September 4, 2008
A cut of 0.25% to the official cash rate and suddenly a mind-shift occurs, sending investor sentiment into positive territory for the first time in many months. This week the index hit 669.42 - up almost 10% in just four weeks - and carried for the most part by strong rallies around digital stocks like realestate.com.au (up 40%) and Seek (up 14%).
Perhaps the latter stock is being bouyed by expectations of higher unemployment figures!
Other strong performers included PMP (up 29%) and Austereo (AEO) up 24%.
While there were very few negative growth figures (with the exception of Village down alomst 10%), most of the high cap stocks were less than impressive, particularly newspaper publishers such as WAN and Fairfax, with both stocks bogged down by aneamic growth rates of 1.7% and 0.73% respectively.
Only in the coming weeks can we be sure that August was the month in which the market bottomed out.
September 4, 2008
Events at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in the US have seriously electrified the blogosphere and comments pages across the Internet. More accurately, it has been Sarah Palin’s introduction to the Republican ticket and her acceptance speech which has created some very serious seismic activity, outdoing even Steve Jobs and his iPhone hyperbole.
From Yahoo!’s poll of polls and TechPresident through to Politicaltrends and Wonkosphere, the measurement of online commentary and sentiment has never been so prolific or detailed. In short, the sudden reframing of this campaign has crystalised some very stark differences between all four candidates across the two tickets, effectively polarising general opinion, and more importantly, reducing the independent vote to a negliable number.
The result? A massive influx of individuals prepared to step forward and be counted by their words, many of whom, it might be assumed, have previously been observers (readers) rather than contributors.
This is a digital scream-fest, consuming the worlds of both UGC and professional media. Every story, video, sound-byte attached to the RNC, and Palin’s speech in particular, is being hammered by both liberals and conservatives with a blend reasoned opinion and out-right vitriol.
And the result? An immediate change in online sentiment, with McCain racing to intersect Obama’s lead. Palin’s introduction has been a game-changing event, for better or worst, and online momentum has resoundingly swung in the Republican’s favour. It is this real-time measurement of opinion (though skewed in so may ways) which acts as a very powerful barameter on issues, personalities and tone.
It also puts into perspective the relatively static social media space, in particular Facebook and MySpace and the weight previously given to such stats as Obama’s and McCain supporters (Obama outnumbering McCain more than 5 to 1 on Facebook and more than 6 to 1 on MySpace).
No doubt there is some correlation between funds raised and friends enlisted, but the true test seems to be whether these ’supporters’ are resolute enough to go in and fight for their candidate as the two party machines open up all guns in a broadside battle? The Palin factor was the opening salvo.
