Panic early. Wed Jun 16

My short in Cey backfired as the Thai holders, Banpu, lifted their stake to 19.9%, presumably as a prelude to a full bid. I'd been fairly relaxed about them because broker opinion suggested it was a passive stake with potential FIRB approval problems related to a takeover. So I panicked at the open and paid 460 which made it my worst trade for a while as my average short price was around 422. I'm glad I cut when I did, they spiked up to 473 and are sitting at 467.

Otherwise, most of my positions are long and performing ok. I've added a new long position in Awe. This is tricky because it's probably only a retracement rally but it's just made a 4th higher low in the the last few weeks - admittedly without substantially higher highs to go with it - so I think there's a good chance of a squeeze up. Long at 209.

2.08 I'm much less bearish in the short term since my idea of a higher low and a narrowing range for the Xjo index has been blown away. There was a higher low (which I missed) but the market is really extending as it seems like the various crises have eased apart from the Gulf oil spill. I'm pretty confident now of a rally to 4650 and maybe further. On the big picture, I'm still bearish for the year but maybe it doesn't swing down again for a couple of months. Here's the Xjo chart.

4.18 A reasonably strong close although I sold fractions of my long positions. It looks set fair for another firm day.