Learn to ride the cycles
HOW often have you delayed filling up your car with fuel, only to find the next day that the price has soared overnight?
Perhaps you got wise and started buying your fuel on a certain day of the week, only to find that this didn’t always provide the lowest price? Wouldn’t you prefer to consistently purchase when the price is low? Well, you can.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has made it easy for you to pay less. On its website is a record of historical data for petrol price cycles for each state. Knowing the history allows you to make better judgments about the timing of your petrol purchases.
The reason for this is that petrol prices move in cycles; from a low price to a high and back to a low. On the ACCC website they demonstrate how long it takes for prices to move from a low to a high and back to a low. In 2017 this occurred on average over 44 days in Brisbane, while in Sydney it was 36 days and 48 days in Melbourne.
Having knowledge of cycles, watching the ACCC price chart and following their regular updates about the best times to buy will save you money.
Just as petrol prices move in cycles, so do shares that are traded on the Australian Securities Exchange. While you may save a few dollars at the bowser, you stand to make thousands by applying cycles to the movements in share prices.
What do we expect in the market?
For a second week in a row, the Australian share market traded lower on the first day of trade. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) fell to about 5700 points on Monday before rising strongly for three consecutive days to close at 5832 points on Thursday. This is the strongest sign in weeks that the market may soon rise.
That said, the market gave up some of the recent gains on Friday and therefore the rise I have been waiting for is yet to be confirmed.
Buying activity appears to come to a grinding halt as the market nears 5860 points. My current analysis indicates that a strong close above this level in the coming weeks will allow buyers to push the market higher over coming months. On the flipside, a fall below 5700 points would indicate that the market will continue to fall in August.