Poker face. Mon Apr 27

The market is still vacillating and it's tricky to guess which way it's going to go. For example, we have been up as much as 70 points this morning on a good overseas lead but at the same time there's a serious flu warning causing great concern in the US and with the story just having broken the overnight US futures are quite weak so it's entirely possible that we'll sell off again as the day goes on. The market is up 44 points now at 12.37.
I've sold out of my gold stocks this morning for a good profit, lgl at 301 -304 and ncm at around 3100 equivalent. I went too early in ncm which is now 3164. I'm anxious at the moment to take profits and move on but I was a little too anxious. A trailing stop on a 30 minute chart would still not have been triggered.
On reflection, I regretted not winding up my positions on Friday - at least on the short side - because I'd had a good day but since Fridays are often reversal days and the market had fallen, I wasn't convinced that they would continue to fall before a rally on Monday. I wasn't criticising myself after seeing the rise in the Dow, this occurred to me late on Friday and perhaps encouraged me to be a bit hasty in ncm this morning.
Having said all that, I'm happy enough now as it seems like we might have had the rally I was worried about. Of my other positions for example, cba has been up 60 but is now up 15 while wpl was up 85 now higher by 5. Amp is the only one holding firm as the extra little rally I was wondering about seems to be unfolding. I'm hopeful that today's high of 536 will complete things and a fall will follow.
I bought some wpl stock earlier as crude oil is strong but cut again for a small loss as the stock failed. Did the same in Arrow Energy, aoe.

2.38 Just back from catching up with a friend and the market which was still up 30 points around 1pm, is now down 16 points and actually off its lows by a further 16 points. Most of my positions are going well. I'd sold out of my 2 longs in lgl and ncm and was still short amp, cba and wpl. Now amp is square on the day, while cba is down 86 having been even lower as it has announced that it is planning a capital raising and wpl is also down 41 cents on the day. Earlier on I put on 3 new positions, all via options. The long position was in Transurban, a toll road operator and a defensive stock. I bought june 450 calls at 21 and 22 cents. Here's the weekly.

I've been waiting for an opportunity here and today the stock started to accelerate. Fortunately, I stuck to some reasonably priced June 450 calls because the stock has sold off 10 cents or so as the market has fallen. Here's the daily.The next position was a short in bhp. This broke down about 3 days back and has been retracing. I'm hoping for a failed rally and once I got the sniff that today would be a reversal day I decided to buy the May 3200 puts. I paid 127 for them. The last 2 sell offs have been about 250 and 270 c respectively. If the stock does something similar then it could fall to around 3000 in two or three days.

2.53 The other position was also a short in mqg. It's still been making higher highs but on rapidly fading momentum. As it's such a volatile stock I decided to buy some May 3150 puts at 265.

I used the 60 minute chart to time my entry. The stock rallied on option expiry day last Thursday in a 3rd wave type fashion using Elliot wave jargon. It pulled back and made a new high. I hoped it could be a 5th wave high and thought that along with the daily pattern it was a reasonable bet. Here's the 60 minute chart.

3.42 The market has found some support and most stocks are rallying. However, it looks like a retracement before another fall so I'm happy with my short positions. I did sell small numbers of puts in cba at 190 (v 115), bhp at 140 (v 127) and mqg at 312 (v 265).

4.13 The market rallied a bit further to close up 19 points. It was a wild day, rallying to up 70 points, plummeting to down 30 and finishing in the middle. Lots of uncertainty about the extent of the problem with swine flu and the effect it would have on world markets and in the end a result suggesting the local market is sitting on the fence. I'm mostly short and glad I took a little profit earlier.