Tim Treadgold

A funny thing happened on the stock market last week at the height of the confusion about the sale (or not) of the Government’s outstanding 51 per cent stake in Telstra.

It's a brave or foolish man prepared to criticise, however mildly, a company that has just reported the biggest profit in Australian business history.

If you are being tempted to play the new investment game sweeping Australia and dabble in a hedge fund investment, think again.

Given a choice when buying a commodity, such as bread or milk, the overwhelming consideration for most shoppers is price.

Last week’s Diggers & Dealers bash left the 1,200 delegates and countless hangers-on, including a healthy contingent of media types, in no doubt that this boom has legs to go an awful long way.

Oil at $US60 a barrel is a pain for motorists, producing petrol prices of $1.20 a litre and more.

The world of iron ore has taken a few peculiar turns in recent weeks – some good, some bad, and some distinctly odd.

The biggest guessing game on the Australian stock market today is whether we are, or are not, in a ‘super-cycle’, a prolonged period of rising commodity prices.

If you’re not in the mood for a touch of gloom, then go and read something else, because this week Briefcase is in a black mood.

Finding value in a market where property has peaked and interest rates might creep a little higher is a dilemma for all investors.

Brance office syndrome, the inferiority complex that rears its head every few years in Western Australia, is overdue for a return if stock exchange pecking order is a guide.

It has taken two years for the Bank of Scotland, trading under the alphabet soup name of HBOS, to bed down its sometimes troublesome Australian subsidiary, BankWest, but recent events in the market flag the launch of what some observers see as a classic ‘

What do the chaps at Crosby Partners know that eludes Australian investors? Simple really. Every morning they look at a map of the world and ask a simple question: “has China disappeared?”

Human trials are a critical step in proving that a new medicine works as promised.

There is nothing new about the sight of hot money looking for a fat profit.

One step forward, one step back. If that sounds like marking time it’s because it is. And if you think it’s how the stock market is performing right now, you’re right.

Not many people in Perth have taken an interest in the $760 million takeover battle for the alternative energy company, Pacific Hydro.

Picking winners is a game played with gusto at Ascot on a Saturday afternoon, and on the stock market every day of the week.

Woolworths is trading on a prospective price/earnings ratio of 16.85. BHP Billiton is on 9.85. Can anyone explain the gap between two of Australia’s corporate icons because it is ridiculously wide?

Petrol at $1.10 a litre, and more, is a pain in the pocket, as we all know. Less well known is the changes it brings to the way we think, and act.

Margaret River’s next big wine event is being planned, not for the town, but for Heathrow Airport on the outskirts of London in about six weeks’ time.

Dullsville becomes Gabville next week when two big resource events hit Perth.

Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, the accounting and consultancy firm with the silliest name in the world, is recruiting staff.

If Len Buckeridge needed another reason for not floating his BGC Group on the stock exchange then John Roberts has just given him one.

Big bets have been placed on the assumption that a new bidder will emerge in the battle for control of Portman, the iron ore miner with a split board and widely differing valuations.

Prince Charles and Andrew Roberts do not, on the surface, appear to have much in common.

Third time lucky? That is the kindest comment that can be offered to yet another attempt to revive the dream of WA having its own vanadium industry.

High oil prices are doing wonders for the share prices of oil producers, which makes just about every stock in that sector worth a look.