As the market retreated an online retailer bolted, putting the Financial Review's Phil Baker within striking distance of the top with only one week left of our share race.
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Calling itself "the world's biggest online action sports and youth apparel retailer" SurfStitch, which started up in a Sydney suburban garage eight years ago, boosted Baker's portfolio by $600.
Meanwhile the front-runner, who needs no introduction, stumbled badly with four of his 10 stocks slumping, led by an unexplained – so far, anyway – drubbing for mining services stock Bradken.
Only his prescient choice of Sipa Resources, this time an unexplained success, which is the race's best stock, having almost doubled in three weeks, is saving him.
It released its half-year accounts which had nothing new except for a slightly higher loss of $2.6 million due to exploration at its Uganda precious metal deposit.
Second best stock remains Richard Pritchard's Xero, a supplier of accounting software.
It seems sharemarkets are becoming a currency game as the US dollar soars.
Wall Street is adjusting to the prospect of a rise in interest rates by June, fuelled by a surge in new jobs and a Federal Reserve member saying "I would rather see rates rise early and gradually than later and steeper".
Perhaps the Fed should take a leaf out of our own Reserve Bank's book and just do it.
Whether the weaker dollar helping local stocks or the stronger US dollar hurting Wall Street proves the more dominant is the big unknown.
An added complication is that the stronger US dollar is also pulling down commodity prices.
In the final week of our race the market will face two speeches from Reserve Bank officials, the minutes of the last rate meeting, and the Fed's meeting on Thursday.
