Happy New (Financial) Years Eve

29th June 2009

On the eve of a new financial year let's look back at some of the financial numbers for the last 12 months.

The last 12 months has been a year of ups and downs for the financial markets. Unfortunately more downs than ups and this has been tough on all areas of the finance and investment industry even tougher on all Australians as their investments will all be showing negative returns.

Looking at the numbers across Australia the ASX All Ordinary's index started the year at 5345 closing (on the 29th of June) at 3882 a drop of 1463 points or 27.4%. The open on July 1 2008 was the high point for the year with the low point being 3116 on the 10th of March 2009 so the drop from the top of the market to the bottom was 2229 points or 41.7%.

Month by month the numbers look like:

Month	All Ords	Change
Open	5345
July-2008	5047	-5.58%
August-2008	5209	3.21%
September-2008	4662	-10.50%
October-2008	4003	-14.14%
November-2008	3669	-8.34%
December-2008	3660	-0.25%
January-2009	3460	-5.46%
February-2009	3283	-5.12%
March-2009	3533	7.61%
April-2009	3763	6.51%
May-2009	3813	1.33%
June-2009	3899	2.26%

The Dow Jones index of American shares is similar to the Australian Index being down 27.4% for the year. Month by month the number look like:

Month	Dow Jones	Change
Open	11344
July-2008	11397	0.47%
August-2008	11545	1.30%
September-2008	10874	-5.81%
October-2008	9326	-14.24%
November-2008	8826	-5.36%
December-2008	8772	-0.61%
January-2009	8000	-8.80%
February-2009	7056	-11.80%
March-2009	7606	7.79%
April-2009	8167	7.38%
May-2009	8501	4.09%
June-2009	8236	-3.12%

So is there any good news out there for the share market? While the International Monterey Fund and the World Bank are predicting that world economic growth will continue to be slow for the next financial year the long term outlook for Australia is good and the Australian share market will lead the world's recovery on the back of increased commodity prices and farm exports. The World Bank is predicting that commodity prices will be up 6% over the coming 12 months and farm exports up as well. In a world where negative growth is rich, having our two main exports both up can only be a good thing.