General Discussion Topics, page-617

On Monday BHP announced that they are considering rolling their entire petroleum business in to Woodside and it seems the market didn't like the idea and has marked BHP down by a whopping 19% for the week, that's a pretty big hit to the market. Woodside was also down over 10% and both are major components of the index, which put downward pressure on the index, although the index didn't do too badly considering and was only down just under 2%.

So I think that, combined with east coast lock down anxiety and of course the Afghanistan shock, have spooked the market and resources in particular. I think its very temporary and the market just took the opportunity to let off some steam. Lock down on the east coast have now been extended to the end of September but I don't think that was a surprise in any case. Gold looking okay and I would not be surprised to see gold trading back above $1,800 by early next week. Just one of those weeks I think, which was made worse by lack of GBR news. I took it as a buying opportunity and topped up today, although I really don't need anymore. Can bounce back quickly on positive news which, according to Andrew is imminent.