I heart equities. Mon Feb 14

It's a lovefest for equities on Valentine's day. The market has sped out of the blocks following the subdued performance last Friday when worried investors looked at the troubles in Egypt. Mubarak's resignation came through late in the US trading session and helped their indices to reach respectable gains. Oil and gold were the safe havens and they sold off, although not very much in the case of gold, while base metals were positive.
Cba is ex dividend and that knocks 7 points off the Asx 200 but the rise is 36 points after 40 minutes. My book is mixed with longs and shorts cancelling out although I had a small win in Awe when it was sold down from 187.5 to 177 on the open and I fluked a buy at 175. Just tipped them out at 185. There was no news to indicate any serious problem and this seller often appears on the open, only for the stock to be soaked up at the previous closing price. For some reason the buyers missed the open.
I'm out of Awc at 253. Not because I'm bearish, simply because the stock was marked up at the open and seemed to run into plenty of selling. It wasn't a big position, but a handy enough profit, and I didn't want to be stuck during a consolidation.

Obviously, the chart for Awc looks perfectly fine and my willingness to sell reflects the caution I'm feeling about the market. The local market looks fine but the European and US indices are starting to look very complete on both daily and intraday charts. Tops can be slow to form and these indices can definitely continue to edge up but the risk/reward equation seems poor.

12.16 The banks are still hogging the action. Here's Anz - and the other charts are similar.

2.16 It's strange to feel so uninvolved when I've been expecting the market to run for some time. Because the rally is being driven by the larger stocks, the moves in my watchlist are moderate given that I've chosen shares which are quite volatile. Reporting period has also meant that I've tended to take a cautious view. All in all, I'm left with a vaguely dissatisfied feeling despite having made a little money this month.

I'm also most enthusiastic about the gold stocks and they've had a minor pullback over the last few days as the Egyptian situation has calmed down.

3.27 I've been resisting the lure of going long Fortescue for the last couple of days because I still have some Feb 700 calls. I've succumbed now and bought at 683 because the chart is reminding me of the Lnc chart last week. Here's the daily for Fmg and for Lnc.

 Lnc...

4.14 The market held on to the gains and finished above last Wednesday's intraday high at 4936, a rise of 55 points.