Help please.., page-23

I think we're actually in a recession at the moment!

A recession is defined as 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth in Gross Domestic Product, if memory serves me correctly, and although you never really know until the stats are out, certainly things are pretty depressed nationally at the moment.

The mining boom is clearly over, commodity prices (except gold) are way down with no sign of them turning around any time soon.

The way the All Ords has collapsed since September tells you that there has been a giant flight of foreign capital to safer havens, especially since the RBA have announced the A$ at .75c next year. Plenty of small and mid tier stocks are trading at less than NTA at the moment and there is nothing on the horizon to indicate a turnaround is imminent.

First half performance announcements to be released by the end of Feb will make interesting reading right across the board.

For my money, gold will be increasingly seen as a safe haven internationally and within that context, given the declining value of the A$ holding a quality gold miner is better than a physical holding.

NST ticks all the boxes for me.