market release, page-12

re: hospital stocks are sick I reckon the short term pro of hospital stocks are the potential boom for them from bird flu - if they had any nursing staff still available. The con is how they would fare if Howard lost office and the wasteful health insurance rebate was dropped.

otherwise they are very defensive stocks and probably do relatively better when the market is a bit soft, although they still drop a bit in a major correction (doh!). HSP is good value at the moment and there is little risk of management failing the integration of recent purchases (fear of which seems to be behind the recent price plummet). Still the dividend is only about 3.80% and no new aquisitions in sight ... I reckon wait a while before buying in. The next major report to the market from HSP is due in August. Til then I think it will probably fluctuate around the $4 mark - although there have been a couple of biggish orders (around $2.5m) pass through in recent weeks without the price changing much. At these basement prices its probably accumulation...