Dow 10000 is here

Well the Dow Jones index has finally breached the 10000 point level once again and the psychological kicker that has come through is evident in Asian trading this morning. The Nikkei is up over 2% and people in general are feeling good about themselves.

Its just a damn pity that the US Dollar keeps seeing its ass and falling through the floor! It is acting as a serious handbrake to my long Sasol trade. Interestingly the SOLSBG warrant has continued to track up even if the Sasol share price has been moving sideways.

I had been gradually building up a long in platinum and have added to that position yesterday as the price has firmed above $1355. I suspect positive sentiment will be with the markets and industrial metals this week - trend is your friend and all of that.

On the small cap front
Did anybody see that new power board put in place at African Dawn?!

Christo Weise and Robert Emslie as non-execs. This surely has to be worth a punt if these guys are throwing their weight behind it.

Director dealings
It is interesting to see that directors are starting to sell into this market - is it the guys cashing for an early Christmas?!

Just yesterday:

• Topping over at Steinhoff sold R11m worth of shares
• Mokoena at Eqstra sold R240k
• Lazarus at Blue Label sold R309k
• Curle at Altech cashed in some of his options and sold R1.38m worth of shares
• Matlakala at Metropolitan sold out R2.5m
• Van Deventer at Shoprite settled options and cashed out R7.9m

I dunno - maybe if you start adding up the dealings in the last couple of weeks you will find a big number of people are cashing out. Wonder if it is just the Christmas / Festive Season phenomenon or whether they don't see value in their shares at these levels?

Wanna know how to frustrate a trader??

Have everything line up for a perfect trade, nice weakness in the share price (if he's short) and then suddenly things change direction almost inexplicably the share reverses direction...

That would be the story of my life on Friday and sometimes I wonder whether I should just exit the trade.

Sasol fell sharply to R261 and then suddenly rebounded to R276. My guess is the weaker rand and a little bit of strength in Texas Tea on Friday got traders in late in the day...

Fortunately the Dow didn't play the game for the bulls and I wouldn't be surprised with downside on Monday. So yip I'm staying short for a while.

I'm still in the equity market and here's what I'm buying at current levels:

Reinet (REI) - Story remains convincing
Foord Compass (FCPD) - These have been a good investment and the yield remains healthy
Shoprite - Top retailing entry
Beige (BEG) - Been buying this small-cap for a while
Bioscience Brands (BIO) - Ditto
Milkworx (MKX) - Heard some chatter about this company and going to take a punt on it

For the rest I remain relatively negative on the market at the moment and still believe we could see the Dow as low as 6800...

Shoprite

Interesting story that I picked up on Moneyweb:

Shoprite Holdings Ltd., South Africa's largest grocery chain by market value, has been added to Merrill Lynch & Co.'s list of most preferred stocks, with the bank citing "excellent growth" in sub-Saharan Africa.

Full article can be found here...

My two preferred JSE listed retailers at the moment remain Pick 'n Pay (Specifically PWK) and Shoprite which is on my shopping list... Good companies / smart managers...