White picket fences. Thu May 27

Maybe it's just the snapshot as we approach midday with the index flat but Japanese and Korea markets are also pretty much unchanged and although we have had some action this morning with a 30 point rise and retracement, it's generally settling down. The US sold off late yesterday but that doesn't seem to have affected things much. There was some early enthusiasm about a watering down of the resources rent tax and although it has been denied, the general assumption is that there's room for negotiation.

I haven't done much today, just sold a few Awc at 161 and Ozl at 108. I'm keeping a core position and trading around the swings in a few other stocks as well.

1.30 pm It's definitely a housekeeping sort of day. I'm still unsure whether we might have made a low or not. If anything, I think that once this little correction plays out we'll make a minor new low. As my positions are all long then I'm not adding any more and just managing them.

Here's a 60 minute chart of the Xjo index.

(I'm experimenting with larger charts - they used to stuff up the spacing but it's always changing).

If this turns out to be just a retracement before another low then there's still a bullish case to be made. Yesterday's closing level could be a higher low while today's action so far is supportive of another push up, perhaps to 4450ish. Whereas, if we've seen the low then the index could quite quickly bounce up to the top of the last correction at around 4600 to 4650.

By the way, it still does stuff up the spacing but I don't mind it so much now. It's nice to have a more readable chart without having to open it up in another window.

2.15 The market is firming and I've decided I can risk another long trade (I've trimmed my dollar exposure overall). This is a long in Qantas at 239. It's another retracement story with a fairly tight stop in the high 220s.

2.45 The market is really taking off now - up 49 points.
No, this doesn't work after all. I've just spent 15 minutes trying to work out how to put this text at the bottom of the Qan chart without just entering a whole bunch of spaces. Back to normal for chart size.

4.12 The futures ran into the 4.10 match out and helped the ASX 200 to close on its highs at 4370, a rise of 1.7%.