PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Qantas Shares! how low can they go?
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Old 10th Oct 2008, 20:44
  #22 (permalink)  
denabol
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Tallong NSW
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Gimme cash

The market this week hasn't been driven by rational analysis of the value of an airline, a bank, or a mine to anything like the degree to which it has been a dash for cash.

Let's choose a hypothetical case. You may know that QAN is worth $4, even now. But you also know the investment funds that chase the index and buy from a range of stocks which include QAN include one or more than could go broke. When or if that happens the QAN stock they hold will, theoretically, be sold for 10 cents by the fund's liquidators, far below the value of the asset even if the entire fleet was to be parked. So an otherwise rational assessment of QAN or VBA means stuff all. You get out, cashed up, even at a loss, knowing that the Aussie big banks will be the last in the world to go tits down.

A lot of this cash will end up in treasury bonds, including issues that might be sprung on a grateful market with not much more than very short notice.

Rationality will only come back into the picture when stability seems to have been assured in the ASX. I don't think that is likely any day soon.
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