Cautious pessimism. Thu Aug 20

It's 11.05 am and despite a surprise rally in the US the Australian market is up a modest 30 points. It has been a big day for results with winners rewarded - Qbe, Bxb, Amp, Sto - and losers punished - Mig, Llc, Agk, Wes, Asx....all relative to expectations of course.

Mof was one of the losers and fortunately I exitted my position fairly early at 25.5 (v 28) as it had made a lower low at 25. This is another one I could have been out of on a simple trailing stop a couple of days ago but I gave it a little more time. I'm also out of Ceu at 40 (v 41) as it has gone nowhere for 5 days.

The most interesting thing I can find is Paperlinx which I'm already in. I added to my position, buying a small amount at 58. I think it either stalls here at a minor new high or really kicks on as it moves into a more expansive phase. I'm pretty optimistic although valuations are not helpful.

11.20 am Lynas is also looking fairly positive but it needs to push past yesterday's high and there's quite a lot of stock on the offer in a market which is now only up 15 points.

1.13 pm The ASX top 200 index is now even on the day. Looking at the chart of the Xjo at the 60 minute level, it's still holding above 4350 support although it's finding great difficulty in rallying back towards the highs despite reasonable overnight leads. All in all, it makes for a wait and see type market.

3.17 pm The overall market has picked itself up to the extent that it's now up 11 points but my positions are stubbornly inactive. I'm still feeling that my trade selection is ok but my trading entries and especially exits have lots of room for improvement. The trouble is, I can't decide whether the best approach is go hard at my favourite trades, skip the rest, but only hold them for the fast part of the surge if you get it right or alternatively whether I'm better to just identify the best trades and patiently ride them.
I'm going to go through my trades for the last few weeks because I feel that either policy would have been better but I might get more of a clue to what will work best for me.

4.10 I'm of the opinion that we'll bounce quite strongly tomorrow barring any major falls overnight. We've really underperformed today with the Hong Kong and Japanese markets up close to 2% and US overnight futures also strong. My limited patience is getting worn low though. Market matched out with a gain of 4 points, most of mine little changed.