AIR - Air NZ.

[Anna Naum]

JETSTAR boss Bruce Buchanan has called on politicians on both sides of the Tasman to increase efforts to set up a common border between Australia and New Zealand and help lower costs and boost economic growth.

Mr Buchanan believes such a move would lead to trans-Tasman fare reductions of at least 30 per cent, or $60 a passenger one-way, as well as stimulate the economies of both nations.

It would also boost jobs and decrease costs for both industry and border security agencies, he told a Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch in Melbourne yesterday.

"At a time when both Australian and New Zealand economies are in technical or real recessions, and jobless numbers are escalating at the fastest rate in decades, surely this is the time to solve this problem," he said.

[Vitamin]

Phaedrus, you certainly picked AIR right in taking a breather from its recent rally. It's off its short term high but still seems like it has reasonable support. Any trend indicators showing up?

[Phaedrus]

Vitamin. Technically, AIR is still in an uptrend - it would take a Close of below $1.01 to end this. The trendline that was in place has been broken and nervous holders would perhaps have exited at that point, although this was an isolated, unconfirmed signal. The usual thing now is to draw a new trendline taking in the $1.01 low. (Light green).
The three conservative indicators at the top of the chart are nowhere near triggering sell signals, but you should understand that these are lagging indicators and as such will be slow to trigger.
Note that the OBV is still flat-lining. There is still no significant volume behind this uptrend.

[Anna Naum]

From todays paper....Air New Zealand could be in merger talks with another airline by the end of the year as the recession and increased competition threatens its long-term viability, a leading industry think tank says

[BRICKS]

From today's paper....Air New Zealand could be in merger talks with another airline by the end of the year as the recession and increased competition threatens its long-term viability, a leading industry think tank says

BRICKS heard the same rumor from a AIR hostess on the plane when coming over from Ozzy
back in April but to NO avail but she was adamant..

[biker]

.......As an aside, with VBA market cap less than 200mil, what of a Fyfe/Key/Branson chit chat with a view to a deal?

Making more and more sense?

[Jaa]

I think AIR NZ have already learnt their lesson in Australia !!

Their current strategy is clear, they only want to fly routes where they are number 1. Possibly they will also fly a route as a close second if the number 1 is a non Star Alliance airline, but I can't think of any except perhaps, Auckland - Hong Kong? Hence why they bailed out of Auckland - Singapore a few years ago.

Why buy an airline (VBA) thats only ever going to be number 2 on a whole bunch routes in a whole country?

[biker]

Note that the OBV is still flat-lining. There is still no significant volume behind this uptrend.

There have been some quite large volumes traded over the last 3 weeks. More over that time than any equivalent period in about 9 months.

[Phaedrus]

We are talking about 2 different things, Biker. You are talking about total volume. I was talking about "volume behind the uptrend". Translation :- Volume on UP days minus volume on the Down days. You can see that in the period you mention, the biggest volume day by far was a down day. (Red bar). This was volume against the uptrend.

Your observation is accurate though - total volume is clearly rising.

[Vitamin]

April statistics again showed that AIR is more than matching falling passenger numbers with capacity reductions.

This is how one broking company summarised AIR:

"No change in view at this stage as AIR continues to match capacity with demand. Valuation currently NZ$1.42 and rating OUTPERFORM."