Sex And The Sharemarket
Sun Herald
Sunday December 6, 1998
WHILE the Stock Exchange sets about disenfranchising shareholders of small companies by booting them out of the All Ordinaries Index, the Sydney Futures Exchange, with whom no love is lost, is doing the opposite. It's expanding its indexes by linking up with Wall Street firm Dow Jones. Chief Les Hosking, outlining how the new futures indexes will work, starting next year, said they "will be constructed using a methodology of screening the focus on market capitalisation, trading volume, sexual balance . . ." He quickly corrected that to sectoral balance, which seemed a pity. Love interest SPEAKING of sectoral balance, Rothschild investment director Jonathan Pain, addressing the Christmas lunch for journalists, pointedly held at Taronga Zoo, imitated what seemed a convincing mating call of some exotic species of monkey before putting a new perspective on the state of the world economy. Explaining how we should all love US Federal Reserve Board chief Alan Greenspan for cutting interest rates - we do, Alan, we do - Pain suggested as delicately as possible that nothing was permanent. "Dr Greenspan is 72 and he's just married a younger woman." Nifty NAB THERE must be a bank merger in the air. For the first time in history, the National Bank announced a rate cut the same day as the Reserve Bank moved, applying to all customers, not just new ones. A far cry from the days when it vied with the other banks to be the slowest to pass on a rate cut. The National was one of the worst offenders, with the delay counted in months rather than days. This time it is some of the non-bank lenders dragging the chain. Aussie Home Loans will keep its customers waiting until January 9 to pass the cut on. Tel.All THE amazingly successful discount phone company and corporate plaything of James Packer and Rodney Adler, One.Tel, has taken shareholder information to welcome heights. Featured prominently on the inside cover of its annual report is a special phone number for shareholder inquiries. Then there are useful titbits scattered through the report, such as owning 10,000 square metres of office space around the world but having only one meeting room. Presumably nobody is more than a phone call away. And the fact that in March and April "the One.Tel International team spent over 500 hours in economy airline travel". Strange, that. With all those frequent flyer points they must have accumulated you'd think they would have upgraded to business class. Make a million IF you fancy yourself as a share trader, there's a chance on the Internet to make $1 million. The only catch is that you have to make $1 million yourself first in pretend money in just one month. The prize is underwritten by Lloyds of London. To enter you have to join EquityCafe (www.equitycafe.com.au) and pay $79.80 for six months' membership. EquityCafe is a chat site for Australian share investors. End games FAMOUS last words. Just before Rod McGeoch's spectacular resignation from SOCOG, the November issue of Inside Business Success hit the streets with him on the cover. The inside story contains this memorable line: "You have to let everybody else take the credit because if you ever steal the credit people quickly judge what sort of person you are." Wonder if Olympics Minister Michael Knight read that? Two for tea AGGRIEVED shareholders in David Jones, who were more perturbed by the disappointing spread put on at Centrepoint for the annual general meeting than the retailer's share price, are being invited to morning tea - with a friend - at any DJs coffee shop to stem the looming revolt.
© 1998 Sun Herald