warning, page-30

Interesting article. imho.
Think the issue is not that the iron ore prices are necessarily down they are up for Vale and on spot but that the big miners' movements are good predictors/precursors of the actual market - bear - rather than the bullish illusion which are dead cat bounces.

If USA are in recession which if the Fed's move the other day didn't form legs then not sure what's left in the bag of tricks to turn this around under 6 mths - its been going on for 9 mths already. Bandaid fixes but better than nothing.

We are all globally dependent so who going to continue fueling growth buying china and india's exports and in particular foreign companies have heavy investments - if not the US as in recession being the largest/wealthiest consumer and if inflation is also up here in Asia and in US then who can afford or who wants to buy more than necessities atm apart from the top end b/c the cashed up retirees and others won't b/c they don't want risky returns and will be v cautious. Cash is looking good atm. But when it bottoms some great buying ops on the market and in the meantime some 'later' bottom drawer scrips.

Will be more bounces and trading up and down but think slowdown is inevitable and fallout from subprime will take at least 6 mths we are only halfway through the SP debt still another $ 300B to resolve.

Agree that bigger miners will be good performers in mid and longer term (hope so as hold both) but not a good sign when BHP has worst sell-down in 20 yrs but part of it was expiring options and also some profit taking for funds for first quarter results most likely. Probably both be up on Tuesday again or maybe Rio will hit the magic 101 mark again and BHP who knows 30 or 32. Then both up again to climb to 137 and 40 some time soon no doubt.

Cheers