300
20th February 2008, 07:17 AM
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the Dow Jones finished 11 points down overnight with big gains during the trading session being washed away when it was released that oil had hit $100 per barrel for the first time. Investors fearing a run on effect as far as costs go over the longer term. As previously mentioned, oil is used for heating and fuel in the US and higher oil prices will hit the average consumer in the hip pocket causing a reduction in consumer discretionary spending.
The ASX finished higher by around 40 points yesterday. Of interest was the words released by our RBA suggesting that there may be a .50 points increase in rates in March. This suggests that there is going to be a rate increase in Feb; and it will make it somewhere in the order of 13 rate increases in a row. I can imagine that this will now start to impact a greater percentage of the community and most likely parliamentary finger pointing about who is to blame. However, at the end of the day the RBA is a separate beast to governments and it apparently sees inflationary pressures as public enemy #1. The good news out of all this is that anyone working on a holiday to the US should have a good exchange rate. Maybe we might not be too far away from dollar to dollar parity.
Just my 2 cents.
the Dow Jones finished 11 points down overnight with big gains during the trading session being washed away when it was released that oil had hit $100 per barrel for the first time. Investors fearing a run on effect as far as costs go over the longer term. As previously mentioned, oil is used for heating and fuel in the US and higher oil prices will hit the average consumer in the hip pocket causing a reduction in consumer discretionary spending.
The ASX finished higher by around 40 points yesterday. Of interest was the words released by our RBA suggesting that there may be a .50 points increase in rates in March. This suggests that there is going to be a rate increase in Feb; and it will make it somewhere in the order of 13 rate increases in a row. I can imagine that this will now start to impact a greater percentage of the community and most likely parliamentary finger pointing about who is to blame. However, at the end of the day the RBA is a separate beast to governments and it apparently sees inflationary pressures as public enemy #1. The good news out of all this is that anyone working on a holiday to the US should have a good exchange rate. Maybe we might not be too far away from dollar to dollar parity.
Just my 2 cents.