Sunday 8 March 2020

Catching a falling knife - WBC

As I suspected, it was a bit early to buy bank shares - so the $10K worth of Westpac shares I bought early last week at $22.49 were already down to $21.35 by COB on Friday, and will probably be lower in Monday trading in Australia after Wall Street had another decline on Friday. It's not really a surprise, but with a trailing p/e of only 11 it is likely to 'come good' when the economy eventually improves and the fallout from the Royal Commission washes through. I keep an eye out for other 'bargains' as the market falls, and buy a tranche of this or that each month or so (essentially 'dollar cost averaging' into the market on the way down). I might defer buying an more shares for a while though, as it is probably way too early for the market to 'bottom out' yet.

The other shares I still own are a small holding of NAB bank shares - I initially got some via a final dividend payment DRP after I had previously sold out my share holding in 2018, and have received 1 or 2 shares every 6 months via the ongoing DRP (I'll have to keep my 'portfolio' records up to date with the DRP details, as the eventual CGT calculations when I sell the shares are otherwise a pain - as I found out when I sold shares in 2018 that I'd initially bought back in the 1990s...)

Anyhow, Westpac remains in a bit of a down trend while the market is heading south, so it probably has quite a bit further to fall before hitting the bottom, but you never can tell. If you believe in 'charting' there *might* be some support around $20 (if the broader market isn't in a melt-down)...

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