Thar she blows. Thu Mar 10

The liquidation in resources continues and despite another flat lead from the States, the Aussie market has rapidly fallen to the next support level around 4720.

I was kind of expecting it and shorted a few things early for a quick trade but managed to give the money back with a long position in Lynas which I had to stop out of.

Otherwise, the positions are going reasonably well. I stopped out of Lnc at 280 and hedged Qan at 233. Of the other longs, Ipl is down but the options were written down and haven't cost too much while Sbm has been sold down but seems well bid. I sold out half of a fairly small position there yesterday afternoon at 217 but added them back, too early, at 212. 208 now.

The shorts are fine, the best has been Pdn which is down 3% and I've taken small profits in Awc, Fmg and Osh also.

I've put on a short position in Ausenco. I think it might have made a lower high and although I could be late on to this, compared to most things the stock hasn't dropped much. Short at 337 with a stop above the recent high.

12.10 The index is stabilising at a loss of 40 points.

I've shorted gold stock Perseus, as well, at 306 average. It's actually higher on the day, at 301, but I think it's completed a correction and today was just a retracement of the last few days action. My stop is at around 320.

 12.35 Unwound the hedged Qan, reasonably well. Decided that the move up was precarious and sold the options out at 9.5 and bought the hedge back at 231. It was countertrend and with a failure to build on the new high and the market very weak, I preferred to get out.

Qantas has been a stock where I've been trying to buy recently and have then chipped around and kept the losses small.

12.49 Support convincingly failed, with the index now at 4712, down 55.

The weekly chart has been in a trend channel for some time but that looks on shaky ground now.

 1.41 It took a while but Fortescue eventually tanked. It's at 613, near the lows. I'm hoping for another day like this but have bought a small amount of stock back that I was short. I still have most of the Mar 650 puts.

2.42 The market took another hit from weak Chinese trade figures and is struggling to recover much. The Asx 200 is down 64 at 4704 and the next support is at 4686. It could get there sooner rather than later.

Fortescue continues to fall, now down 35 at 604.

3.14 I've hedged some Fmg at 608 and sold a few more of the Osh April 675 puts at 28. I'm just long a few Sbm now and still have shorts in 5 or 6 stocks so I took something off the table.

The 30 minute Fortescue chart was starting to lose momentum - obviously not in the big picture - and the last bar was the first one for a while that pushed above the high of the previous bar.

4.14 There was no respite, the market sold off 68 points and closed fractions below 4700. It doesn't look over in the short term.