News

September 06, 2008

That Was The Week That Was ... In Australia

By Our Man in Oz

Minews. Good morning Australia. What a horrid week!

Oz. You can say that again. After holding up strongly for the past few months, this was the week when the mining sector gave way to heavy selling, pretty much across the board. Finding stocks which rose was a tough exercise, though there were a few hidden gems, among them Adamus Resources (ADU) which staged a remarkable performance on Friday, rising by A8 cents, or 25.4 per cent, to A39.5 cents. The only discernible cause was a paper delivered by chief executive, Mark Bojanjac, at Thursday’s session of the African Downunder conference in Perth.

Minews. That is unusual - to see a stock react to a conference paper. There must have been someone with a thick wallet in the audience.

Oz. Something like that. But, before getting too excited about one stock rising sharply, it’s worth looking at the damage done last week, and trying to analyse why it was done. Overall, the metals and mining index on the ASX plunged 12.1 per cent to 4,312 points, a fresh 12 month low. To put that in perspective, the all ordinaries index fell a far more modest...