Necessary "evil"

The Feds cannot ignore the stock market.  If the market plunges, the economy will follow suit.  Superannuation, wealth and spending money for a lot of people are tied up to performance of the stock exchange.  While the economy is the priority, ignoring the market is unwise.  Hence, today, the DJ climbed, POG went up a bit and AUD rose too.  Meanwhile, Apple is doing very nicely out of a 4G phone that cannot be used in Oz.

On a day like today, it is hard not to collect alpha but it will be ephemeral.  China depends on the US and Europe for a huge chunk of its export.  The latter is mostly sick.  I still believe that gold, a relatively useless industrial metal, will provide good value hedging without having to invest in foreign bourses.  Also oil (not so much gas) explorers, when they discover the liquid gold, will explode.  Unfortunately, it takes a long time to drill, especially offshore.  Expensive, too.

Meanwhile, I will continue to give gas...  Wife was happy with the EXT cheque.  Australians still selling cheaply.