It's over! Easter, I mean. We even had a proper pre-Christian Easter bonfire.
Not that everyone was happy: the Greek Orthodox church celebrates Easter several weeks after 'our' Easter. This allows the Greeks to buy their Easter eggs at half price. However, this year the two Easter coincided. My Greek friend Nick wasn't happy.
But I was happy to wipe the Easter egg off my face and again sit by the quiet river while watching - and occasionally trading - the sharemarket.
BHP reached a new 12-month high today of $44.63 and the All Ords are at 4974. A far cry from their all-time high in November 2007 of 6853 but also comfortably above their nadir in March 2009 of 3121.
Of course, we all know that April is a peculiarly dangerous month to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, October, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.
However, I am forewarned with my broker's advice which reads, "The market's rise after a period of reaccumulation is a bullish sign. Nevertheless, fulcrum characteristics are not yet clearly present and a resistance area exists 40 points higher in the Dow, so it is clearly premature to say the next leg of the bull market is up. If, in the coming weeks, a test of the lows holds and the market breaks out of its flag, a further rise would be indicated. Should the lows be violated, a continuation of the internediate term downtrend is called for. In view of the current situation, it is a distinct possibility that traders will sit in the wings awaiting a clearer delineation of the trend and the market will move in a narrow trading range."
What? You don't know what this means? What are you, an Australopithecus or something? Allow me to translate it for you: "If the market does not go up or go down, it will remain unchanged."
Padma phoned from Jember and emailed me this photo of herself with her little niece:
She travelled the 150km from Surabaya to visit her sister-in-law's family. Nice part of Java with lots of tea- and tobacco-plantations.
