Australia holds a couple of points of interest for me right now. First, as a bicycle racer, I was excited to see that the one hour track bicycle distance record was just shattered by Australian racer Rohan Dennis. On Sunday, I watched this young (22 years old I believe) rider take the world by surprise as he covered 52.491 km in 1 hour from a standing start. Considering the fixed -single speed gear bike he rides, which takes a fair amount of power just to get up to speed, this is an insanely fast ride.
Here’s the clip:
Another point of interest coming from Australia is their stock exchange.
The Australian All-Ordinaries exchange broke out of a consolidation pattern that it had been stuck in since last summer. From there, the exchange blew through its lid of around 5600 to spike into all time new highs. The Australian iShares ETF EWA is not following the same pattern of making new highs – as the exchange due to currency exchange vs. the USD is holding its performance back. Its interesting to see the ETF break out from a consolidation pattern that had held it near 12 month support. But the big picture for the Australian dollar continues look bearish. This will continue to put pressure on the ETF, despite the positive movements on the stock exchange. Thus, a currency hedged ETF version of this index would be an exciting proposition.
I was unable to locate such a hedged Australian index ETF. I’d be interested in hearing from readers who may be aware of such an ETF – should you know of one, please leave a comment below.
3 Comments
I find it intriguing to see the Australian chart’s breakout, given the parallels between their economy and ours. We (the TSX) still seem to be in a consolidation pattern looking for direction, and even more so with the SP500. The Australian tea leaves are intriguing, especially if we start to see an upside breakout in Canada and the US. Then again, maybe they are just tea leaves…
Keith: Given the similarities between the OZ index and TSX, do you consider this breakout as bullish for Canadian stocks?
Yes, there are similarities, and it may be a good omen for the TSX. However, I do think oil has a consolidation period to go through yet (see my blog on oil)–so I am not yet too bullish on the TSX–I’m in wait and see mode.
The only problem I can see is the currency–which I cant seem to resolve –as noted in the blog.