Apple has hovered around the $90-$92 level over the past week. At the time of writing, it's at the lower end of that range and is looking a little tired. Still, a period of consolidation is natural after such a strong run (Apple is up almost 20% over the past month). I wouldn't be a buyer here but that doesn't mean I should sell either. I've moved my stop-loss order up to just under $86 to protect my existing profits.

Elan has been choppy over the past week without ever threatening to go anywhere special. The downtrend remains intact so I continue to favour a move south.

SanDisk has gone against me. I went short last week around $47 and watched with glee as it headed down below $44. This week has seen a rally back to $47. Thankfully, I took partial profits last week, so the stock's upward movement hasn't been as painful as it might have been.

This puppy likes to move.

Hopefully, next week will see it move my way.

CRH has been healthier, rising to 29 (bought at 28) over the last week. That may sound modest, but I have a larger position here . . . each 1 move is worth almost 600 to me. This is the beauty of slow-moving stocks: by not being prey to wild oscillations in price, the trader is afforded the luxury of taking a large position with a nice, tight stop-loss order ( in my case, under 27). If it gets near 30, I'll sell half.

As for the market itself, it continues to drive bears crazy by trending higher. On two occasions over the past fortnight, it endured pretty substantial one-day losses before rebounding over the following days.

Regular readers will know that the absence of any kind of technical correction has puzzled this monkey. Much more puzzled, however, are the fundamentally-minded bears who see a basic disconnect between a roaring stock market and a slowing economy.

Julian Robertson used to manage one of the most successful hedge funds of the late 20th century before packing it all in at the height of the dotcom bubble. (He was undone by what he called . . . correctly . . . an "irrational" market. ) Anyway, Robertson says that "there's a more serious bubble now than there was then".

An overstatement? I think so. Still, there's no doubt that a lot of seasoned market veterans can't make sense of a market that has been as strong as this one has over the past few months. That, of course, has simply added fuel to the fire. Short sellers borrow stock in the expectation that they can buy it back later at a cheaper price. Higher prices force the shorts to cover their losses by buying back the stock they borrowed, thereby driving prices higher again.

A good example occurred a few weeks back. The S&P 500 was nearing new highs for the year. Market action had been subdued all day before an explosion of buying erupted late in the trading day. The reason? An apparent $4bn short trade bet that was forcibly liquidated once the trade's stop-loss point was hit.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the market rose "after a report showing wholesale inflation dropped sharply in October eased concerns about interest rates".

Of course, this was bunkum.

That piece of data was released early that morning and the market traded sideways for hours afterwards.

Markets move because of supply and demand; illinformed journalists come up with reasons to rationalise a process that few of them understand.

Anyway, I mention this because specific supply and demand factors were likely behind the market's resilience over the past week or so. Data show that the markets are consistently stronger at the end and beginning of the month. This is when ordinary investors tend to pile in with their retirement and savings accounts.

Previously, the last trading day of the month and the first four of the following month were the strongest days. Nowadays, the strongest days tend to be the last three trading days of the month plus the first two of the next month, as a result of traders buying and selling in anticipation of this situation.

This exhaustion of buying pressure typically results in poorer returns for the six consecutive days from the third to the eighth.

An interesting piece of new research that the monkey came across over the past week showed that, despite a strong upward move over the last 12 years, the average stock has lost money during this period.

That doesn't mean that the bear will show his fangs over the next week. Nor does it mean that buying at the end of each month is a guaranteed winner. I wouldn't ignore these factors, however. If you're into short-term trading, it helps to know such things.

You're not smart enough to know the future direction of the world economy or the ramifications of a falling dollar or the likelihood of a soft or hard landing for the US housing market and its potential effect on Japanese equities. I'm not smart enough either. But I am smart enough to realise that I'm not smart enough. That's why I leave the intellectual agonising to the Julian Robertsons of this world. You should too.

Weekly gain\loss: . . . 100 Overall balance: 34,100