report, page-70

On ya Obewan :))

Yep, lots of panic, noise, static, call it what you like on this thread today.

In the US, whose economy has had FOUR consecutive quarters of GDP ---what we here call a DEPRESSION--- stocks rally, companies post multi-billion-dollar LOSSES, and their share price goes up.

Here on this thread, Australia's biggest company, the world's biggest miner, posts a multi-billion-dollar PROFIT with a balance sheet to die for, and posters are wondering why its share price should go up?

Give me a break.

I've read enough balance sheets over the years to understand that extraordinary items are non-recurrent items and therefore dent the bottom line once. Gone, out, removed from the future equation. And we all knew about that anyway.

Look at the charts. BHP never rockets up on results.

In any case....
Markets trade sentiment, not fundamentals. You can reduce 100 pages of report details into one word: "good" or..."bad".

Just as voters do not chose political parties on their policies, let alone the minute detail of those policies. They vote according to ONE thing: "Can this party be trusted to govern?"

Similarly, traders trade according to one question: "Is this company a goer?"

The detail about impairments, unit costs, cape-size ships, demand fundaments..... noise.

We all know --ofr should know--the importance of time and price in trading.

Stocks are trading at or near their year's highs because of time. The XJO made it's year's high today because of time.

If stocks retreat here and now it's because of time. Not because iron ore production was down x per cent or unit costs rose this or that.

So....let's stop the panic, let's stop scouting around for every bit of bearish news to fuel that panic, and look at things in perspective.