Woolworth attempted to gatecrash the Bungning's party with its Master home (improvement) chain has turned into a nightmare. It lost more than a hundred million dollars in less than a half year and there is not sign yet of (turnaround). Worse still, bully supermarket and negating thrashed by Coles.
The 'Cheap Cheap' campaign apparently didn't work as well as coles "down down". So it looks like the Master effort not only hasn't worked, it's a big (distraction) to the main business of groceries. All of which came as a shock to investors today, and they slashed the price nearly ten per cent.
But they didn't rush and buy shares in Coles, its owner West Farmers also fell. But another retail Harvey Norman went up after posting a 27 per cent increase in profit.
Medibank private share also went up after a Health (insurance) price increase of 6. 2 per cent was announced. And CBA and CSL plowed into the 90s, Overall the market edged higher, following a slow fall on Wall Street last night but solid gain in Europe.
Now the thing has gone quiet on the great funds. Markets are focusing on European version of xx which starts in March. Oil (suffered) another big fall last night, the iron ore spot price fell a bit too. but gold and copper went up.
Credit growsth remains fairly solid in January, in fact the annual growth rate is as strong as it has been for six years. And this graph puts the credit (situation) into context. 30 years ago, Household and business borrowing were both 25 per cent of GDP.
Now household credit is at 100 per cent of GDP thanks mainly to a huge lift in housing investment while (business) credit is half that. having been flat as the proportion of the economy for 15 years. Finally the Aussie dollar is down to 77. 9 US cents tonight but only because of the US dollar has a bit of surge. and that's finance.