Just waitin' on a trend. Wed Nov 18

An early start to my blogging day because, frankly, I've nothing to do. It's 10.30 am and the index is up 27 points. Overnight the US market managed a late rally for a small gain while the Europeans eased back. Base metals, oil and gold held steady so there's not a big lead, just an unwind of yesterday's bearishness.
I do have a number of positions, 6 longs and 1 short, but there's no action required and nothing much on the horizon. I half expected the local market to peel off after early strength and it is still pretty early, but the signs are good so far for the rally to extend through the day.

11.24 The market has kicked on to be up 47 points. Aoe has had a good run to 416 and Awc to 174, both up more than 3%.

1.48 Arrow Energy is the story of the day, up 7% now at 426. I sold a few along the way at 420 but I still have 2/3 of the original position.

Mirvac group is a trade possibility as it has been forming a tight corrective range over the last week. It's not the sort of tight 1-2-3 breakout I prefer but the fact that it hasn't pulled back much, so far, from the surge off the lows is pretty bullish.

1.57 I've been thinking a lot about what I want from my trading business over the course of this year and many of the ideas are coming together. For example, consistency, so that I take a trade in one of my stocks (almost) every time and there has to be a good reason not to take it. This makes it easy to get into and out of positions without second guessing myself or the market. It also will make it much easier to increase position size once I'm comfortable that this particular approach works for me.

3.11 The caution from yesterday has returned and the gain is only 14 points now.

There's a reversal trade in Djs on the short side. It made a new high yesterday at 596, marginally ahead of the early October high of 594. It looks to have completed a 5 wave rally too. I saw this possibility yesterday but I was reluctant to take it earlier thinking I'd wait for a lower high. However, it occurs to me that if this was a buying opportunity I'd probably be keener, so looking at it again and accepting that I'll miss the entry point of 585, I'm looking to get short here.

3.22 Sold the first part of my position in Djs at 576. Also, sold a quarter of my Ipl balance at 284 (v 262).

4.10 The market closed up 10 points, reacting to bearish markets in Japan and Hong Kong perhaps. I finished shorting Djs at 579 to average 577.5. Earlier in the day I sold a handful of Awc at 172.5, they finished unchanged at 168.5. Arrow Energy was the star of the day, holding most of the gains to finish at 426 while Ipl gets an honourable mention for finishing up 9 at 285.