What a crazy, crazy day yesterday was. UBS, Lehmans and Deutsche Bank shot out of the starting blocks for the Q2 race, dragging UK banks with them. There were more shorts being squeezed than a gay pride beach volleyball meeting.

My trading day was pretty crazy as well; the impetuous Alliance & Leicester short began the day briefly in profit, but was stopped out at 540p for an £85 loss. When FTSE broke above 5800 I bit the bullet and closed my £1 short at 5810 for a £210 loss; I still don’t trust the market but there’s an old saying along the lines of “You can lose all your money waiting for the markets to be right.”

I mentioned yesterday that the rally despite so much bad news concerned me. I’m not turning bullish, but if the wind’s that strong It’s not going to do me any good standing there and weeing into it. I’m struggling with the argument that this is the start of the brave new world in banks. They’ve ‘come clean’ more times than Ronnie Biggs, but there’s more trouble out there. I reckon a lot of the move was more to do with traders rushing to cover short sales than a belief that all our troubles are behind us; unless investors are still suffering the effects of some herbal Easter eggs.

But yesterday’s fun and games weren’t confined to the equity markets; the Dollar/ commodity seesaw was plain to see. Which comes first, the rising Dollar chicken or the falling commodity egg? Yesterday the Dollar gained at the expense of a falling Euro, which reacted badly to the write-downs in UBS and Deutsche Bank. The bull trend in gold is looking a bit broken now; I don’t know if it’s over, but there’s enough doubt to shake out a lot of speculators.

I covered most of my equity losses with a sell spread bet in GBPUSD though, on this occasion, I paid the price for trying to run the position. I sold £10 at $1.9846 following Gordon Brown’s comments that he’d like to help UK interest rates fall. This was only a side issue; I don’t attach any credibility to the Lying Scotsman, but it fitted in with a failed rally in a downtrend.

My stop was at $1.9880, just above the day’s high, and I took profits on half my bet as the price approached $1.98. I closed £5 at $1.9809 for a £185 gain and brought my stop down to $1.9840. At one point my profit was well over £500 but, thinking this could be the start of something big, I left my stop above the big figure at $1.9810. I felt relaxed with the amount of time my bet was spending around $1.9750 and left it open overnight in the hope of further weakening.

No so luck; I closed out at $1.9807 this morning as an uninspired market pushed up to test yesterday’s highs. Total profit on the trade was £380, better than a three-legged race with Heather Mills.

Make sure you’ve finished lunch and are back at your screen by 2.30 for a speech by America’s favourite sugar-daddy, beardy Ben Bernanke.

Hot off the press, Bertie Ahern is to resign as Ireland’s Prime Minister; Paddy Power are offering odds of 10-1 that he’ll become Chairman of Manchester United’s Supporters Club.

Happy Trading