Tom
Scollon
Chief Editor		 For a while there it looked like “all our Christmases had come at once” with many thinking making money this way is just too easy. Apart from the fact I have laboured the point about retracements over the last several weeks there is in fact seasonality to retracements in many markets.

The Australian market does actually come off about this time of the year – traditionally it is about a month later than the US September/October freak period. As our market does not run as hard as the US market the retracement is not as pronounced.

One of the reasons our market does ease up at this time is that many stocks go ex-dividend and apart from the fall in price as a consequence, some investors take the opportunity to exit after collecting their dividend.

The retracement is generally short lived and the Australian market then by and large has a good run up to calendar year end as Fund Mangers “square off”.

I am going to talk more about the annual pattern of the Australian market at the forthcoming SITM Conference as they are a major factor and for the serious trader there are times when it will be hard going to make reasonable returns and one may as well plan a holiday!

Tom Scollon
Editor