buying today, page-14

EL

Thanks for your views.

I am not a chartist, although I think charts are useful in some short term circumstances (when to enter or exit).

Yes, I remain wary of most mineral shares, but not oil. You made a great call on JBM and IGO. I did re-enter WSA before it had its run, and expect to hold long term. I now tend to prefer mid caps, companies that are near to production, and explorers with sound prospects because they seem to have the fastest growth prospects. These can be very quiet for lenghty periods before taking off (eg CVN and AGO being examples). Its not not easy to find good companies.

BHP is a very good long term buy/hold for the BRIC story and its pipeline of projects. Its just that on a PE ratio it seems to have priced in profits from 2008-09, let alone 2007-08. I could be wrong, and maybe average commodity prices will go up to support a $45-47 price this financial year. BHP's dividend yield is lousy, and people were buying it recently almost as if it was a spec share. Iron ore prices, for example, will come back once the billions of tons of magnetite deposits in WA are developed (Clive palmer has a reputed 80 billion deposit in WA).

Given that international financial instability has not been resolved there is scope for world trade to be negatively impacted, including commodity prices. No one can predict the extent to which this will occur. In an oversupply situation commodity prices plummet, and hence so do profits (basically it would be the reverse of what we have had over the last 4 years).

BHP's management has improved, but they did a poor job for the BHP shareholders during the BHPB merger. The potential exists for a misjudgement again.

I have not made a final decision to sell, despite considering BHP over priced.

Good luck with your investments.

loki