It's all gotta go

It's sale time for the retailers with an after market profit warning from electronics retailer JB Hifi sending the sector down. It's cost me in DJS with the shares off 4% to 265 while PBG is down 1 at 55.5 in a mildly firmer market. In one sense, DJS is an innocent victim because, as a traditional department store, sales of flat screen TVs are not make or break but the overriding message is that the consumer is still on strike. It's one of those markets where stocks get sold off any number of times on the same piece of news so that although DJS had its own profit warning 3 weeks ago and has already been discounted, the exit doors are still crowded.

I was thinking of selling on a trailing stop at 267 but when I put on the trade, even though I was hoping for a simple reversal into the 290s, I thought it more likely that the stock would need to make a higher low so I'm keeping the original 260 stop.

It's one of those days where my longs are down and my short positions have rallied. Overall, the Asx 200 is up 0.4% after slightly better overnight news. There has been precious little movement since the open and I'm off to do some Christmas shopping.

2.58 IPL has been resilient and although it got close to 300 yesterday and first thing this morning, there's been a decent rebound. I've bought back at 310 (v 314) on a trailing stop.

4.12 It was a strange end to the day. There was some index rebalancing going on but some odd moves nevertheless. DJS reversed to briefly trade up before closing at 275 for a 1 cent loss on the day. IPL ran earlier but a few stocks performed similarly. I missed my chance in ALL which traded lower then closed above the recent congestion. Volumes are light and I was hesitant.

I did take a reversal trade in PRU, in small size, as I bought around 250 in late afternoon. The stock is entering the Asx 100 and there's usually some buying. I sold half on the close at 257. I'm not too convinced about this afternoon so position size is small but there should be some further index buying on Monday.

The market closed up 19 points but some of the individual moves were disproportionate.