Battling. Mon Apr 4

Thank goodness I haven't got much of a book because I'm still swimming against the tide. The rally goes on and the market is up 33 at 4895 which is just a tad below the day's high of 4898. The US overnight lead was firm but not outstanding, however the PMI figures which came out showed slowing but growing economic conditions in Europe and the US and although it didn't give a fillip to base metal prices, the growth stocks have had a good kick this morning.
Boral started to recover on Friday and has popped straight through my stop after a weak opening. Because I'm in the wrong mind set, I've watched it without stopping out yet. The correct action would have been to cut and reverse because there's a buy signal now. It's probably too late to chase a long but I do need to get out of the short. It's not a clean chart because of the overlap and there's the possibility that the rally won't go too far but that's neither here nor there for the moment.

11.14 The Chinese PMI bounced back in March and although it was below expectations, the glass half full view is prevalent.

Uranium, priced weekly, also bounced back and I'm buying Paladin again. Last time, I bought a short term peak and stopped out fairly quickly. I was tempted to go long on Friday but because of my bearish bias I missed the chance of a low risk entry and have to use a bigger stop (around 355) now. Long at 377.

I haven't got many so far, it's up 3% and there's usually one dip in the course of a trading day.

1 pm The index is holding the early gains and is sitting at 4895.

I was thinking about buying Bsl and Ost last week but the stocks couldn't gain traction despite the overall strength. It's possible that the search is now on for laggards because performance is better today. In recent days and weeks, the steel stocks have rarely closed strongly so I'm planning to buy just a few here.

Both stocks have leverage to a steel price recovery. One Steel is much better value for an investor because it also makes money from iron ore but it means that leverage to a recovery is held back. Bluescope will be a beneficiary of an expected reduction in iron ore prices in the near term so may be more attractive to traders.

The charts are reasonable, showing choppy rallies that could catch fire and a series of higher lows to provide support and stop levels.

Here's the daily chart for Bsl....

...and Ost.

2.34 Bsl and Ost are quite well bid. I made a start at 201 and 249 respectively. The market is showing signs of coming back although I've bought back most of my short in Boral at around 520. I calculate that the emotional stop cost me an extra 8 cents.

I've put on a new short in Oil Search at 723 as it might be making a double top. I'll give it a touch of room to make a minor new high but the stop will be tight at around 732 which always takes the sting out of having to stop out.

3.03 The rise in the Xjo has been pared to 18 points.

Out of the Aru long at 138 and the last Bld short at 519. Bought more Pdn at 378.5.

3.30 I've put on a few longs today and just one short, while stopping out of another. Wsa is close to a stop too and I've decided to move it above the last major high at 696 in early March because I don't want to be buying too much after a strong rebound and the stop level is more realistic than the 680 that I was originally using.

4.14 A late blip left the Asx 200 at 4887, up 25.

Bsl and Ost closed quite strongly so I added a couple more. Pdn closed near the highs too. Unfortunately, so did my shorts in Osh and Wsa. I also have some May 650 puts n Fmg which are down to about 22, 23 but with plenty of time to go, I'm not too worried about them.