Just had a look at the Brent chart. Nasty 4 day spike. Drew the Ukraine-war high's for reference.

Huge move in the oil price overnight:

Yeah extraordinary volatility in the oil price @RogueTrader - I just can't believe how much faith they place in Trump's reassurances that "he has a plan for everything" and the "war will soon be over". I think these are platitudes to reassure everyone that the Theatre Master has a plan & the show is all going perfectly according to his script (4D Chess, anyone?!).

Anyways - obviously the markets took some reassurance that the G7 might act to release some strategic oil reserves to balance the market - but personally I would think this is only a short-term fix / band-aid (although a very welcome one) - but unless they can resolve the Hormuz chokepoint (and adjacent oil refineries/fields under threat of attack) - then I think one has to remain sober as to how much of a sustained difference this can really be expected to make.

I would hazard a guess that the wild gyrations in oil markets are more a sign of massive financial speculation & leveraged momentum traders (forced unexpectedly to unwind very aggressive long positioning), than any real sustained price relief we might expect.

Any sustained easing in oil prices can only happen if the war ceases, or at the very least the Iranian threat to vessels navigating the straights can be neutralised.

Happy to see relief bounce today but won't be buying too hard into the narrative that everything's peachy now!

Sobering reading regarding the practical and military reality of trykng to get global oil flowing again.

Worth a read....

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/09/business/oil-iran-strait-navy-economy

Apologies think that link was a dud. Here is again:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/09/business/oil-iran-strait-navy-economy

It's certainly been a tumultuous few weeks @Randy as you predicted however I decided to view all this as one of those "once opportunities" so I've continued to monitor the ASX and buy what IMHO are quality companies where there hasn't been any structural change but rather simply caught in all the current emotion as we've all seen many times over but we've also seen the market bounce back every time (to date) and I expect it will again.

It's not easy continuing to buy in times like these...in fact sometimes you feel like simply selling up and getting out.

Nonetheless I've soldiered on and bought not only quality companies as described above but also ones that are trading at min 1yr - 5yr lows. I'm not suggesting this is a "sure fire win strategy" but rather that of the stocks I'm buying I'll get decent gains out of most and the ones that I don't I'm thinking the downside should be limited.

As an example I've been buying: AOV, JIN, CCP, LLC, PFP, SIG, IFT, SNZ, SIQ, SDF, RPL. I've also been adding to: 360, WTC, PME, TNE, TLX

The drawback is it's taking me quite a while and numerous trades to finally get to my position size as I'm buying without any brokerage which means I can only purchase $999.99 to qualify for the free brokerage but you can only make 1 purchase per day for each stock. In other words each day I can buy $999.99 worth of each of those companies listed above.(more companies if you want)

Just thought I'd share a little and in fact it would be interesting to hear how others are playing this market....best to all.

Good topic @Jimmy

Ive been working myself up into a right froth this last couple of weeks.

I had limited cash IRL and went in too hard and too early on WTC and SDR. Then when the Saasacre continued, freed up a bit more to buy small positions in PME, CAR and TNE-which I had been waiting to do for years.

We are now being presented with opportunities on a daily basis and I’ve got nothing left.

I’m tempted to sell my coal holdings but suspect the energy crunch has a lot longer to run.

I’m tempted to re-draw some early repayments on my investment property mortgage. But that 5 year fix at 2.7% is rolling over to floating rate in 6 weeks. Hmm! Interest rates aren’t looking like they’re heading down any time soon. And my salary earning days are just about to come to an end.

I could re-shuffle my holdings but my inner voice tells

me

every time I’ve done that in the past, it hasn’t ended well.

so sadly.

im doing nothing.

Unless the powerball comes through.

Hi @Jimmy

Yeah its been a pretty wild couple of weeks. Despite having navigated a number of these periods before over the years, i still find them psychologically painful and lead to a fair degree of soul searching as to whether i have any real talent as an investor, or perhaps the whole exercise of trying to ascribe a "fair value" to stocks is a fools errand, given periods like this mean one can pretty much tear up your assumptions and analysis and just accept that sentiment trumps all in times like these!

Although i guess disciplined long term investors would preach this is just noise, and actually an opportunity to acquire quality stocks at attractive prices.

I liked your approach - pursuing quality stocks on the cheap - and guessing you're using CMC given the daily free brokerage cap. I couldn't help but think its kind of a great means of dollar cost averaging! Although i guess if the specials get good enough, you jidt back up the truck and pay some brokerage.

Regardless it sounds like you've been disciplined and retained a healthy amount of dry powder, to put to work in these tirbulent times.

Personally with benefit of hindsight i've been a bit too fully invested, so have had to make some more difficult choices around recycling capital.

As the bargain basement offers on certain stocks have gotten to irresistable levels, i've made some unpleasant gritted teeth decisions to sell certain stocks (that i'm generally still positive on, but don't see any near-term catalysts on) to free up capital to deploy on other stocks i've been watching or already hold that i feel are getting to silly levels or have potentially material near-term / imminent positive re-rate catalysts ahead.

Feeling like more of a trader than an investor in times like this, but then again sometimes these massive wash outs force you to really probe and question the merits of the positions we're holding and re-test the original investment thesis, with sufficiently juicy carrots dangling elsewhere to make the tough decisions we should, clean house and re-deploy capital accordingly.

In the Small Cap podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmpZDbrS-FU, Claude Walker described that he would buy SOMETHING each time the market drops sharply. This is to train his brain to go away from sell mode to BUY mode, on bad days like today. He described how he bought a very small parcel of an ASX Index ETF on one of the recent down days.

I tried this today, by finally topping up SDR and a little bit of VYS, but in very, very small chunks, maybe 1/3 of what I would normally deploy if I am aggressively building a position.

It really helped focus my mind on opportunity rather than panic/fear. So even though my portfolio was a sea of red and took another beating, I was interestingly rather relaxed about it as I was focused all day on what to buy today and when I should hit enter on the order ....

@Chagsy @Randy I hear where you're both coming from....it can get very difficult at times especially when one is at the backend of their working life. I too was a bit of a worrier when I first dabbled in the market. I'm 68 and have been retired for ~15yrs. Been doing this for ~20yrs and I can tell you I LOST a HEAP of money in the early days mainly because of fear from all the daily noise. Once I rid myself of that this actually became real fun as well as my job I guess and I love going to my office each morning or at a time that suits. It's about 3-4 metres from where I sleep and I can sit there all day in my boxers without any problems....lol

One rule I try a NEVER break though is to IMMEADIATELY and ALWAY's sell on a downgrade or some structural issue the company is/will be going through. I've found that by holding on....or worse...averaging down in such situations can cost you a lot of capital. You can always buy back in down the track.

I raised some funds a few weeks back as all this was starting. Sold anything that wasn't making a profit...and most that weren't paying a dividend as I wanted to pick up some extra monies from the divs this reporting season....and yes I acknowledge I've been buying 360 which does neither but I'm sure you can understand why.

I think you can bank on it that interest rates are heading higher so please be careful when considering a redraw on your home loan @Chagsy

@Randy I wouldn't put a label on what type of investor you are or want to be, My simplistic view is if you come across and opportunity go for it (wisely) If you don't have cash sell all or part of your lowest conviction stock which will give you enough to get a foothold into your new idea. I simply hold onto what I like....for as long as I like...and sell what I don't like or is a lower conviction that what I want to buy.

So does that make me a trader....that's probably the label most would apply to me but I care not. My only goal here is exactly the same as everyone else....to make money and IMHO there aren't ANY hard and fast rules on how to get there apart from the ones you make for yourself....after all too many rules = too much stress when I don't follow them exactly.

Cheers for now and great picking!

@jcmleng great to hear...sound like you have your emotions in check which is IMO very important. Claude"s small parcel buy's sounds somewhat similar to what I'm currently doing as described in my earlier straw.

Anyway all the very best and panic no more....

@jcmleng , I hadn't seen the podcast but just by chance that is the same strategy I used today, picked up a few taster positions in some stocks I've been watching with a view to slow accumulation depending on how the market moves in coming weeks.