Happy New Year. Wed July 1

The start of the new financial year in Australia has brought renewed caution as the UK economy contracted at the worst pace since 1958 and US consumer confidence slipped back again after recently showing signs of life. The result was a fairly measured fall of around 1% in both of those markets. We've outdone that, the top 200 index falling as much as 95 points earlier on. At 12.20 we're down 78 points or 2% and I'm regretting taking buy signals on June 30 which is a bit of an unreliable day.
I could have cut all of my new longs on a trailing stop but I've decided to wait a bit longer till the dust settles. A lot of market participants have probably spent the morning doing some of the things I've been doing such as updating spreadsheets for the new year, reconciling accounts and looking at budgets; anything but trading.

1.44 I'm still just watching the day's trading. The daily chart for the Xjo gives a clue.

The rally over the last week took the index above the pivot point on the way down. It means that we're unlikely to accelerate down. Given that the fall had stopped dead any momentum it also seems unlikely that we'll make any overall gains, so my assumption is that at some point the market will resume the retracement rally but probably not make a new high. If it does go above the the old high by more than a percent or so then I'd guess it would be a quick surge that I'd have to jump on and off quickly.

3.57 The market has been clawing its way off the days lows but hasn't got far. It's still down 70 points. Other markets in the region are flat to up and I'm loath to dump everything on a thin day. However, I plan to sell a part of my positions, at least, since most of them, at the day's lows, could have stopped me out if I'd chosen to take the tightest stop.

4.15 Took something off the table with small sales in Bhp at 3390 (v 3435), Ipl at 234 (v 242), Ncm at 3028 (v 3065), Rio at 5160 (v 5225) and the sale of the last half of the Tel position at 217 (v 218). The market closed down 81 points.