Welcome to another scintillating round up sports fan… Well, it was the best of times and the worst of times as Charlie once said. If you were in Gold and Resource shares, sorry. If you were long the most crowded trade in the known universe, good on yer as banks and defensives continued to be the place to be. Gold shares were taken out the back and shot with Newcrest Mining (A$22.25, -1.8%) leading the way but second liners really in the dog house. Medusa Mining (A$3.88, -9.3%),St Barbara (A$1.23, -6.8%) and Perseus Mining (A$1.52, -5.6%) leading the day followed by Evolution Mining (A$1.31, -3.7%) and Kingsgate Consolidated (A$3.55, -0.8%). You have to question an industry that spends a fortune finding stuff, and digging it up, then making it into a nice shape then burying it again in a Central Bank Vault. Ah, the folly of being a gold miner! Anyway the index started badly and tried to recover then rolled over a tad after the Chinese PMI showed only a slight expansion. The boys were going for a rise of 50.5 but it came in at 50.1,so no great news from China.

The index rallied towards the close despite the Chinese numbers, the buy the dip mentality is well and truly in force at the moment and banks are the big beneficiary! Commonwealth Bank of Australia (A$67.85, +0.9%), Westpac Banking (A$31.03, +0.8%) and National Australia Bank (A$30.40, +0.7%) all once again strong. Even QBE Insurance Group (A$13.67, +2.2%) were stronger… The first step in rehab is admitting you have a problem and that they have done.. Bout time!

The big winner today was Sirius Resources NL (A$2.85, +38.35%) which had another staggering intercept on its copper project at Nova and shot the lights out. But generally resources were killed today. RIP Gold Shares!

Media stocks were better with Ten Network (A$0.36, +9.1%) a massive success today as it emerged that Kerry Stokes had bought 5% of the company. Never have so many billionaires been on the register of a small media stock. This one is one to watch. Seriously! Others in the sector caught the bull market buzz with APN News & Media (A$0.315, +5.0%) also pushing ahead .The dogs are barking. Woof! Woof!

Telstra (A$4.53, -1.3%) has been losing its glamour in the last few sessions as it tries to find a level after its gone ex div. Now with the election coming up, or at least it feels like it is coming up, the eyes of the market may be on this one and the NBN contract given the Coalition of the willing seems less inclined to.

Retail stocks were again in demand as the shorts in JB Hi-Fi (A$13.48, +4.1%) and Harvey Norman (A$2.61, +4.8%) got punished. It has to be said that being a short in this market has been hard work. They have all been killed in this reporting season and have gone off to lick their wounds. But unfortunately some ‘hedgies’ have had to be short something and that is what they have choosen. In these kind of markets you want your shorts to go nowhere whilst your longs go through the roof. Some have gone the other way!

Big index changes coming in during the next two weeks, so instos will be positioning themselves to get set. The overriding theme is resources bad, Industrials good… Mongo bad… Industrials good. Hence the selling of Gold shares. Now if you were a contrarian then this may be a signal that it is time to start to buying resources… Me I am a coward and it seems like the easy trade is still yield and defensives.

Stocks in the News

Westfield Retail Trust (A$3.05, -4.1%) were front and centre today as the Lowy family made off in the night selling their holding in the stock at 3.09.

Buru Energy (A$2.62, -3.0%) and Linc Energy Ltd (A$2.51, -7.0%) gave up some of this weeks’ gains as profit taking crept in but suspect the gains will continue next week if nothing changes.

Challenger (A$3.81, +5.5%) after yesterday’s results gained some fans and pushed higher and once again suspect more is to come.

In house stocks Pharmaxis Ltd (A$0.51, -8.1%) had another shocker as punters voted with their feet with some of the mining services stocks looking better. Maca (A$2.97, +2.4%),Mastermyne Group (A$1.575, +0.3%) and Boart Longyear (A$1.725, -0.6%) all to the good.

Spare a thought for the Big Bogan, Nathan Tinkler as Whitehaven Coal (A$2.68, -4.3%) dive and his toys get sold ..jet and chopper on the line. Sounds painful.

Analysts have been scratching their heads over the jump in NIB (A$2.33, +5.4%) share price today – up 16 cents at $2.37, off an all-time high of $2.45, with more than 2.4 million shares traded, which is more than 4-times its usual daily volumes.

Flinders Mines (A$0.075, +4.2%) where we have a strong buy were better as were Arafura Resources (A$0.18, +5.9%) but these were rare positives in the resource sector.

Tomorrows News Today

Our in-house chartist at BBY Regina Meani who knows a thing or two about these things has told me tonight could be interesting for the Dow and she is getting increasingly nervous about the US market. Sequestration comes in to force today. Now it does not happen all at once but over a period of time but the experts suggest that it will be enough to knock 0.6% off US GDP… We shall see..’Owebama’ still has time to sort things out as they have to give US workers a month’s notice of change but it looks like it is happening. Everyone is very complacent about this as its so small in the huge US budget (that they cannot afford).

Apparently too, Italy is a non-issue..we shall see..as long as Central Banks are printing money all will be well..in fact these days they do not have to print real dollars just a few strokes on a PC keyboard and its sorted.

RBA meeting on Tuesday..No change is the call..no need when the market is this strong.

Rio Tinto said today it had failed to resolve cost disputes with Mongolia over the $6.2 billion Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in talks this week but the two sides agreed on a temporary budget to keep the mine on track to start producing in June.

And finally the head of Groupon has gone..in a letter to his employees he started by citing wanting to spend more time with his family before just telling everyone he had been sacked. Gotta love an honest man!

Have a great weekend and welcome to the bullmarket.

Clarence

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