Battling fatigue more like it. I've had enough after another full on week. It's been an arm wrestle with positives from China, negatives from Europe and mixed signals from the US. The overriding factor might have been local negatives with the carbon tax progressing and retailing continuing to suffer which highlights the caution gripping the Australian consumer.
The DJIA has had a few consecutive weak closes and might be due a straight out tumble. Here's the 60 minute.
The sell off has little enthusiasm which is fair enough, the index is near support but I'm holding my short positions for now. I have a couple of new trades, both shorts. They may turn out to be day trades but I'm putting them on as overnight positions.
The first is in CGF. Their annuity business has been successful and driven strong share price performance but margins are under pressure. The stock ground up then slipped and I'm selling into the retracement with a stop at 500. Short at 481.
The other one is IPL where I'm short at 485. I'm essentially bullish this but after a mild recovery from the sell off that stopped me out, the stock seems set for another leg down.
11.52 Out of the last of the July 5050 puts in CBA at 188. The stock is close to my back of an envelope target of 4850 and seems to be finding intraday support. Still long the 5050 to 4900 put spread.
12.16 I've been wanting to look at trading motivations as much as specific trades but I'm too busy this week to make much progress with that. I'm trying to at least analyse my emotions about the day and recognise which trades are impulsive/compulsive, which are rational and where I can use my instincts to help me out.
Today I feel tired and flustered despite having most trades go well. I had to miss a couple of hours in the middle of the trading day on Wednesday and Thursday and today I had a late start and have also had a couple of different visitors to my workplace. I like to work my way into the rhythm of the market and I haven't had the opportunity since Tuesday.
FMG has issued a quarterly report which has disappointed the market slightly. I bought more of the July 650 puts at 14.5 before the update and flicked them out at 20. I'm long the original 650 puts and some 625 puts, bought in late June, which are a fair way underwater but recovering a little.
1.18 I forgot about LYC watch. It actually had a sell signal this morning and I got short a few at 193. China's latest rare earths quotas are not as restrictive as feared. Stock is trading at 191.
3.36 The day has been almost a carbon copy of yesterday; a mid afternoon slump and a fairly prompt recovery. The index is down 21 having skated close to the 4450 low on the Asx 200 with an intraday bottom at 4454.
I'm short everything and not super comfortable so I bought some of the CGF back at 476, IPL at 383, the LYC at 190 and 191, some OSH at 654, the last of the TOL at 452 and I sold out another 25 BHP July 4300 puts at 92 leaving a balance of 75.
BHP has broken support and is lower on a combination of overnight weakness and another US shale gas acquisition. I can see further weakness ahead, my concern was more to do with the market being oversold on the day with the potential for a squeeze into the weekend.
If there is to be US market weakness overnight, that would probably be enough for the market to fall through support. Our market is not strong and there has been more relative underperformance this week.
4.16 The lunge for the breakeven line was beaten back by some late selling. We finished off 17 points.
I'm pretty happy with the week, I've run most things to the target or only taken part profit. I was finding it exhausting by the end though, just letting things be.
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