Frisky

The Asx 200 has ignored overnight weakness to climb steadily with the result that at 1 pm the index is through recent highs to 4329, a rise of 27 points. I put my money where my mouth is yesterday afternoon and bought some XJO May 4350 calls at 64 and they've done reasonably well. Here's the updated daily chart.

It's broad based but banks and financials continue to perform well. I sold another third of the NAB March 2400 calls at 73 (v 22) and also sold the first third of some April 2450 calls. NAB is up 8 at 2474.

Insurers have performed strongly in the last couple of weeks. The laggard is SUN, partly because it is also an underperforming bank exposed to the soft SE Queensland real estate market. However it has held steady in a trading range for some time and is now making a buy signal. Long at 828.

3.30 The dam has broken and the Asx 200 rise is 43 points. Out of the last March 2400 calls in NAB at 96 but still long most of the April 2450 calls.

4.13 The market gained 42 points to finish at 4343, the best close since November 9th. I sold a fifth of the MSB position at 802.