Jitterbug. Tue Nov 30

The month is ending and is behaving in character with yet another attack of the jitters. Europe was hard hit on bail out ructions while the US rallied through the day to close just lower. The Aussie market opened slighly weaker which would have been most people's guess after surprise strength yesterday. It has chopped around for a bit and now taken a sharp plunge to fall to a recent low of down 32 points.
The chart pattern is a variation on yesterday's early situation where I was wondering whether it was a choppy rally up to resistance and then a failure. The point of difference is that yesterday's rally went above the Friday high but I guess, yes, it's still quite possible that the rally has failed and we could go lower. Actually, I think it's too hard to call.

I've started buying back into Arafura as I think there could be more juice left in the rally. My average entry price is 119 so far with the stock back at 117. I'd be concerned if it closed back through the swing high at 114 so stop is around 112.

2.32 Back from a trip to the physio to find the market little changed but Aristocrat, unfortunately, has cost me. This was always a little countertrend trade and I sold half out at 266 before I left the office but didn't expect it to sell off rapidly. Oh well, out of the rest at 256.

3.06 We're still down 0.5% but doing ok relatively because HK is down over 1% along with Japanese indices while mainland Chinese indices are down 3 and 4%. Not sure why.... tightening concerns?

In Australia, the chances of further rate rises have reduced so perhaps that's helping. Awe, Djs, Lnc and Ost are all up while Aru is down near its lows. I've now got an average entry of 118 with the stock trading at 114.5.

3.54 Linc is the standout, up 10 at 260 and I've sold a few at 259. It's a new high and looking good but with the market in its current phase, selling a few on a new high is probably wise.

After falling for so long, there are obviously some bearish patterns around, I've just been trying to find buy signals. Anyway, I think Ipl has probably made a lower high about 3 days back at 389. I can use 390-392 as a stop so I'm looking to short this on a rally back to around 380.

4.13 That's November over and it has left a cliffhanger with the index teetering on the edge of the precipice and European and Asian markets under intense pressure. The tough part for the Aussie market is that we've already had a 50% retracement while most other markets have fallen 20-30%. If they continue on to a relatively modest 35-40% pullback it will give us significant headwinds to battle against.

Obviously, the context is all. If I'd been on top of the market rhythm then I'd be short and loving it and more than happy to see another 10% drop.

Just to show that it's a diverse market, I've had a reasonable month. Below budget but adequate given the circumstances.

There was extra volume going through on the close and one or two things jumped about. Arafura rallied from 118 to 122.5 and I sold some out.