The chart gives many hints. Failure to recover after the dividend in March. Recent high on 27/July was lower than 15/June. After the daily downtrend bottomed on 5/August the recovery failed and the downtrend resumed two days later with price closing below the 200 day SMA. Oh, and the money flow was looking a bit sick too.
All these things were saying DON'T BY ME!
TLS - who saw it coming?
* Telstra used to be have a monopoly on it's products and services. But with subsequent deregulations it is now attacked on all sides by nimble, agile opposition, and will battle to maintain sales and profits.
* Companies of the size of Telstra generally have trouble growing profitable sales. Several attempts via Asian joint ventures and acquisitions have proved unsuccessful.
* Since the original sale of shares they have fallen from levels around nine dollars to struggling to hold at five dollars. This while other strong stocks have gone up by hundreds of percents.
* The Government's intended sale will double the number of shares in the market. Economics 101 tells you what happens to the value of anything when you double the supply.
* When the sale goes through it is the Government's intention to tie Telstra's hands behind it's back with obligations not required by it's opposition companies. Namely regional area services.