Another article: Floats dry up, bulls run out of steam By Gabrielle Costa June 9, 2004
Page Tools Email to a friend Printer format More investors believe the Australian sharemarket will be flat rather than rising or falling over the next six months.
This comes amid diminishing interest in initial public offerings which has already led some companies to scrap their plans for floats.
Two separate surveys released yesterday show that the markets for existing stocks and new offerings are set to drop off, following record performances for initial public offerings and record peaks in the main indices used to measure the performance of the Australian sharemarket.
And it contradicts recent research by equities house CommSec, which found that most experts believed that the market would rise by 20 per cent over the next year, when capital growth and dividends were taken into account.
Research by the Australian Investors Association has found that the number of retail investors reporting a "neutral" outlook for stock price performance is at its highest level since the monthly survey was begun in 2002.
