Stoic. Thu Jan 20

The local market is keeping a stiff upper lip and the damage after an hour and a quarter is 28 points following a weak night overseas with resource stocks being hit. For me, there's a kicker of a large, after market placement of Fmg at 680 which has knocked the stock down to that level and pretty much wipes out some Jan 725 calls I'd bought. Singaporean fund Temasek were the seller as they exitted their 5% holding.
Otherwise, the positions are down moderately with Qan actually up 4 at 251.
The Asx 200 is holding above 4800 for now which is what you'd expect after it had provided solid resistance for so long.

No new trades as I've got a full book and it's a question of deciding whether anything has to go.

12.18 The index chopped around to an intraday low of 4800 and is back up to 4810. It could bounce a little more but I'm not expecting too much from it.
Few of my positions are moving. Copper stocks were hit overnight and Ozl has been affected with a 7 cent drop to 171 despite a good production report. I'd sold out of most of my long and bought some back at 173.

1.18 The market was waiting for Chinese data - inflation ok and GDP higher than expected. Chinese markets are lower and an initial bounce here has faded to leave us at 4800 just above the recent low of 4797.
I'm still just watching and waiting.

1.37 So much for our new found resilience. The Chinese markets are down around 1% and we're down about 1.1% at 4782. It looks like yet another new high and instant failure and I'm concerned about a dump like we had in November. The problem is that almost every other world market is extended so they're more than capable of having sharp retracements which would provide a headwind for our flimsy confidence.

3.10 Qantas is fairly disappointing and is unchanged after being firm early. It's looking like a pennant correction which will resolve to the downside. I'm on the offer at 248 but may have to tick lower.

3.31 I've decided to cut everything marginal because a reversal day after a new high is too much of a flashing warning light to be cavalier. It's a bad day profit wise but I'm just giving back what I made yesterday and the month is still a good one with 6 trading days to go.

Out of this morning's extra Ozl for square at 173 and sold the last of the old stock which I bought at 167, at 172. One Steel has been an excellent trade and sold the last few at 281. Bsl has suffered in comparison and I took a 7 cent loss to sell at 213. Sold Rsg at 149 v 151 because I'm punting an expansion into a bigger pattern which is too risky. Story is great and will look for another chance at this.

The positions I'm holding are:

Aax - still looks strong and up 1 today.

Aru - jobbed around to create an average sale price of 148 for a handful. Down at 145 and holding the rest because chart has good upside and stop is close. Has broken some nice 60 minute support though.

Kar - suspended all day. Chart is very good but will probably retrace somewhat on re-open.

Mmx - sold a few extras I'd bought at 141 (v 138.5). Still charting well, Fmg iron ore stock that has flooded the market could be a problem.

Almost out of Qan at 248 and last of Lyc at 202.

4.12 Thinking about it, it's not actually a reversal day. The market would have had to open higher before falling. But the new high and failure has been typical lately. It happened 3 times in October before the big drop in November. Down 51 to 4784.