When the S&P ASX 200 index was reaching its lunch time low of 5483.3 on Thursday, 16 August, the Crikey edition arrived with this piece lamenting some painful paper losses I’d suffered buying $500 worth of shares in what ended up being 107 stocks over the course of August.

Indeed, the roll call of recently acquired stocks that had delivered 20%-plus losses at the time included the following:

Ausenco, Aditya, AED Oil, Alliance Resources, Amazing Loans, Capral Aluminium, Cougar Energy, Deep Yellow, Energy World, Flexigroup, Fone Zone, Gloucester Coal, Gindalbie, GPG, HFA Holdings, Jackgreen, Keycorp, Lion Selection, Metabolic Pharmaceutical, Mariner Financial, Mt Gibson Mines, Monadelphous, Moly Mines, National Leisure & Gaming, Pan Australian Resources, Poseidon Nickel, Perseverance, Queensland Gas, Riversdale Mining, Silex Systems, SP Telemedia, Technology One, Toro Energy, Thinksmart, Territory Resources, UXC, Western Kingfish, Wotif.

Well, haven’t things turned around spectacularly courtesy of a truly stunning Australian profit-reporting season and the interventions by the Federal Reserve and now the Bush administration, which have pushed the All Ords up another 23 points to 6271 in morning trade, bringing the recovery to more than 80% of the 15% correction.

My last purchase was 24 August and since 23 August I’ve been selling into the recovery. At its worst, the portfolio was down by about $10,000 but now it’s up about $6000 – and that’s after profitably selling at least $400 worth of shares in 17 companies.

Of the 107 stocks bought in August, here’s a list of the ten best which have already delivered a quick fire gross return of more than 20% in less than two weeks:

Alliance Resources: bought 445 at $1.14 on 14 August, sold 345 at $1.46 on 30 August.

Australasian Resources: bought 420 at $1.20 on 6 August, sold 320 at $1.45 on 3 September.

Gindalbie Metals: bought 400 at $1.26 on 15 August, sold 300 at $1.53 on 30 August.

Jabiru Metals: bought 530 at 95c on 16 August, sold 430 at $1.26 on 31 August.

JB Hi-Fi: bought 53 at $9.59 on 15 August, sold 43 at $12.03 on 30 August.

Mincor: bought 187 at $2.72 on 17 August, sold 137 at $3.35 on 31 August

Sally Malay: bought 138 at $3.65 on 10 August, sold 100 at $4.21 on 3 September.

TFS Corp: bought 625 at 80c on 16 August, sold 525 at $1.06 on 30 August.

Tolhurst Group: bought 1390 at 36c on 16 August, sold 1190 at 47c on 27 August.

Others which have generated returns of more than 15% but are yet to be realised include Specialty Fashion, SMS, RCR Tomlinson, Oilsearch, Mineral Deposits, Marion Energy, Ausdrill and Geodynamics.

All up, it’s been a handy ride, but the market is starting to get into overvalued territory again so it’s time to take some profits off the table and pay down the credit card debt and margin loan.