| Asian shares close mostly down but Taiwan surges again
Australian stocks closed down 0.3 percent to record its seventh straight loss, dealers said. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 ended the day down 20.0 points at 5,960.0 while the broader All Ordinaries shed 21.1 points to finish at 6,019.8. Volume traded was 1.67 billion shares worth 5.96 billion dollars (5.35 billion US). Centro Properties Group replaced its chief executive in the wake of a massive funding crisis, hitting sentiment, dealers said. "It's been a bit disappointing," said Michael Heffernan, a private client advisor at Austock Securities. "I think it's just some silly sellers giving opportunities to smart buyers at the moment because I think there's a lot of very good value big stocks around." Centro closed down 26 cents, or 30.2 percent, at a record low of 60 cents.
QQQQ to Nasdaq Composite: See Ya
EVERYONE KNOWS IT'S A MARKET of stocks, not a stock market. But that old saw even holds for traders of index funds, notably those based on the Nasdaq Composite Index and the Nasdaq-100. So far in 2007, the Nasdaq Composite's total return is up 19.09%, while the Nasdaq-100 -- the basis for the popular QQQQ exchange-traded fund, is up 27.74%. The outperformance of the QQQQ is so significant that it has persuaded most options traders and investors to consider less-diversified investment strategies, Credit Suisse derivatives strategists Ed Tom and Glenn DeSouza said in a recent trading advisory. The ETF (now officially called PowerShares QQQ Trust due to a licensing marketing agreement) consists of only the top 100 Nasdaq nonfinancial stocks. The Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) consists of all the listed Nasdaq stocks, which now totals about 3,000 companies.
Art sales: auctions weather the storms
A sale of 19th-century European art at Christie's in London fell just short of its pre-sale estimate to realise £2.68 million, but the total was comparable to what these seasonal sales have achieved over the past five years. A much bigger test was faced by the Old Master sales in New York. First off were the drawings - a connoisseurs' market if ever there was one - in which Sotheby's was offering more than 100 Italian drawings from the collection of Jeffrey E Horvitz, an American investor who has been collecting Old Master drawings since 1983. .
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