Clearance sale. Wed Sep 2

Yesterday might not have been the day for the market to tip over but today it's making a good start with an early fall of 98 points which at 11.02 am has been cut to 78 points. The US fell on mixed data, some good, some bad and therefore it's reasonable to assume that the scene is set for the long awaited pullback. The thing is that the trend is still solidly intact so it's more a case of cutting long positions than going short.
Having decided to stay long in Alz, Ifn and Lyc when they were not immediately resuming their uptrends, I've paid the price as they continue to fall.
Gunns has raised A$115 m with a 1 for 4 rights issue at 90 c and will offer the same to retail share holders to raise another A$30 m. The adjusted price of the shares is 110 but they have been hard hit, falling to 100 and are my weakest performer today. They are buying plantations in Tasmania as their pulp mill project is more likely to go ahead if all the timber is plantation timber rather than old growth forest. I'd never traded in Gunns before because they haven't had the best reputation as a corporate citizen but given how many dodgy companies I'd traded in, such as the Babcock and Brown stable, it seemed an odd prohibition. Anyway, I'm wishing I'd stuck to my guns now!
Broker opinion is polarised - three have made minor downgrades and are pretty neutral while UBS is excited about the prospects for the stock, with it having weathered the downturn, and has pumped up the target to 135.

12.17 I'm just waiting and watching as the early consolidation failed and the market has now make a new low. It looks, on an intraday basis, like a level from which we can bounce. I'm planning to sell out my position in Australand but hope that a broad rally may lift it.

I could have sold out yesterday on a trailing stop, but strangely, I held on thinking that it was still running, albeit choppily. Today's action is poor and I'm annoyed that having used tight stops for quite a while, I've started to use looser ones despite the market looking stretched. It wasn't so much a conscious decision as complacency and the sort of thing you have to be on your guard for.

1.20 I'm selling out of Paperlinx at 68.5 (v 55) as this is the third day of congestion. It's a line ball decision but all my trades were feeling stale yesterday and I obviously should have acted on them then. I would cut a few more but most seem closer to support - or else trend failure - and are likely to bounce back quicker.

4.10 There's been a reluctant sort of rally but in the end I sold out the Alz at 49 (v 51). More concentration would have had me stopping out at 52 for a small profit rather than 49 for a small loss. I also sold a few more Tpi at 162 (v 137) as they resumed their rally after an initial sell off.

Overall, there hasn't been any real follow through from the weak US lead - the region has fallen in line, or slightly less than US markets while Shanghai has held steady. Overnight futures are also steady. The Xjo has closed with a fall of 76 points.