Loosening the yuan. Mon Jun 21

The Chinese currency leash is going to be loosened so that the yuan can strengthen against the USD in order to take the pressure off exporters everywhere else. This has helped US overnight futures to jump around 1.5% while Japanese and Korean markets lead the way with Australia following. Chinese mainland markets are less convinced though. So we're up to the new retracement high I was looking for but there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to sell; it seems like the market could continue to grind up.

Gold was firm overnight so Mml has rallied 8 to 453 which makes me more confident about a rally because the stock has overlapped the last swing low which was on June 7th at 448. Here's the daily.

I've got a new long position in Cgf. I bailed out of a Challenger long last week because I became concerned about another new low to complete a short term pattern. This actually happened but the stock has rejected this low - so far - and I'm nibbling at a long position with an average entry price of 347. Stop is below Friday's spike low, while my expectations are for the stock to reverse up to 370ish in the short term.

The World Cup continues and my trading activity has slumped which is apparently a pattern that's being repeated globally. Energy levels are flagging too!

Most impressive teams so far are all South American: Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

4.04 Most impressive sector today is iron ore with Ago, Fmg, Mgx and Mmx all up 5% or more. Fortunately my assistant is long Ago and Mgx because I missed the other two, though I'm hoping that a couple of positions in Mre and Ozl (not iron ore stocks) with similar charts will have their day in the sun tomorrow.

We're approaching the end of day match out and the market is up 1.4%, which is a mild underperformance relative to Asian markets.

Some profit taking, especially in Telstra, which is up 11 at 334 but well off a 346 high, has left the Xjo with a 61 point gain.