Share Trading Blogs

The week has been an eye opener for market watchers, traders and investors alike. We’re at a crossroads. (Aren’t we always at a crossroad?) Australia is going to elections at the end of November on Saturday 24th. US elections are coming too but that’s next year. Billionaire investor George Soros is warning of an impending market correction. The US dollar is continuing to decline all the while oil and gold is seeing all time highs. There you have it, the five topics that have caught my eye in the past week: George Soros, elections, the US dollar, oil and gold.

Australian Elections

The Australian sharemarket as well as international stockmarkets have been in bull mode for a while. The twentieth anniversary of the 1987 stockmarket crash is today: October 19th. The Australian economy has seen four years of continuous growth. So what's going to happen to our booming Australian economy? What are all these signals telling us?

Economic History 101

Did you know, today, Friday October 19th 2007 is the 20th anniversary of the history making, record breaking October 1987 market crash. Back in the 1980s global stocks and the Australian economy were booming after the early 80s recession, economic reform ad deregulation and re-rating of shares as a result of lower inflation. Australian shares nearly doubled in a year to the September 1987 high which was strongly supported by entrepreneurial stock gains. The American stockmarket peaked a month earlier in August. On October 19th the US stockmarket fell 20 percent and the Australian market followed the trend dropping 25 percent on the next day's trade (October 20). From pre-crash highs to their lows, the American stockmarket fell 35 percent and the Australian sharemarket fell by 50 percent. It took the USA stockmarket two years to recover and surpass previous highs while the Australian sharemarket took a little longer to recover: it only surpassed highs made in 1987 in February 1994.