toyota powers ahead, page-16

" Interestingly and ominously " Indeed !!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
That Was The Week That Was ... In Australia

By Our Man in Oz / www.minesite.com

Minews. Good morning Australia. A tough week?

Oz. Yes, but werent we all expecting 2010 to be worse than 2009 as artificial government stimulus spending ended and the time came to pay back the borrowed money? The big worry in your market seems to have been the effect on banks. Down this way we have big worries too, as there is talk of a new form of resource rent tax, which looks like whacking the iron ore, coal and gold miners for six.

Minews. Is a new resource tax being seriously considered?

Oz. It seems to be, as is the introduction of a fresh levy on banks that used a government deposit guarantee scheme. Seasoned observers of the market see these events as being as natural as night following day, but there are always some investors who believe that a good time can continue forever. Last week was a wake-up call for anyone who expected the government to not tighten the tax screws, which is why fallers on the market easily outnumbered risers, and why the key indices were all down. The all ordinaries fell by 3.2 per cent, the metals and mining dropped by 5.8 per cent and the gold index slumped by 7.6 per cent. Whats more, there is unlikely to be a recovery next week because European and North American markets kept falling after we had closed.

Minews. Time for prices now, perhaps starting with whatever good news you can muster.

Oz. Thats a hard ask, but if you look closely you can find a few stocks that are still attracting interest, mainly thanks to deals or discoveries. In the deals department the best performer was Northern Iron (NFE), the Norwegian-focused iron ore producer, which has secured additional funding from the manganese specialist, OM Holdings (OMH). On the market, Northern Iron rose by A11 cents to A$1.41, while OM slipped A14 cents lower to A$1.89. Investors seemed to be concerned that OMs move was more to do with defending itself against the acquisitive Ukrainian, Gennadiy Bogolyubov, than any demonstration of a genuine interest in iron.

Another deal of interest involved a stock weve never mentioned before, Orocobre (ORE). Orocobre hit the headlines after announcing a joint venture with a division of Toyota Motors of Japan. Toyota will come in with Orocobre on the development of a lithium project in Argentina. Investors loved it, pushing Orocobre up by A74 cents to A$2.10, a price which is 10 times the A21 cents the stock was trading at a year ago. Interestingly, and ominously, the Toyota deal put the wind up the small band of Australian lithium stocks, perhaps because the news sent out a reminder to the market that even if lithium in batteries for electric cars is the next big thing, there is no shortage of the stuff. Galaxy (GXY) one of the local leaders, fell A10 cents to A$1.33, and Reed Resources (RDR) slipped half a cent lower to A80 cents.