I haven't done anything new but my book is short, the only long is in Toll which is unchanged, and Boral has conclusively dropped out of the recent trading range.
11.37 The market is steadying; down 43 but 15 better than the low. I bought back bits and pieces of my short positions: some Fmg at 600, Lyc at 199.5 and Osh at 696. The sell off has plenty of momentum, especially in the resource sector and I expect lower to come. The Xjo chart shows a lower low in an unstable market. Unstable because recent swings are testing range highs and lows very quickly.
An example of that volatility is silver. It was 12% weaker in early Asian trade after a series of exchanges have increased margin requirements following the explosive rally. It rallied off the early liquidation lows but I don't have a live feed for silver so I'm not sure how strong that bounce has been.
The first quarter house price index came through at 11.30 and showed a drop in most capital cities of 1.5 to 2.5% barring Perth, the capital of resource rich West Australia.
12.53 It was funny, I was just looking at the 60 minute chart of the Xjo, thinking it might be ready for a rally and it came very quickly. Not for technical reasons though, apparently Obama is about to announce that Osama is dead.
I'm not really sure what implications you can draw. Al Qaeda would presumably carry on unchanged, there could be reprisals, so is it really bullish. I guess it is in the medium term.
Anyway, I've squared up a bit. Out of the short in Lynas at 202, most of Osh at 706 and Fmg at 606.
1.18 Lots of speculation on TV as they spin out the small amount of information they have. The index is sitting down 23 points, fairly flat since the initial recovery.
I'm now out of shorts in Fortescue, Lynas and Oil Search so the only positions I have are a long in Toll holdings and a short in Boral.
1.38 President Obama is speaking and I guess half the world is watching. Obama is probably smart enough to keep a lid on the triumphalism and avoid fuelling terrorist reprisals.
The market is still stuck and it's hard to know what way things will go. A euphoric bounce in an oversold US dollar...weakness in oil on calming in the Middle East...or the reverse.
Obviously the US indices can rally on the news but that's been irrelevant to us lately and the significant AUD/USD exchange rate is flatlining, giving no lead.
2.02 Many Asian markets are closed today along with the UK.
Still no significant action here or in the currency markets.
3.28 It took a while but the index has recovered further to be down 10 points.
Boral is back to 490 and although the chart continues to look weak, I was hoping for a cleaner break today. I've bought and sold stock and averaged into the buying back of some shorts at 478 so I didn't leave all the gains on the table.
3.36 Most of the charts are showing the potential for an oversold bounce without any convincing buy signals so it's a bit hard to trade this rally.
I've punted some Qan at 212 on the basis that they're a beneficiary of reduced risk in the form of lower oil prices and terrorism threat. I'm not necessarily sold on my own theory but there's a low at 205 so I've got a stop just below that.
I'm unimpressed by the Qan trade; I felt compelled to find something to buy but frankly, if I was flying in the near future, I'd be more rather than less worried. The chart looks like a pause before a test of 200 but maybe there'll be a little pop up to 220. I think I'll get out of this at the first reasonable opportunity.
Not a bad day and although I was late onto the down move, I've got off the ride at a reasonable time and made a few bucks.
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