Hi noirua, I agree that the downturn in commodities prices and the subsequent collapse of mining stocks across the board has made the stock market look very risky and unappealing, especially when real estate prices seem to be going in only one direction: up.
The reality is that property is still the hot market in Australia, and the stock market has suffered, particularly with retail investors, as available investment capital gets thrown into residential real estate.
Restrictions on the length of posts in stock threads have been gone for almost five years now. Of course, I would prefer that more content be posted than less, but it is no longer mandatory that posts in stock threads contain a minimum amount of content.
I think the slowdown in posting in recent times is largely due to a general disinterest in the stock market. Real estate investment has become a bit of a national obsession and the stock market has gone off the boil, firstly due to the GFC and then to the global collapse in commodities prices. Meanwhile, the media articles on real estate appear almost daily; "Australia's Most Undervalued Suburbs", "Real Estate Prices: How Has Your Suburb Performed?", "The Nation's Cheapest Beachside Real Estate", and so on.
All bubbles eventually end, and when the global economy finally gains some traction I think that more people will turn back to the stock market and away from the overheated property market. If you are looking for capital gains, I think that the stock market offers far more opportunity at the moment than property. So many sectors are beaten down and unloved, just waiting for sentiment to turn to bounce back. I think that people need to be cautious about picking particular stocks, but these days there are so many ETFs available that it is possible to diversify very easily and with limited capital.
IMO the current attitude to the stock market feels a little like it did back in 2002 after the dot com bust. Then, in 2003, things started to turn around. I have absolutely no doubt that they will again.