Personal Finance

...from this week's News Ltd column...

MINING SHARES

The Australian sharemarket suffered its worst May result since 1984 with a decline of 7.8 per cent on the ASX-200 index.

Interestingly the mining index fell JUST 6 per cent during the month so performed better than the average market.

Remember May was the first month of reaction to the Federal Government’s proposed super profits tax on our major resource companies. The tax was proposed on May 2 and, as part of the mining industry’s campaign, its been claimed the tax was the reason for the slump in resource company share prices.

The actual figures show those claims are simply wrong.

BHP’s share price fell 6 per cent over the month and RIO’s by 7 per cent. Both these stocks, and the rest of the industry, performed better than the overall market.