Daytrading May 31 afternoon

Thanks Brit and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market remained on track for a third straight winning month despite profit taking this morning after seven weeks of steady gains.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 22 points or 0.4% weaker at 5386 and on track to end the month more than 130 points above where it finished April. The energy sector led the retreat, falling 1.7%. Also weak were consumer staples -0.9%, telecoms -0.6% and financials -0.4%. Gold +1.7% was the best of the sectors, followed by IT +0.2% and metals & mining +0.1%.

The market pared losses after a round of unexpectedly strong domestic economic data. Trade figures, building approvals and business credit were all better than anticipated, sharpening expectations for tomorrow's GDP report. The dollar rose half a cent to 72.4 US cents.

China's Shanghai Composite improved 2.05%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.88% and Japan's Nikkei 0.49%. Dow futures were recently ahead 52 points or 0.3% ahead of the resumption of trade tonight in the US following a long weekend.

Crude oil futures were up 21 cents or 0.4% this morning at US$49.54 a barrel. Gold futures were $1.20 or 0.1% softer at US$1,215.40 an ounce.


There's a vicious cycle in trading whereby a small dip in form can quickly degenerate into something more serious. Your confidence falters, you try to claw back losses by taking trades that aren't there, you set your stop losses too tight because you don't want to lose more dough, you abandon the techniques that work for you in favour of what you imagine everyone else is doing, you're too anxious to let your trades play out so you hop from one loser to another. It's a spiral and most traders go through it at some point. If you can stay in the game long enough you eventually realise that sometimes it's not you - the market is just not conducive at that particular moment to the techniques you're using. In other words, you just need to keep your head and wait until the opportunities return. I've had a poor run this last week and gone through the usual cycle of self-recriminations and hair-tearing. However, I've been doing it long enough to know that if I stuck to my methods, things would eventually come good. Had a solid win this morning in SIO and took a speculator in LRS. Budge up and make some room in the winner's circle.