One day ahead. Wed Mar 25

The Australian market is playing its usual game of guessing tonights action in the US. So instead of being down on a weak overnight lead, which we anticipated yesterday by selling off all day from the open, the xjo top 200 index is up 28 points. Most of my positions are doing well, in particular aoe, ctx and mgr. The only downer is ilu which has slipped 16 to 431. Not close to a cut but you do like to see momentum when you buy and a quick reversal is never pleasant.

I've run through the top 50 and the top 100. I found 2 potential longs and 1 short in the top 50 and an additional 3 and 1 in the rest. I've already got 9 positions which is too many so I plan to ease out of the trades in stocks outside the top 50 in the short term. There will be exceptions, with a few other stocks taking my fancy.

One of those is lnc which I've been waiting to buy for a week or so. It had a tight 3 wave correction and then a first go at the recent highs only to pull back yesterday. It looks like it will try to rally again today and as the 30 minute chart is breaking out from a higher low I'm buying a small amount here at 187. If the stock can push on to the high 190s it will be a daily and a weekly breakout so I feel justified in using this time frame. Here's the daily.

I've just sold out half of my position in cfx at 173 (entry at 167.5 yesterday); not because of a sell signal, although the intraday chart has paused, but more because I'm feeling uncomfortable with the number of positions I have (especially in stocks like cfx that I'm unfamiliar with) and also to take a little profit here and there.

3.00 The market has traded in a fairly tight range since around 11am. It pushed up a bit towards 2.30 and is slipping again now. I've only done a couple of things today, buying a few lnc at 187.5 average and selling some cfx. I was thinking about selling some mgr earlier as it spiked up and now I'm disappointed I didn't as the stock while still up on the day, retraced quite a bit. Otherwise aoe and ctx have been the standouts, like much of the energy sector.

3.28 Sold out of org for 1463 versus entry level of 1455 as it's all happening a bit slowly for me and I'm unconvinced about this trade. Sold a tiny amount of ctx at 1000 for luck and to cover costs. Tah has been on my watchlist to buy for over a week and is getting close. It may be a buy tomorrow. Newscorp, nws, was a buy yesterday. I hesitated and it's up again today. However, the 30 minute chart is making a bullish consolidation pattern. I could buy some with a good chance of the stock rallying on the open tomorrow. It would then be a question of assessing the scale of the move. I can't decide whether the intraday chart is showing a typical 4th wave consolidation before a fairly minor new high or whether there is a larger scale jump about to occur. Either way, I think a small position is justified. Here's the 30 minute chart.

The more I look at this, the more I think it's a reasonable short term trade but not the sort of thing I'm really looking to do. The weekly chart below shows that it was a simple reversal low with a break of the high of that engulfing bar being 1042. It's now 1133, so on further consideration I'll let this one pass.
4.00 I just ran through the top 50 to see if there was anything interesting shaping up into the end of the day. There are a few possibilities but nothing requiring action now. Of my existing positions, tls is the one of most immediate concern. I'm in this as a reversal trade on the weekly but the intraday chart has made a potential lower high while the daily chart has formed an inside day. I'm still bullish but I'm concerned that the stock could slip back towards 300 before resuming a rally. Here's the daily chart.

I'm thinking of stopping out at 310 if there's weakness tomorrow.

4.10 Sold a few mgr at 86.5 (entry 85.5) and tls at 313 (vs 310) as they've both disappointed slightly on the day. Ilu closed near its lows at 425 and gpt drifted a bit to close at 35.5. Otherwise the rest were reasonably firm. Lnc finished at my entry level of 187.5 and although the entry signal was from a 30 minute chart, I decided to stay long overnight as support in the short term is at 184.