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*Good News Only Thread - Stocks & Shares*

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Australia's Rudd and Co should not be concerned about a 3.8% inflation figure and think more about the growth of Australia's resource companies. Interest rates need to be lowered in line with the United States, so as to keep the AUS$ versus US$ exchange rates at reasonable levels.

Good news all the way for Australia.
 
Good news remains on the oil front as prices slowly move towards US$88 a barrel and hopefully to US$85 for Nymex West Texas Light Sweet - Closed Wednesday at US$88.41 down $1.61 for West Texas Intermediate - putting prices worldwide at US$80 to US$85 a barrel would be very helpful.
 
Good to see coal prices pressing on up and so many more thermal coal power stations being opened week by week in China without any care about future supplies. Profits look set to boom in 2008 and the coffers of Rudd and Co will soon be bulging.
 
Congress has passed President George W Bushs' economy booster package. Every adult will get up to $600 and every child the sum of $300.
 
NCIG are gradually sorting out the shipping problem at the Newcastle Dock. Delays for coal shipments are down to 8.74 days. Ships at anchor have reduced from the peak at 71 to 28.
 
Economy Rebounds Before Election, Treasuries Show (Update1)

By Daniel Kruger

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Before you can say ``Barack Obama is president of the United States,'' the economy will be growing faster again.

That forecast is based on the rise in the five-year Treasury yield from its lowest level relative to two- and 10- year notes since 2001. The last two times that happened was during the recessions of 1990 and 2001, and the economy began to expand within nine months.

``We're actually starting to see tell-tale signs by the market that it expects the economy to be in recovery in six to nine months,'' said James Caron, head of U.S. interest-rate strategy in New York at Morgan Stanley. The five-year note ``tends to be the most forward-looking point on the curve,'' said Caron, whose firm is one of the 20 primary dealers of U.S. government securities that trade with the Federal Reserve.

If past is prologue, then the five-year note's yield indicates the economy will be on the mend by the Nov. 4 general election. Whoever wins the White House may have Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to thank for cutting interest rates at the fastest pace in almost two decades and President George W. Bush and Congress for a proposed $168 billion stimulus package.

Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and New York Senator Hillary Clinton each control about half the delegates needed for the Democratic Party's nomination. Arizona Senator John McCain is the front-runner among Republicans.

`Put in Place'

While the risk of a recession is now even, growth will accelerate to a 2.5 percent annual rate in the final three months of the year from 0.6 percent last quarter, according to the median forecast of 62 economists polled by Bloomberg News from Jan. 30 to Feb. 7.

``The economy in the second half will definitely get a boost from the fiscal plan'' and Fed rate cuts, said Stuart Spodek, co-head of U.S. bonds in New York at BlackRock Inc., which manages $513 billion in debt. ``The pieces are being put in place.''

Spodek said he sold five-year notes in the first two weeks of January and bought two-year securities.

The yield on the benchmark 2 7/8 percent Treasury due in January 2013 fell 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 2.69 percent last week, according to New York-based bond broker Cantor Fitzgerald LP. The price rose 7/32, or $2.19 per $1,000 face value, to 100 27/32. The benchmark two-year note's yield fell 13 basis points to 1.94 percent. Treasuries were little changed today.

What Caron bases his forecast on is the yield on the five- year note compared with the average of the two- and 10-year Treasury. Five-year yields dropped 16 basis points below the average on Jan. 22. The last time they were lower was January 2001, when the difference was 18 basis points. The U.S. was in a recession was from March to November 2001.

`Back to Normal'

In August 1990, five-year yields were 2 basis points below the average and rose to 36 basis points above by June 1991. There was a recession from July 1990 through March 1991.

To avert a recession, the Fed cut its target rate for overnight loans between banks twice this year, to 3 percent from 4.25 percent. Central bank officials are confident their actions will pull the economy out of its malaise. Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said expansion is poised to resume in the second half of the year.

``We're going to go back to normal growth rates,'' he said Feb. 7 in a Bloomberg Television interview during a visit to Mexico City. ``We're going to have slower growth for a while, for a half-year.''

Service Slowdown

Yields on five-year notes have increased 14 basis points since the Fed first reduced rates this year on Jan. 22, while two-year note yields have fallen 6 basis points.

Hindering a recovery is the weakest labor market in more than seven years, a decline in services industries and a slowdown in consumer borrowing.

Employers shed 17,000 jobs in January, the first reduction since 2003, the Labor Department said Feb. 1. The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing Index unexpectedly contracted in January at the fastest pace since the 2001, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said Feb. 5. Consumer debt rose at the slowest pace in eight months in December as borrowers cut back on credit-card use, the Fed reported Feb. 7.

Proposals by Obama and Clinton to revive the economy are similar. Both recommend allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, extending unemployment insurance and reducing demand for foreign oil by building more environmentally sensitive energy sources.

Uninterrupted Growth

McCain favors making Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. He also advocates a mix of spending reductions and lower taxes or reforms to boost growth.

As Bush leaves office, his departure may be ``analogous to the first President Bush,'' said Margaret Patel, who oversees $1.4 billion at Evergreen Investment Management Co. in Boston.

President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, left in January 1993 with the economy at the beginning of almost 10 years of uninterrupted growth, she said.

``The economy may be stabilized and starting to do better,'' said Patel, who is avoiding Treasuries and buying high-yield debt of energy and basic-materials companies.
 
Again we have coal, as perhaps, the number one star amongst commodities. Prices out of Newcastle Dock, on the spot market, closed last week at just short of US$140 a tonne...coal is King at present.
 
Don't worry about a depression or recession as it is good news ahead for Australia. The US efforts to booster the economy and help mortgage borrowers will gradually work to pull the US economy round.
Lowest unemployment data, 4.1%, in living memory, for most that is, shows the direction of a booming Australia.
 
Are you a bit concerned about Aussie exports, well don't be. Exports of Iron Ore, coal and other commodities are set to grow and grow as ports are extended and updated.
Recession in Australia, that's all a load of...
 
Good news from the banking sector as the UK's Barclays Bank turns in just a 1% drop in profits for 2007 and a 10% increase in dividend. Vale secures a 65% increase in price to supply iron ore to Japan.
 
More good news on the coal front as a smaller miner, Gloucester Coal, has agreed prices for 20% of its thermal coal at over US$100 per tonne. Others now look set to follow with their own announcements. Higher profits equal greater income for Australia.
 
It's still good news all the way for Australia and don't worry about the States. Weak dollar and low interest rates are doing wonders on the export front and Bernanke is loving it and could not care less.
 
Plenty of directors buying shares in their own banks, now that's good news.

"MUST be something happening to the banks judging by the sudden share buying by a clutch of bank heavies. It might have something to do with scrip across the sector falling by anything up to 36% from peak levels.

Last week, the crew from the ANZ Bank, led by one Charley B. Goode, all waded into the market with buying orders. As reported here, Charley bought a bit more than $1 million worth of stock."

Full Story Here
 
baahahahahahaha, some of these posts by noirua crack me up!

Good news for gold, as gold futures move even higher and higher and higher!
 
explod said:
. One to short the markets, 2. as fisher says get into oil, 3 good food companies, 4 precious metals to hedge against the collapse of currencies and so on.
Click to expand...

Can I please have a loan explod? This was a well timed, well dated prediction!

Hope you went shopping for some bread, shorted the sh*t out of the banks and bought some gold! All I can see is one big :D!
 
Good news for an enlightened portfolio. 65% to 75% in fixed interest and cash. The rest in mining shares and even better, coal and gold producers. Remain confident about Australia.
 
The Aussie Dollar has weakened for three straight days as increasing numbers go for a no further rate increase this year.
 
Only good for exporters.

Need to AUD to stay strong or we risk importing more inflation from petrol, food etc which have skyrocketed lately
 
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