3297 points.

Among the 20 big guns, 14 index components finished to the upside, and of the rest, 6 closed lower for the session. The 21 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 134.43 million units; 14 index components rose, with rising volume amounting to 88.36 million shares, while the 6 decliners had volume traded totalling 22.26 million units. The major percentage gainers within the index were

  • Wesfarmers Limited ( WES ), +$1.04 (2.74%) to $39.04 on volume of 1.6 million shares;
  • Brambles Limited ( BXB ), +$0.26 (2.54%) to $10.51 on volume of 10.8 million shares;
  • Foster's Group Limited ( FGL ), +$0.12 (1.91%) to $6.40 on volume of 5.7 million shares;
  • Suncorp-Metway Limited. ( SUN ), +$0.27 (1.76%) to $15.64 on volume of 4.3 million shares; and
  • Macquarie Group Limited ( MQG ), +$1.12 (1.6%) to $71.00 on volume of 2.2 million shares.

On the less salubrious side of the big-cap fence, the following stocks were the worst-performed within the index:

  • Stockland ( SGP ), -$0.14 (1.86%) to $7.38 on volume of 3.7 million shares;
  • Westpac Banking Corporation ( WBC ), -$0.37 (1.42%) to $25.63 on volume of 6.2 million shares;
  • Westfield Group ( WDC ), -$0.21 (1.13%) to $18.34 on volume of 4.1 million shares;
  • St George Bank Limited ( SGB ), -$0.18 (0.59%) to $30.45 on volume of 1.6 million shares; and
  • QBE Insurance Group Limited ( QBE ), -$0.1 (0.32%) to $31.50 on volume of 2 million shares.

At the other end of the market-cap spectrum lie the denizens of the ASX Small Ordinaries ( XSO ) - the place where non-mania excess returns lie. The small-fry swam in the opposite direction to the big fish today. The tiddlers stayed underwater while the Top20 posted a gain. The Small Ords slid to a much greater extent than the big caps, falling 15.2 points (0.42%) t0 3611.1 points.

Among the stocks that make up the Small Caps index, 59 index components finished to the upside, and of the rest, 126 closed lower for the session.

The 192 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 286.47 million units: volume in the 59 gainers totalling 87.93 million shares, with trade totalling 151.06 million units in the index's 126 declining components. The major percentage gainers within the index were
  • MFS Limited ( MFS ), +$0.45 (12.68%) to $4.00 on volume of 14.1 million shares;
  • Aditya Birla Minerals limited ( ABY ), +$0.28 (12.67%) to $2.49 on volume of 2.6 million shares;
  • Lynas Corporation Limited ( LYC ), +$0.12 (10.71%) to $1.24 on volume of 1.7 million shares;
  • Austereo Group Limited ( AEO ), +$0.23 (10%) to $2.53 on volume of 75.7 thousand shares; and
  • Murchison Metals Ltd ( MMX ), +$0.23 (8.21%) to $3.03 on volume of 3.6 million shares.

In the red-zone of the little-stock index, the following list represents the biggest downers (in terms of percentage decline):

  • Centennial Coal Company Limited ( CEY ), -$1.99 (40.61%) to $2.91 on volume of 2.3 million shares;
  • Resolute Mining Limited ( RSG ), -$0.2 (9.52%) to $1.90 on volume of 299.2 thousand shares;
  • Sundance Resources Limited ( SDL ), -$0.03 (7.69%) to $0.30 on volume of 45.8 million shares;
  • Gindalbie Metals Ltd ( GBG ), -$0.07 (7.61%) to $0.85 on volume of 3.3 million shares; and
  • Challenger Diversified Property Group ( CDI ), -$0.07 (7.53%) to $0.86 on volume of 612.1 thousand shares.
Index Changes

By Geoffrey Transom
http://marketrant.blogspot.com

GT is a private trader who lives in Central France. He was Head of Equities Research at Australia's premier independent research house (investorweb), and prior to that worked at an economic modelling think tank for 7 years. During that time he published articles related to the modelling of expectations in financial markets, and began a PhD thesis (not finished) which used a scenario-based sensitivity analysis within a computable general equilibrium model. Prior to the introduction of a new indirect tax in Australia, he advised major companies - 50 of the 100 largest companies in Australia - on the ramifications of tax mix change, and co-authored and presented papers to the Econometric Society and the Commonwealth Treasury on the modelling of financial markets in the Commonwealth Treasury's TRYM macroeconomic model.

GT predicted the CDO crisis way back in 2004 (April 29th to be precise - the relevant segment is re-quoted at http://marketrant.blogspot.com /2008/01/cdorant-from-rantvault .html ) and has known that Greenspan was an idiot from about 1998 onwards.

Geoffrey Transom Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in