Woodies: Second Quarter Boom
Oil prices are up some 35% so far this year, give or take a percentage point or five as the price bounces around.
Oil prices are up some 35% so far this year, give or take a percentage point or five as the price bounces around.
As we have seen twice in the past week, sudden, sharp falls in the oil price produces sharp rises on Wall Street (especially in airline shares).
China's actual growth rate is now irrelevant: like all statistics its essentially a backward looking system of measuring growth in Gross Domestic Product.
A more modest, less than 1% recovery yesterday for our market after Wall street's exuberant jump tells us that we in Australia are a bit more circumspect about the outlook.
It has been a week for mining and resource company reports as oil led other commodity prices lower for a second day, and major mining groups reported solid quarterly or full year production figures (and half year in the case of Rio Tinto and Woodside).
The market is up 46. Financials up 3.7% after a massive bounce in financials in the US overnight. Resources completely left out of the bounce - down 2.3%. SFE Futures were up 66.
Rio Tinto reported record first half production figures for iron ore, copper and alumina yesterday, handy news as it continues to fight the unwanted approach from BHP Billiton.