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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rz who wrote (62432)	4/21/2005 10:49:19 PM
From: Moominoid	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

But the government isn't running a budget deficit.... Australia also has more of an issue in the balance of servcies trade than physical goods compared to the US. Australia exports lots of stuff like coal, iron ore, gold, wheat, wool, wine (as PB said) etc. I've generally expected the Aussie Dollar to rise alongside the gold price. Now it is roughly at the level it was before the Asian Crisis of 97. Can it go higher? One way would be if there. 1996 was when I moved to Australia and 2002 I moved back to the US. Given the relative prices in 1996 I would spect that now the price level is roughly equal in the two countries (food and services cheaper in Australia and other manufactured goods more expensive). Australia could go to an overvalued position relative to the US, but I don't believe that has ever happened. So if not that then it would have to be higher inflation in the US than Australia. But I wouldn't expect large numbers of percent points between the two so that won't move the exchange rate fast. Anyway in the meantime I have like 80% of current assets and 90% of total (including superannuation account in Australia) in Australia based investments. Though not all are really AUD tied (like News Corp which is a USD investment basically but I only buy it to trade). I also have a few percent in FXI. I haven't yet decided how much sense that makes. Does the value of this ETF already reflect the future revaluation of the Yuan? Or not?

To: rz who wrote (62432)	4/22/2005 1:03:07 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Regarding Australia's current account deficit - I think John Howard is barking to be spending his time in China to obtain a Free Trade agreement. I just don't see how that's going to work in Australia's favour. So you own shares in the Caltex stub? Only about 18% of the shares are traded publicly. ChevronTexaco owns 50% and other investors own 32%. caltex.com Caltex has used the rise in petrol pricing to reduce their debt, something their parent ChevronTexaco has never had. This will be a big plus going forward. They have gained a huge advantage in the retail market by marketing petrol through Woolworths. The biggest risk for Caltex is the fact that such a large percentage of their profits have come from refining. Refinery profit margins in a recession fall further and more quickly than do oil prices. I think we a getting close to that recession which is why I sold my ChevronTexaco last month. They're a great company, and I loved working there, but as an investor you have to realize how cyclical the industry is. .