What goes up must come down, page-33

With regard to the shorters, I believe you have got it quite incorrect (but hats off to you for the most popular tongue in cheek post I have seen here). You have spoken about the shorters and how you would like to see them charged for single share trades. Shorters cannot buy single shares, they have to buy a contract (of Put options) which is a minimum of 100 of the "underlying" shares, then if the trade moves against them they have to sell their put options at a loss. That loss can be quite significant, part of the deal is when they buy their put options they are also buying time, so they only have a certain amount of time to be correct. It is leveraged and a high risk scenario, if you get the direction of the market wrong you can lose a lot of money fast.

I do not have any problem whatsoever with traders who short the market (in fact I regard them as part of a healthy "free market"), but what I do have a very big problem with is, the institutions and brokerages who buy and sell in low digit parcels (i.e. less than 100 shares down to single share). You are correct in saying that they don't pay retail brokerage fees (they pay virtually nothing), but what they are doing is simply trading the market down or up with their algorithmic high frequency trading programs - on extremely low volumes. I would call this a very low risk approach to trading, in fact as it stands - no risk (and a totally unfair advantage over most market participants); one way of looking at it, is that they are gutless compared to traders who take a traditional "short" position.

This is a gross and cynical manipulation of free markets (if they are going to trade/abuse the market this way they should HAVE TO pay a higher brokerage fee), ASIC should put a stop to it, because it is distorting the market unfairly. I get it that the big end of town has always been at an advantage, but this high frequency low digit trading scenario has taken it to a whole new level.

Unfortunately the only thing you can do, is complain - to a politician.........

With regard to Co which seems to be moving up again after a bit of a breather/consolidation, this is all very nice and the same can be said for Sc; however the 800 pound gorilla is Ni which is approaching (again) the lows of a 9 year bear market (to understand the importance of Ni you might take a look at the Pre Definitve Study of 9/16). I have no doubt CLQ management will get the funding for Syerston, and that this current phase of the commodity cycle will shift toward improved Ni pricing - but it's a matter of time.