No catalyst? Wed Dec 8

It's approaching the market open and the US lead was soured as rises of close to 1% vanished in the last hour to leave markets flat. However, with many markets around the world above their April highs, I wonder whether the general tone in Australia will have moved to one of buying the dips. Commodities are doing quite well, although gold had a $20 pullback last night, and valuations are still good. Last week I read a strategist report to the effect that the local market is good value but there is no catalyst for a re-rating. Funnily enough, each time I've come across "where's the catalyst?", it seemed to signal a group recognition that the market was too cheap (or too expensive) and a turning point was generally close or had just happened.
Of the positions I'm already in, I like Wsa the best. This finished well last night and I'm hoping for two or three strong days to take it up to the 650-680 range.

10.57 My theory about the natural drift now being to the upside is being tested by an early fall of 15 points.

Western Areas is turning out to be the stongest of my positions and I just added a few more at 619. I'm out of One Steel now at 266 and 267. Avoca has drifted off 6 to 336 with the overall market although it opened flat so I sold a couple more at 342.

11.31 My most interesting position is a long in Lynas. I've added in a wave count to explain what I'm looking for here. My hope is that we're just finishing a wave 4 pullback before a 5th wave high. The retracement has touched the first wave high and if it overlaps significantly then my scenario is wrong. I'm quite aware that it could be a completed correction of the big fall in late October or early November but if I'm correct then it should be a decent swing to trade. Having missed the obvious top on Thursday last week and held on to most of a tranche of stock bought at 157, I've actually bought a few more yesterday at 152.5 and this morning at 149. The stop is pretty tight here. Depending on volume, I'd sell out at around 144-146.

12.20 The market is down 9 with Japanese and Korean indices a little stronger.

Lynas had a spurt to 154 but is still edgy and just back to 150. I sold a handful at 153.5.

Off to a Christmas lunch with a few former workmates.

2.49 Back from lunch and the market is down 25 points at 4702. In typical fashion, Lynas has been as low at 145.5 and so I'm in a quandary as to what to do. Actually, I'm fairly relaxed about the stock and in no rush to stop out. The issue now is that the overlap could be significant which implies that I might need to be a seller on rallies.

My other positions are fairly flat. Avo and Kar are down a few cents more but are at levels where I'm inclined to nibble at buying a couple more.

4.12 The market fell 27 points and that might be the signal for a retracement of the bounce from the lows.

Here's the Xjo chart.

In line with our recent trend of underperformance, I've had a quick flick through a few charts and notice that the bounce from last week's low to yesterday's high was 4% whereas in other markets it was in the range from 5 to 6%.

Although I'm still skewed to the long side, I'm quite confident that downside is limited and reasonably happy with my long positions even though it was only Wsa which performed well today, closing up 6 at 619.

I sold out of my last Awe at 180 because after four strong up days, this was an inside day.

Lynas is still the problem position, although it finished comfortably above the day's lows at 148.5.