AGM woes point to lethargic economy

AGM woes point to lethargic economy. This week and last week sees the peak in AGM season. As we have been telegraphing in recent months, the domestic economy remains lethargic at best. We saw evidence of this with a significant number of companies announcing earnings downgrades, including Ainsworth Game Technology (ASX: AGI), Seven Group Holdings (ASX: SVW), Sonic Healthcare (ASX: SHL), Monadelphous Group (ASX: MND), Rubik Financial (ASX: RFL) and Cardno (ASX: CDD). Last week alone saw the largest number of profit downgrades in such a short space of time for a number of years from a wide range of sectors such as gaming, financials and mining. In addition, we also note a significant derating of some small resources companies in the last three months, especially iron ore companies. For example, BC Iron (ASX: BCI) and Atlas Iron (ASX: AGO) shares are down 85.3% and 78.5%, respectively in the space of only three months. We don't own any of the above-mentioned companies in the investment portfolio.