Friday, January 15, 2010

Best Shares To Buy In 2010

Buying shares over the past couple of years has certainly been a hair-raising experience for most of us. It's been an extraordinary roller coaster ride. The All Ordinaries index started 2008 at 4,882 before reaching a low of 3201 in November of that year. Then in March of 2009 we got lower still - down to 3,090 in March before finishing the year at 4,882. Overall in 2009 the index gained more than 33% or around 58% since the low point in March but that was a shocker of a year in 2008.

2008/2009 Share Price Graph

So what can we expect from the Australian stock market in 2010? Well quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine. But I think it's worth putting what we learned in 2008 and 2009 into practice in 2010.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

2010 Share Market Floats - What Can Investors Look Forward To?

What will 2010 deliver to Australian stock market investors when it comes to new share floats? Hopefully, the worst of the global financial crisis is now behind us. After a fairly slow year in terms of the number and size of Initial Public Offerings, companies which had temporarily put their share float plans on the back burner may now be taking a second look at the market.

I think one of the reasons that 2009 was such a bad year for new share floats was the amount of competition for investment dollars. Investors could snap up a bargain pretty much anywhere they cared to look in the first half of 2009 (provided they were looking - some investors were too scared to go anywhere near the stock market given the massive falls an 2008, which continued into the early part of 2009).