Interesting market to be in

It is a tough market to be in at the moment. Every sense is screaming that equity prices are looking increasingly expensive but the market seems to be disagreeing and there is more green in Asia today after increasingly "bullish" economic data out of the US on the jobs front.... I have no comment on this data beyond saying that you cannot have an economic recovery while the number of unemployed continue to rise.

In terms of open trading positions I have a long on Gold from US$955 and Platinum from US$1250. Also taken a bit of a dirty little punt on sugar having read that there is a global shortage which is likely to fuel prices in the coming months.

The sugar one I can't comment on - it really was just a flutter and having looked around the reality of of sugar supply-side shortfall seems to be credible.

Platinum I think will see some increased demand going into the second half of 2009 with some re-stocking in the auto sector (the so called "cash-for-clunkers" programme) and maybe some jewellery demand as the economy stabilises. My guess is we could see platinum testing $1285 again this week.

Gold - The yellow metal has worked hard to get back above the $950 an ounce mark. There have been a couple of stomach curdling $10 - $15 drops on action in the dollar market - which have hurt me on stop losses a couple of times - but the metal seems to be behaving a little better after the sell-off last week. I think we could realistically see gold test $980 this week and I would be tempted to take some part profits at $975 if it gets a bit of wind under its sails.

On the equity front I've continued the habit of accumulating a mixture of ALSI constituents and the exchange traded funds (ETFs) that have been mentioned on this blog before.