The Macquarie shorting ban expires. Mon May 25

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has cautiously withdrawn the ban on covered short selling in financial stocks. This was cynically called the Macquarie ban with the inference being that intense political lobbying was responsible for the continuation of the ban long after most markets had cancelled similar restrictions and despite the Australian banking system being much sounder than most.
On a day when I expected very little to happen given flat overnight markets and major market closures tonight and despite the widespread expectation that the ban would be lifted, the financial sector led by Macquarie has gapped down, rallied for a while and is now driving down decisively. It's 12.15 and the xjo index is down 18 points having been up 22. Of my financial short positions, mqg is down 5%, qbe down 3.2% and cba down 1.5%. In the case of mqg and qbe, I'm now confident that the downtrend is resuming in earnest so there's a good chance I'll be able to run these positions for a little while. Cba is still in its trading range but is starting to move convincingly away from the gravitational pull of the congestion around 3600.

Lihir Gold is now down after having opened stronger and on the daily chart I could make a case to cut the position as the stock has breached Friday's low, Friday having been a reversal day also. Looking at a 60 minute chart the retracement looks fairly typical after last week's surge and I would expect new highs fairly soon after this correction completes so it makes sense to stay with this position.

Of my other positions, mig has performed well, up 4 at 149 having earlier made a new weekly high of 153. I bought and sold a few extra (148 in/151.5 out) for an intraday profit. Santos, a small short position, was strong early but is now back to square.

12.37 I put on a new long position in ipl which is a bit marginal on the daily basis but is supported by a good signal on the intraday charts.

The daily is in a short term trading range within a gently rising uptrend. It's broken the high of the previous day after 3 down days in a row. It looks to me like a flat correction of the move up from 220. I've bought stock at 236 which has held pretty well as the market fell subsequently - it's now 235. The 30 minute chart, below, shows a buy signal at 233. It's a nice tight launching point based on Friday's action.
3 pm Financials are still under pressure with mqg near its lows at 3120. The daily chart has made a clear break and I'm staying with my position rather than taking any profits. Here it is. The stock last made a clear buy or sell signal with a trend change back in March. There were 5 up days and a 6 dollar plus move from around 1800 before the first sign of congestion...something like that would be nice. We've had 3 dollars and 2 days so far.

4.11 We've matched out now, down 24 points on a surprising down day.