Default response. Fri May 15

10.25 An earlier start to my blogging day...the US and European indices managed small bounces on low volumes but enough to provide us with a strong early bounce to be up 59 points (high was up 68) early. Rio has talked down rumours of a rights issue and they've bounced back 7%. My positions started a bit poorly but cba and qbe, while still up, have come back. Mqg was up as much as 130 and is now up 75. I've bought a couple more May 3400 puts at 116.

Gold overnight did nothing but lgl and ncm are up a little, slightly less than the overall market. I've bought some fmg at 270 on a hunch/minor buy signal.

The pullback from Monday's surge went in 3 waves; a gap, a choppy failed rally and then a sharp fall. It held above the breakout level at 260 though and with the early trade through yesterday afternoon's range I thought it was a reasonable buy. If it doesn't hold 260 I'd get out but since the correction might be complete there's a chance it can go back above 300. Probably not today, but perhaps on Monday if I hold it. That gives me a risk of 10 c or so and a potential upside of 30+.
I also bought some lgl June 325 calls at 10.5 yesterday to replace some of the stock I sold and take a bit of risk out of my book.

12.26 Very little has happened in the last two hours. The spi looks slightly bullish as though we might run later in the afternoon but that's about it.

2.41 This is a day to be patient. The market is still pretty steady, up about 48 points. My shorts have moved against me today as they recover somewhat following heavy falls yesterday. I'm sticking with the positions so there's not a lot to do.

4.07 The market is about to close for the day and every one of my 3 longs, 3 shorts has moved against me today in typical Friday fashion. I was worried about this yesterday afternoon and I was just wondering whether I'd be better off making it a rule to wind up my books each Thursday.

Here's a daily chart for qbe. It still looks poor but has had a retracement. I cut about a third of my short position yesterday around 2000 and the stock has rallied back to around 2050.

Mqg is much the same. Equally fmg and lgl still look positive to me but ground down against me all day. I hope Monday brings a return to trend.