Australian Exchange Traded Fund Range Bolstered By New iShares ETFs

The choice for ETF investors just got a little broader. Earlier this month BlackRock launched 4 new ASX listed Exchange Traded Funds all covering the Australian stock market. The table below list each of the 4 new funds.

ASX Code	Fund Name	Purpose of Fund
ILC	iShares S&P/ASX 20	Tracks the performance of the S&P/ASX 20 Index
IOZ	iShares MSCI Australia 200	Tracks the performance of the MSCI Australia 200 Index
ISO	iShares S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries	Tracks the performance of the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Index
IHD	iShares S&P/ASX High Dividend	Provides exposure to 50 of Australia's larger high dividend paying stocks

New iShares Exchange Traded Funds

Dividend Investing For Beginners

A well constructed portfolio of high dividend paying stocks is a great foundation upon which to build a strategy to achieve financial independence. It is the passive income derived from such a portfolio which grants us our financial freedom. There is no point in being asset-rich if we are cash-flow poor. In this article I'll discuss how stock market beginners can get started with dividend investing.

What Are Dividends?

They are payments made out of earnings from a company to its shareholders. What is paid is the portion of profits which a company doesn't need in order to maintain and grow the business. It is the reward which shareholders receive in return for providing capital to the business. Along with capital gains, it is how an investor profits from buying shares.

QRN - QR National Share Offer Document Now Available

Finally the big day for prospective QR National investors has arrived. The offer document has been released and now we get a chance to see what the 'big' fuss has all been about (don't tell me you haven't seen the ads). What follows are some of the highlights from the QR National prospectus.

How Much?

The indicative price range is between $2.50 and $3.00 per share with the final price paid by institutions (fund managers and the like) to be set by way of an institutional book build (kind of like an auction for the big boys). Retail investors will pay 10 cents per share less than the institutions up to a price of $2.80. I guess that means we will pay somewhere between $2.40 and $2.80 per share.

QR National Share Offer

Is it worth buying shares in the QR National float?

That is the $6.5 billion question. Unfortunately, we're all going to have to wait a little longer to find out. Until October 10 to be exact. That's when the prospectus is due to be released.

Although details of the QR share offer are still sketchy, most main-stream media are predicting a market capitalization once the listing takes place to be around 6.5 billion dollars, although the Queensland Government may retain between 25% and 40% ownership. If you do the maths, that's still a sizeable opportunity for Australian investors. In fact this will be the largest float this year and the second largest in Australian history.

Pre-Registration Now Open For QR National Shares

Valemus Float - Valemus Share Offer Opens Today

Despite stock market volatility in recent times, the Valemus IPO appears set to proceed with the Retail Share Offer opening today. If successful, the float will raise over 1.2 billion dollars, making it the largest IPO so far this year. In fact it will be the largest initial public offering since Myer last year, although prospective investors would be hoping for a much better performance this time around.

Valemus is the recently renamed Australian arm of Bilfinger Berger - a German Construction and Engineering business. While Bilfinger Berger may not exactly be a household name, many of us would have seen the name Abigroup or Baulderstone on various construction sites around Australia over the years. And it is these two businesses which make up the bulk of Valemus Limited.

Best Shares To Buy In 2010

Buying shares over the past couple of years has certainly been a hair-raising experience for most of us. It's been an extraordinary roller coaster ride. The All Ordinaries index started 2008 at 4,882 before reaching a low of 3201 in November of that year. Then in March of 2009 we got lower still - down to 3,090 in March before finishing the year at 4,882. Overall in 2009 the index gained more than 33% or around 58% since the low point in March but that was a shocker of a year in 2008.

2008/2009 Share Price Graph

So what can we expect from the Australian stock market in 2010? Well quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine. But I think it's worth putting what we learned in 2008 and 2009 into practice in 2010.

2010 Share Market Floats - What Can Investors Look Forward To?

What will 2010 deliver to Australian stock market investors when it comes to new share floats? Hopefully, the worst of the global financial crisis is now behind us. After a fairly slow year in terms of the number and size of Initial Public Offerings, companies which had temporarily put their share float plans on the back burner may now be taking a second look at the market.

I think one of the reasons that 2009 was such a bad year for new share floats was the amount of competition for investment dollars. Investors could snap up a bargain pretty much anywhere they cared to look in the first half of 2009 (provided they were looking - some investors were too scared to go anywhere near the stock market given the massive falls an 2008, which continued into the early part of 2009).