Still a bit flustered. Wed Mar 11

Yesterday's fiasco with my ISP has left me trying to catch up and feeling a bit flustered as the financials I was trying to get long shot up both yesterday and again this morning.

A big bounce overnight in the US especially in the financials with resources enthusiastically bid up as well.

I'm still doing too many marginal trades and my aim is to ask myself how confident I am before I put on a trade, not to just look at a line break.

Bhp - gapped up 4 or 5% and is pulling back. Same story for rio.

Fmg - looks ok but I'm not convinced

Ncm - as I thought y'day the old safe havens will be weak. Down 2% but has rallied nicely off the open.

Wow - underperforming the market but has been firm since an early low.

Wpl - similar to wow and one I could have bought at 3720.

Qbe - bought this at 1652 (before 11.30am). The chart is good overall but now looks like it might make a slow congestion before running later.

12.44 The market is chopping around and I'm waiting for more clues. We've often spent the day after a rally in the US by selling off heavily under the assumption, usually correct, that any rally was not sustainable. There was better breadth and volume in the US rally this time, our technicals are much better and the overnight futures and Asian markets are all performing very well so the market is holding here.

12.56 Long wbc at 1688 and the spi at 3249 on the resumption of the rally.

1.21 Bought cba at 2865 on a tte as the trend resumes. I'm focussing on financials today as they're what's running and I'm allowed to go long at least.

1.31 Since the spi trade was close to the old high and still hasn't broken through I've sold half at 3256. There are a few bullish set ups and ncm is a surprise one. Just bought a small amount at 3024 as I'm slightly sceptical - which is a reason I probably shouldn't be in the trade....and wow as well at 2540.

1.44 The spi has pushed on to new highs and I've bought some mqg at 1845 as it pushes up to the top of the range. I'm getting carried away with a few too many positions so I'm just going to sit tight and try to manage things carefully here.

2.13 Short some wpl at 3696 as it made a new high but didn't follow through, reversed, paused and now is resuming the fall.

Out of ncm at 3020 - a mistake, too soon.

2.49 Out of the last spi at 3247, cba at 2875 and wbc at 1692 as normal service is resumed and the market starts to sell off.

3.01 Unusally the market is reversing again and I've leapt back into cba at 2883. Here's the chart.

3.13 Short a little bhp at 3048 as it made a lower high and has broken support.

3.42 Cut pretty much everything....too many position today. Still in mqg and qbe.

4.26 Cut qbe at it's worst for the day of 1600 and stayed long mqg.

Lost again today, mainly due to qbe with pretty much everything else cancelling out. However, I'm getting a bit tired of this approach. The main point was to improve my technique while the market was falling and now I think it may have bottomed. I'm actually a bit more concerned about missing opportunities in the longer term as I think that we're either at the start of, or very close to, a decent rally which might last a few months. As to technique, yes it's improved and I've learnt a lot more about my psychological strengths and weaknesses but definitely still have things to work on.

I'm going to think about how to approach this and whether I should still be focussing on intraday trading. I've been considering sticking with it and adding in a buy/write book but since I've had that in the back of my mind I've found it hard to stick to tight cuts because the two approaches involve different methods.