Tarnished

Gold fell 5% and so did oil and copper as risk assets were hit last night.

I got my answer regarding FMG and it does make sense in hindsight – best to look at the complete move from the previous close when assessing a gap day and whether to trigger a trailing stop. Ie., there was a case for looking at Tuesday's move (the doji bar, 2 back) and realising that the gap to the previous close wasn't filled. I still might stop out in a similar situation in the future, just on the back of decent buying momentum on the day, but I'd be more likely to leave the position and simply trail the stop to just above Wednesday's high.

Fortescue is starting to look very vulnerable and a fall through 443 could see a sharp slump. AGO, another iron ore stock which tends to chart alike, has almost cracked support today.

Given that my book was net long overnight, I've had a reasonable day. The longs are in defensives and are performing ok with DJS up and PBG and SEK only down mildly.

On the theme of learning from mistakes, BLD has been a missed opportunity. I passed up a 1-2-3 sell signal, which is better quality than a reversal, because I've been bullish the stock. So far, that's been a mistake with the potential short entry at 368 and the stock trading at 352. Maybe in these situations in future, I should take the trade with either (or any/all of) a smaller position size, a tight stop and more use of targets.

4.12 The Asx 200 fell 51 points, closing at 4140. My long positions firmed a bit more with DJS up 7 at 276 by the close and SEK coming close to a breakout with a rise of 3 to 623. PBG was down 0.5 to 56.5.The shorts fell harder with the resource sector and I added another in OSH at the 625 closing price. I was squeezed out of this the other day but it has broken Friday's swing low and I'm hoping for a drive down below 600.