Making space. Mon Mar 21

Steady early but slipping away now to be off by 15 points at 10.52 am. I don't see the sell off going too far, it's more of an unwind of Friday's exuberance.
Despite that, I'm easing out of some positions. Sold Resolute at 116, some Awc at 224, Bsl at 196, Lnc at 283, the last of the Oil Search stock at 701, to leave the April 675 puts as some downside cover, and half of the Infigen at 36.
I think there's more in the rally but it's quite patchy now. I bought Boral at 500 as it seems to be turning round and has tended to close back towards the highs of the day over the last 5 days, rejecting closes much below 500. It's not going so well so far, the stock has just slipped to 496, but it's early on.

11.52 Oil and gold are up as the bombing of Gadaffi's forces in Libya continues. I bought back into Rsg and bought some Perseus too, in the gold sector. Oil Search is pushing up again but I'm out of that now. Karoon is a little disappointing, down 10 at 661. I've bought a couple more there.

Overall, the market is 11 points down, chopping around in a 25 point range.

1.02 Japan is closed and with Chinese and Korean markets solidly firmer, the Asx 200 has just gone into the black. The situation at Fukishima is moving slowly but does seem to be progressing. There's a good article on FnArena by William Tucker at http://www.terrestrialenergy.com/ . It's written by a nuclear energy advocate but seems accurate and free of hyperbole. Tucker explains what's going on and makes the argument that the dangers at the reactor have been wildly overstated.

3.30 The market has been holding the gains since 1pm. Boral has found its feet and is up to 504.

Mostly I'm just jobbing; buying dips and selling rallies and not really changing the net position. Well, maybe a net seller overall.

There is one new overnight position, a short in Ozl at 155. The last swing low was at 158 and there's some minor resistance at 160 so I'll use 162ish as a stop. I'm hoping it's had enough of a retracement and a higher low around 144 might be a reasonable target.

4.23 It was nice to have a calm day for a change and the market, being in recovery mode, just kept edging up to finish with a gain of 16 points at 4643.

Most of my positions went well and only Karoon was a disappointment as it fell 16 to 655. It's a choppy mover at the best of times and the position is pretty small. I added to it at an average of 655.

Japanese markets re-open tomorrow.