Banks And Resources Prop Up Our Leaders - Pity About Allco, Rubicon

Sun Herald

Sunday March 23, 2008

Penny Pryor

IT WAS a short week as markets closed after lunch on Thursday for the Easter break but a big one for the banks, which made some gains off the very low bases to which they had fallen.

But don't exhale just yet. US Fed surgeon Ben Bernanke may have provided some relief to global markets with his interest rate scalpel following the Bear Stearns fiasco but that bank's failure and its subsequent sale to JPMorgan at $2 a share - after reaching highs of $170 last year - scared us all.

Bernanke, head of the Fed for barely two years, has cut interest rates by 3 percentage points, prompting the use of the phrase "Dropping it like Bernanke" in some circles.

Doreen Daze is still leading our race with her bank-heavy portfolio and David Potts has pulled into second place due to his dedication to the resources sector. St George was the best-performing stock this week, with an initial $10,000 investment in the bank at the start of this race now worth $11,767.

Other banks to end in our top 10 performing shares this week, which we closed off on Wednesday night, were Bendigo Bank, Westpac Bank and ANZ Banking Group.

On the negative side of the equation a $10,000 investment in Allco Finance Group is now worth $3651. Not such a smart move for chartist-trader Richard Pritchard, although his other picks have dragged him from seventh to sixth place.

Luck wasn't a lady for our dartboard, either, which slipped three spots to last, mostly due to Rubicon Japan.

© 2008 Sun Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home