Remission. Mon Jan 24

There was a decent bounce in Europe but a muted one in the States with the major indices mixed. The upshot is that the first hour and twenty minutes of trading has been choppy with the Asx 200 sitting 4 points higher.
I can't see many opportunities yet. I'm focussing on potential short positions but I'd like to see a few days of grinding rally in the market.
One stock has popped up on the radar and that's Aristocrat which has been having a grinding rally for some weeks, following a profit warning, and looks as if it is running out of steam. I've only just got clearance to short it and I'm reluctant to do too many here as the stock is down 9 in thin trading.

Otherwise Karoon has reopened after announcing potential delays in their WA offshore drilling programme due to environmental clearances being more onerous than expected. It opened down 75 at 741 and has bounced to 760. It's roughly where I expected it to open based on the orders that had been sitting in the Asx system but the picture is muddied now and I'll probably try to ease out of my position on rallies.

2.23 The recovery has gained some impetus with the index at 4783, up 28. No significant changes to my few positions though, Aax down 1, Lyc up 1 and Karoon off 65 at 751.

I've sold short a few All into a recovery as it has tracked back to 305.

I had earmarked a possible long in Wsa last Friday but that was the time to buy. The stock rallied from the open this morning.

3.19 The banks are driving the market higher as the big four have risen between 1.3 and 1.6%. My watchlist, which is dominated by smaller resource stocks, is unloved.

4.10 I'm working my way through a wave of admin that's hit me in the last couple of weeks and really haven't paid much attention to the market today. The round up on CNBC has just informed me that the PPI figure came out this morning. It was better than expected (with CPI due tomorrow) and was one of the reasons for the banks' rise along with a Fitch report confirming their exposure to a property crash is limited.

The PPI figure kept a lid on the Aussie dollar too and it's trading at .988 to the USD which is also broadly good for the local market.

The index finished up 30 points and a couple of my longs got a belated boost.