In the chill room. Fri June 19

The market is having a recovery session so far, up 25 points at 11.26 am on light volume and inconclusive price action. The US indices were mildly up on a trifecta of relatively good economic data and we've followed that cue.

My dreary week continues with my short positions moving against me. Mqg made a buy signal on the 60 minute chart as it went through 3750 so I scrambled to hedge. I've since taken that off because I thought (wrongly) that the rally had run out of steam.I've fallen into the trap of trying to force trades, especially in the financials. Still, I've copped most of the damage now so I can get on with putting on the right sort of trades now.

I've made two new trades this morning. The first is in Amp (thanks Michael!). I think it could have made a second higher low and I've bought at 510 as it has traded through yesterday's high. The recent high came back into the previous trading range; if this was just a retracement rally then you would expect the move to stop short of that range.

The other position is a short one, via puts, in General Property Trust. This stock has had a long slow choppy rally typical of a retracement. The last couple of days weakness have made me think that we've got a potential lower high in place with the chance of a move down to around 40. I've bought July 53 puts at 7.5.

11.56 Scrambled out of the last half of my Brambles short for square at 590 as it raced back up.

1.37 The market has drifted back. Gpt confirmed a lower high with a trade at 47 although it's a touch higher right now. Mqg has come back after all, although it's still up, and I traded in and out of a bit more stock. I've now managed to claw back about 30 cents per option from my June 3800 puts bought at 157 yesterday.

3.52 Out of a third of my Amp position at 517 (v 510). It has come back a little to 513.
I'm annoyed with my trading week. Some things I did well, such as cutting most of my long resource positions at the first smell of trouble on Monday but continuing to try to pick the top in the bank rally is the sort of bad habit I've been trying to break. One good thing is that I have a very clear idea now of the sorts of trades I want to be doing - in the past I would tend to chop and change. I rarely regret it when I follow the plan of "if in doubt, get out". For example, although I did well with some of my Brambles trade, I had a feeling yesterday that all the momentum had gone and I should have just cut it then.

4.11 The Spi futures contract has sold off about 30 points in the last 30 minutes and taken the index back down with it, perhaps there was a sell on close portfolio.