According to Skelton Sherborne, a freight forwarder of mining and construction equipment, imports of heavy machines into Australia fell 62.5 percent in November and December. Skelton Sherborne Director Brad Skelton said the last slowdown of this rate occurred in December 2008 / January 2009 when imports fell 77 percent.
He told the Australian Associated Press, “If everything is as wonderful as they (miners) say, why is there a slowdown in the last two months in the volume of equipment coming into the country?”
“That’s what I can’t reconcile … the real underlying story is that there is a lot of concern about just what’s going on in the world”
Earlier this week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted non-oil commodities will continue to fall in 2012. It expects prices will come off 14 percent this year as world growth weakens further.
Mr Skelton said “And if commodity prices fall, I don’t think Australia is immune to a pretty difficult 2012 economically.”
» Miners stop importing machinery – The Age, 25th January 2012.
» IMF: Most Commodity Prices To Fall In 2012 – Dow Jones Newswire, 24th January 2012.
Does anyone know how you can bet against house prices going up. Do hedge funds bet against an increase in Australian property. With the restrictions on global credit and the european sovereign debt crisis I can’t see things improving. I never knew the great depression lasted 20 years. We only have another 15 to go before we get out of it.
Just short the bank stocks. Especially the large mortgage writers.
An internet search will point you in the right direction.
Just be sure to buy back in before the bank gets bailed out/nationalised.
On the topic of global supply of goods the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a good indicator of global economic activity based on worldwide international shipping prices for dry bulk cargo.
Take a look at
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=BDIY:IND
The last 3 months measure a drop from 1800 to 784.
Note that at the peak of the GFC in 2008 it got down to 666 from a peak of nearly 12,000! It has never recovered and after some upticks is now struggling again. The BDI was a leading indicated of the GFC as demand crashed months before the crash was announced.
Be very careful about shorting stocks. Sounds like you dont know much about trading, but shorting is an extremely hard way to make money. There can be the possibility of unlimited losses. Some of the best traders I follow advise all their readers to not get into the shorting game.
AWD, some of the best traders I know ONLY short stocks.
It’s all about protecting the downside.
BTW, if I sell a stock I don’t actually own, how can I have unlimited losses? If it collapses, I’ve made an infinite return. If it rises 100% (what stocks rises 100% in a small time? and why would you short it?) I have a Zero return, not an infinite loss.
Copied and pasted
“The short seller’s possible gains are limited to the original price of the stock, which can only go down to zero, whereas the loss potential, again in theory, has no limit. For this reason, short selling probably is most often used as a hedge strategy to manage the risks of long investments.”
I was mainly pointing this out for someone who may not know about this aspect, usually you would have a margin call.
Thats technically correct, but in reality terribly mis-leading, and to me (probably sounding terribly arrogant) is that it was written by a finance worker, giving the impression that shorting is so terribly dangerous that it’s best left to the big boys.
The real geniuses of finance and economics, always create wealth faster in a poor economy, and strategies such as shorting are integral parts of this.
Back to the topic at hand, this slow down in commodities, is likely to be worse than 2008/9 as the world governments can’t kick things off anymore…..The whole world is focused on poor little greece having debt trouble…..Greece’s economy is the size of Victoria’s……..There are far larger key problems with the world economy than little old greece.
The arse always falls out of the Baltic Dry Index around year end, depending on the next few months will gauge the real GFC 2 impact. Deflation looks to be setting in again despite currency debasement worldwide!!!!!
Australia will have a shitload of unemployed mining workers after many marginal mines close due to falling prices in the next couple of years.
All signals to further deflation in many asset prices ahead.
Luxury boats and holiday houses are getting much cheaper now. Bring it on Mr Deleverage !