Well reader, ‘Indecision 2010′ is finally over.

Or is it? Anyway, all we do know is that there’s $43 billion of fibre optic cable heading your way. And you’re getting it whether you want it or not. And whether you need it or not.

It all rather takes our mind back to the dot-com boom.

Back then optic fibre cable – or is it fibre optic, we’ll use both just to confuse you – was all the rage. It was the thing that would be the making of technology companies.

It was the thing that would bring fortunes to the telco firms. And even boring old electricity companies were destined to get in on the act.

What? You may ask, electricity companies? Don’t you remember?

Anyway, I’ll get on to that in a moment. First, as you may remember, the telcos thought the internet was a licence for them to print money.

All they had to do was get all this optic fibre cable stuff out there and they’d be rolling in cash.

And to make them believe they were on the right track, customers were demanding it too. Not just big companies, but small ones as well. For instance, internet service providers were popping up all over the place.

There were the big players of course, Telstra had its Bigpond service and Optus had Optusnet. But there were others too.

In the midrange market we recall an upstart ISP called Eisa bursting on to the scene and attempting to buy what was then the second largest ISP, rival Ozemail.

It wasn’t a happy ending. We can vaguely recall that Eisa made the bid near the top of the dot-com boom and then either went bust or was bought up in a fire sale not long after. What became of Ozemail we don’t recall, and frankly we don’t care.

Then there were all the small bit-part players. The ISPs set up by local computer stores as they recognised an opportunity to make some easy passive cash. Aside from selling and fixing computers they could get an extra income stream from selling internet access.

And there were also the tech boffins who realised they could run the whole show from home.

All they had to do was get a bunch of optic fibre cable connected to their house in Rowville, Sunshine or Moorabbin and they could run their very own ISP from the spare bedroom – lookout Bigpond!

That’s how things were between 1998 and 2001.

The internet was paved with gold. Or they thought it was… but as with any bubble, it’s always bound to burst. And as you know, that’s exactly what happened.

But not before Australia was swamped with a massive oversupply of fibre optic cable. You see, the funny thing was, that anyone could put in an order with Telstra to get a fibre optic cable connection.

You could have got it connected to your home if you’d wanted to.

And even funnier, you didn’t even have to pay for it!

That’s right. Back then Telstra offered a fibre service that would provide the equivalent of 30 digital phone lines into a premises – more if you asked for it.

For those thirty lines you’d get the equivalent of thirty times 64k, or a speed of around 2Mb. Back then that was more than enough for a budding ISP to provide internet access to customers that were using dial-up modems.

But here’s the thing. Under its universal service obligations, Telstra was compelled to provide fibre just on the basis of a customer phoning up and asking for it. And if you wanted the 2Mb service, then fibre is what you’d need.

Yet, if there wasn’t fibre in the street then Telstra would still provide it. They’d let the customer know it would take a few weeks, but they’d get the fibre there eventually.

What would the customer have to provide in return? A deposit? Sign a contract committing to using the service perhaps? Er, actually nothing. In fact, the customer had no obligation at all. Telstra could roll out the fibre and then the customer could just change their mind and not install it after all.

Telstra would be left with a big bunch of fibre between the exchange and your home.

And not surprisingly this is exactly what happened when the whole dot-com farce collapsed. Even now we dare say there’s plenty of unused fibre laying idly underground connecting exchanges with ex-ISPs.

But it wasn’t just homes in the suburbs that were getting an oversupply of fibre optics. That’s where the electricity companies – especially in the CBD areas – developed their grand plan.

It was fool proof. It couldn’t possibly fail… or could it? Of course it could. Businesses make rubbish decisions all the time, and this was one of them.

What the power companies figured was that they were in a perfect position to directly challenge Telstra. They had something which no other technology company – except Telstra – had… building access.

The power companies had the same access to every building in Australia’s CBDs that Telstra had. All they had to do was use the same conduits that they use for the electrical wiring and hey presto, they could directly challenge the big Telstra behemoth for some of its most profitable business.

Unfortunately the fibre optic dream didn’t turn out as well as everyone had hoped.

The dot-com bubble burst, and the internet – while useful – wasn’t then the massive moneyspinner that 99% of businesses thought it would be.

Even today we question how many businesses really get the internet working for them.

But ultimately, it was the development of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) services put the handbrake on fibre. Why? Because ADSL services could be delivered to the home using… the good old fashioned ‘copper pair’ wires.

Yep, the copper wires that probably 99% of households had going into their homes from the exchange, and which have been used since day one of telephony, are now being used to give you access to one of the best technological innovations of the last 100 years – the internet.

ADSL could be provided via all the ducts and pits and conduits that already lead into the home. And it was good enough to give internet users speeds of up to 12mb.

Why on earth would you bother with fibre when you’re getting ten, twenty or fifty times the dial-up speed just from having a different bit of hardware on the end of your phone line?

And why would the telcos bother with expensive fibre roll-outs when they can just sell their customers a box that can be plugged into the existing RJ45 socket on your wall?

But now, times have changed of course, and the race is on for Australians to have the best of the best. And that means fibre optic cable connected into every single home in Australia.

Whether or not you want it or need it.

You’d be tempted to think that as a business which relies on the internet to deliver our daily, weekly and monthly newsletters that we’d be supportive of anything that could potentially help our business.

But you’d be wrong. For a start, $43 billion is a lot of money. As we noted a few weeks ago, that works out as around $4,300 per household to get a fibre connection to the home.

Not that you’ll pay that directly, you’ll be paying it through your taxes.

But not only that, what are the odds of the project coming in on budget or even under budget? The odds are pretty long we’d say. But we’ve covered that before. More importantly…

During the dot-com boom, some of the brightest and savviest IT folks bet their businesses and their reputations on rolling out fibre to businesses and homes.

Yet even they failed to anticipate the impact that ADSL technology would have on the provision of internet services.

Surely if they can’t figure it out, what chance does the combined “brain” power of the Canberra bureaucracy have of anticipating the next technological development for the internet?

We’d say the chances are slim and the odds are long.

Let me be clear, in our opinion, the internet is the most liberating invention for humans since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. In fact, possibly more so. The ability for anyone with just a few dollars to create a website and make their view known is wonderful.

So wonderful that the violent and oppressive regime in China is determined to stop it. Not forgetting our own Stephen Conroy who appears to be equally scared of freedom of speech.

But it’s not just about freedom of speech, it’s also about the ability for small companies to compete almost on a level playing field with much bigger companies in providing goods and services to individuals or other businesses.

The problem we have with the government controlled fibre roll-out is that it will ultimately burden the taxpayer with a much higher cost than otherwise would have been incurred if it was left to market forces.

And right now, market forces are saying that individuals don’t value a fibre connection enough to pay $4,300 for it. If they did then they would, it’s that simple. Instead, individuals would rather pay about $200 for an ADSL connection.

In fact many households don’t even want to pay that, so they go without internet access. Not everyone wants access to the internet so why force them to have it. Just in the same way that not everyone wants to read a newspaper (we can understand that) yet so far no-one would suggest that buying The Age or Herald Sun should be made compulsory.

However, as usual, government thinks it knows best and so rather than allowing you to make up your own mind on how your money is best spent or saved, the government will make it up for you…

And then send you the bill later!

Cheers.
Kris Sayce
For Money Morning Australia

Tags: General

The S&P/ASX 200 was down 2 points for the day, ending at 4,573.20.

The RBA kept rates at 4.50% yesterday, and of the statement from Glenn Stevens, one currency trader said, ‘Large chunks of the statement were copy and paste from last month, but it does seem a little bearish on Europe.’

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 107 points, closing at 10,340.69.

The market declined on news that major banks in the US may have understated their holdings of government debt during the ’stress test’ earlier in the year. While the report continued very little information, it reminded traders that the debt problem hasn’t gone away.

In a desperate attempt to get business spending, it’s been reported that President Obama will offer business the ability to write off 100% of all plant and equipment purchased in 2011.

Overnight, the FTSE finished at 5,407.82, lower by 31 points. Mining stocks were lower amid fears of the MRRT will be implemented by the Labour government.

The Nikkei lost 75 points to close at 9,226.00. It’s predicted that the index will spend another day in the red after the Yen hit a fifteen year high against the US dollar overnight.

The price of spot gold in Australian dollars is $1,377.01, while in US dollars it’s $1,255.25. The price of silver in Australian dollars is $21.75 and in US dollars it’s $19.83.

The Aussie dollar versus US dollar is AUDUSD 0.9107 and against the Japanese Yen it’s AUDJPY 76.26.

Crude Oil closed at USD$73.80.

For the biggest movers on the market yesterday click here…

That’s all I have for you today, see you tomorrow.

Shae.

Tags: General

The S&P/ASX 200 was down 2 points for the day, ending at 4,573.20.

The RBA kept rates at 4.50% yesterday, and of the statement from Glenn Stevens, one currency trader said, ‘Large chunks of the statement were copy and paste from last month, but it does seem a little bearish on Europe.’

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 107 points, closing at 10,340.69.

The market declined on news that major banks in the US may have understated their holdings of government debt during the ’stress test’ earlier in the year. While the report continued very little information, it reminded traders that the debt problem hasn’t gone away.

In a desperate attempt to get business spending, it’s been reported that President Obama will offer business the ability to write off 100% of all plant and equipment purchased in 2011.

Overnight, the FTSE finished at 5,407.82, lower by 31 points. Mining stocks were lower amid fears of the MRRT will be implemented by the Labour government.

The Nikkei lost 75 points to close at 9,226.00. It’s predicted that the index will spend another day in the red after the Yen hit a fifteen year high against the US dollar overnight.

The price of spot gold in Australian dollars is $1,377.01, while in US dollars it’s $1,255.25. The price of silver in Australian dollars is $21.75 and in US dollars it’s $19.83.

The Aussie dollar versus US dollar is AUDUSD 0.9107 and against the Japanese Yen it’s AUDJPY 76.26.

Crude Oil closed at USD$73.80.

For the biggest movers on the market yesterday click here…

That’s all I have for you today, see you tomorrow.

Shae.

Tags: General

We won’t deny it. It’s always pleasing to see the Macquarie Group [ASX: MQG] share price take a hammering.

Yesterday the stock hit the skids following news that the company expected profit for the current half to be 25% lower than the same time last year:

The shares closed at $35.25, and today are trading another 1.5% lower, meaning the company’s shares are now trading 40% below its 52 week high from October last year. And over 60% lower than the all-time peak in early 2007.

Of course, on the bright side, if you’d bought in when the shares were trading well below $20 early last year then you would have doubled your money by today… which just goes to show there’s always good news to come from bad news.

And what better news can there be for an economy than an earthquake:

“[I]t could actually be positive for growth. You will probably see a massive lift to the construction sector, which has been dwindling in recent quarters… It’ll create tens of thousands of jobs, most of which will have to be sourced from outside of Christchurch… It should give a pretty big lift to household spending, and should have some knock-on effects throughout the economy.”

[Your editor weeps]

The above quote is attributed to Helen Kevans, economist at JP Morgan in Sydney. We’re sad because Kevans always seemed to your editor to be one of the few sane mainstream economists.

Yet the above comments have just undone all her good work. And now Kevans joins the team of other mainstream economists who we simply cast aside into the basket of Keynesian irrelevance.

You’ll have to excuse our naivety. When we wrote about the fallacies surrounding natural disasters in yesterday’s Money Morning we focused on the misplaced urge among commentators to get the government involved.

However, we didn’t mention how many people will consider the Christchurch earthquake to be a positive for the New Zealand economy. We didn’t mention it because in our naivety we’d assumed that no-one believed in that stale old chestnut anymore.

But apparently they do. Kevans at JP Morgan for one.

And Michael Janda, so-called business reporter at the ABC is another. He notes:

“[O]ver the next year or two, the earthquake looms as effectively a giant stimulus package to New Zealand’s struggling construction industry.”

Oh dear.

But Janda doesn’t leave it at that. He moves on to address a number of other economic fallacies not worthy of someone called a “business reporter”.

Take this comment, “You see, in capitalism, someone’s misfortune often registers as someone else’s gain. A company’s surging profit is usually reported as a positive, although it often comes at the expense of redundant employees, cut wages, or customer price gouging.”

Oh dear again.

Words that could only come from a poor soul who has been subjected to years of learning economics at Australia’s statist-loving universities. Probably the same economists who wrote the open letter lauding the government stimulus programmes.

In that letter they wrote:

“Just as a major corporation goes into debt to invest in its stock of capital, so does a government. Just as many householders have a debt to a band or a mortgage company, so does a government. A government has a budget deficit and a government debt, but it also has capital assets (roads, ports, better equipped schools, Broadband, etc).”

To which they should have added, none of which produces a positive cashflow to the government. Take a look at the open letter using the link above, you’ll see every one of them is a university lecturer or professor.

Not one of them we’ll guess – without having done background checks – has any experience of earning a living in the private sector, free from government grants and awards.

If they’d bothered to think just for a second, a business goes into debt because it believes the extra investment will generate additional cashflow or capital growth. A household goes into debt because of the same reason, or because they believe the debt will somehow improve their lives in other ways.

The point is, both businesses and households generate an income so they can repay the debt. Government doesn’t. Government debt is different and a burden because it is paid for by others.

Government is not a profitable enterprise. Increasing government debt does not ever lead to an increase in government “profits”. It simply means the government needs to take money away from the private sector.

For these Profs to argue that government debt is similar to private sector debt is a nonsense.

But anyway, back to Janda’s comment. While it’s true that misfortune for some can mean a gain for others, as we wrote yesterday. That’s not what you’d call the driving force of capitalism or free markets.

The reason capitalism is so successful is that, contrary to Mr. Janda’s belief, in almost all instances both sides of a voluntary transaction gain.

It’s only when a transaction in involuntary that you have winners and losers – taxation, compulsory healthcare, etc. In those instances the consumer is left with no choice. The winners are the firms and government bodies lucky enough to receive the money that has been expropriated from the consumer, while the consumer loses out.

In a voluntary exchange, both sides win. Using yesterday’s example, you buy a ham sandwich from a sandwich shop and both sides win. You get to eat, and the shop owner gets rewarded with cash for correctly anticipating that consumers desire ham sandwiches.

Janda talks of what is really a half-baked argument around the multiplier effect from spending on construction to rebuild Christchurch, yet ignores the real benefits of capitalism.

Instead Janda suggests that profitable businesses are only profitable because they sack people, enslave the remaining workforce or stitch up the consumer.

A more illiterate understanding of free market economics we’ve yet to come across.

Has it not crossed Janda’s mind that companies who pursue profitable ventures actually provide a benefit to the economy. That those companies with capitalists who are prepared to put their money on the line may actually employ more people the more profitable they become.

That workers may achieve higher wages as a result of increased skills thanks to the employment they’ve received from the capitalist.

And that the more profitable a business becomes the greater the ability for that same business to cut prices, or for competing firms to charge lower prices.

Yet you read the arguments by Janda and others and they seem to believe the only way to economic growth is through destruction – and I don’t mean Creative Destruction either, that’s where new technologies or new ways of doing business result in an improvement of product or service to the consumer.

Creative destruction is a positive for an economy.

But what Kevans and Janda are referring to is what can only be described as the opposite to Creative Destruction, and that is Destructive Destruction. And if you’re an English language expert, we’re aware of the tautology – if that’s what it is…

Anyway, not only are they lauding the earthquake as a boom to the New Zealand economy, but as can only be expected, a reference is drawn to what the Keynesians seem to believe is the greatest economic stimulus of all time – World War 2:

“Perhaps the greatest historical example of tragic economic stimulus is the Second World War, which many economic historians credit far more than Roosevelt’s New Deal for lifting the US out of the Great Depression.”

It’s an argument we’ve seen repeated on countless occasions. So Janda isn’t the only economic amateur to get it wrong.

The Second World War was no more of a positive economic stimulus to America or anyone else, than is the current Iraq War or Afghanistan War or the Vietnam War or the First World War or the American Civil War.

We only wonder why the Second World War that is championed as the saviour of the American economy. Why not the other wars? If war is an economic booster then surely that would be the case for all wars.

You only have to look at current US defence spending and the mess they’ve created for themselves in the middle east to see how war is anything but a an economic booster.

So let’s get something straight. Destructive Destruction isn’t a positive for any economy. Destruction is only positive when it’s creative. An earthquake and a war most certainly aren’t creative.

The fallacy of it can easily be compared to an individual household. If you accept that WW2 was a great stimulus for the broader economy, then you must also accept that if you smash your television, DVD player and stereo to bits with a hammer then it must be great news for your household economy.

The reality is it isn’t is it? Because now if you want to enjoy the same level of entertainment you’ve got to use your savings to buy a new television, DVD player and stereo.

Sure the likes of Harvey Norman or Dick Smith might benefit from this destructive destruction, but you lose out. You lose out because you now have fewer saving. Savings that you may otherwise have spent elsewhere.

It’s exactly the same principle with the so-called ‘War Stimulus’. Building things in order to destroy them or use them to destroy other things isn’t a positive stimulus to an economy.

As several posters to Janda’s article suggest, a reading of Frederic Bastiat wouldn’t do him any harm in understanding the “broken window” fallacy.

Anyway, this kind of destructive destruction merely takes scarce resources from other industries that may need them in order to build bombs, tanks or fighter planes.

Just ask anyone who lived in Britain during the Second World War whether they thought that the war was a stimulus. Sure the economy produced a whole bunch of stuff, but it also starved the economy and the consumer of things they really wanted – such as food and clothing.

While resources were being tied up with fighting off the Hun, resources couldn’t be used elsewhere.

Being issued with ration books so that you can only eat as much as the government tells you to eat is hardly the sign of a flourishing economy.

Perhaps Janda would prefer a life without capitalism and see how that looks. If he’s lucky he could try out Venezuela where president Hugo Chavez plans to introduce what he calls a “Good Life Card”.

According to the Miami Herald, Chavez said:

“‘I have called it a Good Life Card so far,’ Chávez said in a brief statement made on the government television channel. ‘It’s a card for you to purchase what you are going to take and they keep deducting. It’s to buy what you need, not to promote communism, but to buy what just what you need.’”

You buy what you need based on what the shopkeepers are told to stock.

We’re pretty sure that Venezuela is an economy where private companies aren’t making the kind of surging profits Janda bemoans.

We may grumble about the government encroaching more and more into the lives of Australians (you noticed have you?), but at least for now Australia still operates a broadly market-based economy.

How much longer that will be the case is anyone’s guess.

But with the foolish Keynesian economic viewpoint appearing to gain more ground by the day, and the impotent mainstream press prepared to cheer for more not less government intervention in the economy, Australia is most certainly on a slippery slope to socialism.

Cheers.
Kris Sayce
For Money Morning Australia

Tags: General

On Monday, the S&P/ASX 200 ended the day higher by 30 points to 4,575. It will be a quiet session on the Aussie markets today, as there’s no lead from the US and the Reserve Bank of Australia’s interest rate decision is due at 2.30pm.

It has been widely tipped that interest rates will remain on hold this month.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s have confirmed that even without a government, Australia still holds its AAA credit rating.

This news that we retain our rating is supposed to be of comfort to international investors, however America still have their AAA rating despite all of their problems…

The American markets were closed yesterday for the Labour Day holiday.

President Obama announced yesterday the USD$50 billion (AUD $54.6 billion) stimulus package. The package will ‘assist’ the economy by creating jobs by upgrading airport runways, railways and national roads.

The FTSE closed at 5,439.19, higher by 11 points.

The Nikkei added 187 points (2.05%), finishing at 9,301.32.

Gold has slowly crept higher in the wake of the jobs data released from the US last Friday.

The price of spot gold in Australian dollars is $1,365.35, while in US dollars it’s $1,250.66. The price of silver in Australian dollars is $21.68 and in US dollars it’s $19.86.

The Aussie dollar versus US dollar is AUDUSD 0.9166 and against the Japanese Yen it’s AUDJPY 77.12.

Oil dropped off overnight as the ‘driving season’ which s the end of the summer holiday period, came to an end. Crude Oil closed at USD$74.10.

For the biggest movers on the market yesterday click here…

That’s all I have for you today, see you tomorrow.

Shae.

Tags: General

This year’s bumper gold-mining deals come as big discoveries have gone missing in gold…

WHATEVER’S LURKING in Andean Resource’s data room – opened to suitors for two years, but now closed after GoldCorp trumped Eldorado’s US$3.3bn bid – it must be pretty spectacular.

Because on published figures, and at current spot prices, GoldCorp’s offer equals 74% of the gold and silver resources indicated and inferred at Cerro Negro. Based on viable reserves alone, the bid is priced at 1.5 times proven and probable ounces!

That suggests real confidence not only in the precious-metal bull market, but most spectacularly in Andean’s exploration projects.

Southern Argentina certainly looks compared with the world’s better-developed but fast-ailing gold mining sites. A marginal producer at the top of gold’s last long-run bull market, South America has since overtaken Australia, North America and South Africa, and now spits out twice as much gold per year (according to GFMS’s 2010 forecasts) as the world’s single largest gold-mining nation, China. Extraction costs are also alluring, doubling since 2006 to around $350 per ounce (GFMS again) but undercutting North America’s average cash costs by well over $100 and slashing South Africa’s cost in half.

As for the timing, 2010 has already overtaken full-year 2008 with record spending on gold mining mergers and acquisition. The sector’s third-largest corporate action takeover of the year to date, GoldCorp’s agreed offer – which may still see revised bids from other suitors, according to the newswires – follows Newcrest’s US$8.4bn acquisition of fellow Australian firm Lihir in May, and last month’s $7bn purchase by Kinross of the 91% of Red Back Mining it didn’t already own.

This size of takeover led the mining world table in 2008, when precious-metal producers didn’t even figure in the top 10 deals, despite it being a bumper year for gold M&A. And as for last year, gold’s biggest takeover in 2009 was for the $1.7bn purchase of Sino Gold by Eldorado – Andean’s disappointed suitor today.

So what about price? Well, Newcrest’s takeover of Lihir in May was priced at just 22% of proven and probable reserves, equal to 12% of indicated and inferred resources – a real bargain compared to Kinross’s merger with Redback. Even with spot gold trading near all-time highs, that cost nearly 25% of potential resources, equal to fully 38% of proven and probable ounces. Little wonder perhaps that ISS on Friday called Kinross’ bid too rich; J.P.Morgan says Redback would needs to near-double its resources to make the offer worthwhile.

But with gold mining firms bloated with cash and bleeding reserves as they continue to mine, could one-third (or so) of proven-and-probable ounces set a useful benchmark for acquisitive majors? Andean may be sitting on a further 4.2 million ounces of “potential” gold, reckons Credit Suisse’s Michael Slifirski. In which case (and not forgetting South America’s low extraction costs), GoldCorp’s bid would fall to 35% of total resources at current prices.

Together with the Kinross-Redback deal (and only if both complete), that might suggest a base level for M&A pricing in a world losing 4 million ounces per year in new discoveries since 1980.

Adrian Ash
For Money Morning Australia

Adrian Ash is head of research at www.BullionVault.com

Tags: General

Webster’s defines trust as: The assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.

We often – in this blog – discuss trust, and how important it is in the selling process. Stephen M.R. Covey opined in his magnificent book, The Speed of Trust, and congruent with the Websternian* definition, that trust involves two main areas; character and competence. And, to buy from someone trying to sell you something of any type of substantial nature or price, you most likely will need to trust them both aspects.

Would you agree?

I mean, if you believe they have good character but are lacking in competence in terms of product design, quality, service or anything else you hold to be of value, you probably won’t purchase from them. At least, that would be my guess. On the other hand, if they are competent in the aforementioned areas but you believe them to lack in the character department, you’re more than likely also not going to choose to buy.

How does all of this “trust” we’re talking about actually play out in the success of one’s business? One very big part concerns customer loyalty, which greatly affects growth.

In his article entitled, “What The Heck Is A ‘Chief Honesty Officer?”, Darryl Rosen, former President of Sam’s Wines & Spirits, a family-owned business he took from small store to a multi-unit retailer with nearly $70 million in sales, and author of Surviving the Middle Miles 26.2 Ways to Cross the Finish Line with Your Customers quotes Fred Reichheld, author of The Ultimate Question:

“Without trust, there can be no loyalty, and without loyalty, there can be no growth. The simple truth is that trust means confidence. When your customers trust you, it means that they have confidence in you. It means that when you make claims during the selling process, they are inclined to believe you and that, my friends, is what it is all about.”

How true that is! As Darryl concludes his article, “And  we don’t need a Chief Honesty Officer to tell us that.”

I also love what my friend, Gill Wagner, Founder of the organization, Honest Selling says, “Sell with manipulation and the world is your battlefield. Sell with honesty and the world is your playground.”

It certainly builds trust, which results in loyalty, which results in company growth.

—–

*That’s right; I said Websternian. And, no, I don’t believe it’s an actual word.

Tags: General

On Friday, the S&P/ASX 200 closed at 4,541.02, higher by 8 points.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 127 points, ending the week at 10,447.93. The jobs data surprised the markets, as the figures weren’t as bad as predicted. The US economy only lost 54,000 nonfarm jobs.

America’s trade deficit for June increased by USD$49.9 billion (AUD $ billion), which is 18% higher than May’s reading. The unexpected increase has seen economists lower their expectations for lot of gross domestic product (GDP) figures.

The FTSE closed at 5,428.15, up by 51 points for the day. Factory output grew for the third quarter as export demand picked up. It’s expected that overall output will increase 3.7% this year.

The Nikkei gained 51 points, closing at 9,114.13.

The price of spot gold in Australian dollars is $1362.93, while in US dollars it’s $1,247.76. The price of silver in Australian dollars is $21.56 and in US dollars it’s $19.74.

The Aussie dollar has opened higher this morning after US jobs data.

The Aussie dollar versus US dollar is AUDUSD 0.9153 and against the Japanese Yen it’s AUDJPY 77.27.

Crude Oil closed at USD$74.33.

For the biggest movers on the market yesterday click here…

That’s all I have for you this Monday, see you tomorrow.

Shae.

Tags: General

Blog posts on books I love are the most difficult for me to write.

Why? Because often, books like the one I’m suggesting today, despite being fun and easy to read, have lessons that run so deep, I’m concerned I won’t be able to communicate the messages sufficiently and/or appealingly enough that you’ll be moved to read them.

Such is the case with Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through The POWER OF WORDS.

In this extremely powerful work, former Franklin Quest partner and now highly sought-after business consultant, speaker and Coach, Kevin Hall, invites us along on his personal and exciting journey to discover how words (yes, words!) can help us clarify and discover our purpose as well as help us to do the same for others.

With the help of a kind octogenarian, Dr. Arthur Watkins, a man who’d invested his life in the study of words, Kevin focuses on dissecting 11 different powerful words, both English and from other cultures. The very first one, learned from Mr. Pravin Cherkoori, a wise and humble Indian shopkeeper in Vienna, Austria, is what the author refers to as The Secret Word. He also refers to it as as “one of the most meaningful gifts of my life.”

The featured words are: Genshai, Pathfinder, Namaste, Passion, Sapere Vedere, Humility, Inspire, Empathy, Coach, Ollin, and Integrity. Yes, we learn their roots and their origins of usage, and how they team with other words to arrive at their current meanings and incarnations. By the way, if you’re like I am, you’ll find this to be fascinating in and of itself.

What’s special about this, however, is how the words are used to tie into the real-life characters we come to know and root for; some of whom overcame dramatic odds to succeed and find their purpose.

I could go on and on with how emotionally touched I was throughout the book. Instead, if I may, I’d like to quote from the Foreword by Dr. Stephen Covey:

“The more you understand words and the layers within them, the more it helps you understand your path and purpose…Words are the direction signs that show the way to {following your} bliss. Words, in concert with the actions they inspire, help you become a better leader, a better spouse, a better parent, a better salesperson, a better athlete…The power in words generates wealth, health, productivity, discipline, spirituality, and limitless other desirable human traits.”

Dr. Covey’s Foreword ends a page later with:

“Whatever your goal, your quest, your passion, I am confident Aspire will unlock for you a universal force that will light the way to inspiration and personal growth. I suggest you keep a pen or pencil close by as you read this profound work over and over again. I know I will.”

All I can say in response to the above paragraph is, “it did, I did, and I will.”

Well, one more thing: I hope you’ll do the same.

Tags: General