The window shuts. Thu Apr 30

The window of opportunity for a fall slammed shut last night as US and European markets rallied despite a larger than expected fall in US GDP because consumer spending was holding up and the fall was mostly driven by a rapid shrinking in inventories, implying that a recovery in demand could quickly drive greater production and employment....and more than likely most traders have been short and squeezed.

I'm in that category but I've been using puts because there's not clear confirmation of a top. Unlike the US market which made a new high on all the major indices - and also the major European indices - our market is still well short of recent highs.

I haven't come to too much harm this morning but I've taken off my short positions (except for qbe which is too far gone) as the rationale for them is no longer valid. For example, here's a daily chart of bhp.

Today's action has pushed bhp back above Tuesday's high. I'd often take a buy signal on something like this. I haven't because the correction doesn't look right, it looks incomplete, and I don't want to buy on a gap. Sold the last of my puts for 85 (v 127) although with the other sales my average selling price was 114.

I sold out of the last cba puts for 167 (v 115). It's a bit weaker than the overall market but setting up bullishly intraday. Mqg made a new high and I sold out the next strike down as they were a better price at 220 compared to 240 for the 3150 puts (255 entry price) and traded some stock for a small gain to cover the difference. I'm left with a small put spread - long may 3150s and short may 3100s.

Wpl is up 1.7% and I've also cut this. It's charting in a similar fashion to bhp. I sold the puts at 95 (v 128) and I've actually gone long stock on the basis of short term charts. I've been slightly uneasy with my short here because the crude oil charts look bullish. Here's a line chart of the daily action in crude.......and the 30 minute chart of wpl.

The other short was in amp. Sold the puts at 36 (v 39) as the stock pulled back after the opening gap up. On its high again and looking strong in the short term.

On the positive side, csl and tcl are both up a little more than the market and I sold a few calls in csl at 238 (v 192).

I also bought ozl at 74.5. I sold out of this impatiently in the low 60's and I had to grit my teeth to buy again but it's looking like it could accelerate, everyone's upgrading, and there's more takeover talk with suggestions that bhp might like to acquire the stock. Here's the weekly.

The daily, above, reminds me of kzl a couple of weeks ago just before it jumped hard.