St Barbara

Gold mining company St. Barbara (ASX:SBM) have released its half year financial results to its shareholders and investors.

• St Barbara Net Profit at $2.5 million, down 95 percent for the first half from $46.5 million in the previous corresponding period.
• Profits were down from the acquisition of the Gold Ridge (in the Solomon Islands) and Simberi mines (in Papua New Guinea) for which it spent $556 milion in cash and scrip.

St Barbara (SBM), a company that operates in the gold production and mineral exploration industry with main focus on mining and selling of gold, investments, mineral exploration and exploitation in Australia was the best performer of the week in ASX200 with a gain of 25.4 percent closing the week at 37 cents (market capitalisation $722.5 million). The company traded its stocks for 30 cents last week.

Paladin Energy, (PDN), a company which is mainly involved in the acquisition and development of uranium projects in Australia and Africa had the best performing stocks of the week in ASX100 with a gain of 10.2 percent or 38 cents closing the week at $4.08.

Hastie Group (HST), a company that is involved in the business of providing commercial and industrial air conditioning, mechanical, hydraulics, electrical and refrigeration products and systems was the best performer of the 16th week in ASX200 with a gain of 11.7 percent closing the week at $1.73 (market capitalisation $413.5 million). The company traded its stocks for $1.55 last week.

Lihir Gold Limited (LGL), an Australia based that is engaged in gold mining, exploration and gold processing in the Australasian region was the best performer of the 36th week in ASX100 with a gain of 9.5 percent or 26 cents closing the week at $2.98.

St. Barbara was the overall worst performing stock taking in a 31.25 percent decrease. Among the worst performing stocks for the week 23 of 2008 of the Australian sharemarket were a mixture of education services, toll road development and management, aviation, metal and mining, property funds management: Transurban Group (TCL), ABC Learning (ABS), Macquarie Airports (MAP), St. Barbara (SBM), APN/UKA European Retail Property (AEZ). These worst performing stocks for week 25 of 2008 recorded losses above 15.38 percent by the end of the trading week.

AED Oil was the overall worst performing stock taking in a 21.14 percent decrease. The technical price chart above is for AED and shows a 10, 100 MA on a candlestick chart, each candle representing 3 trading days. It was a mixture of mining and metal exploration, aviation and resources companies who were among the worst performing stocks for the week 22 of 2008 on the Australian sharemarket: Lihir Gold (LHG), Macquarie Airports (MAP), BHP Billiton (BHP), AED Oil (AED), Minara Resources (MRE), St. Barbara (SBM).

Here are the best performing stocks listed the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) for the 2005-2006 financial year. As a trader and you run through this list, it makes you wonder... is it worth your while trading actively, or simply spending the time researching a bunch of companies and simply waiting and see if it brings a return? I looked at this issue previously in blog entry.