A pretty lacklustre day for our market today, more choppy trading and an afternoon rally that started to look promising faded in the last three quarters of an hour. After mixed leads from the US last night (Dow Jones down 0.4%, Nasdaq up 0.6%), the market seemed to be looking for direction from the US futures in the night session which have been erratic. The XJO closed 0.9% or 38.9 points lower – a small move by standards of late where volatility is still reasonably high. A small consolidation zone is starting to form as the market takes a breather which is fine for discretionary trades as it should allow some patterns to form and traders to get set for the next move. Today’s price action was enough to switch the Growth Portfolio and the ASX Systematic Portfolio off again and for the latter to tighten up stops. If the aforementioned consolidation continues around these levels, this may be the case for a few days – an on again, off again scenario until a decisive break in either direction occurs. Earnings season is beginning to kick into gear in the US so we may see some movement – it really hots up week after next.

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4. Tuesday 14th June, 2011