The turnaround propelled yours truly from second last to second halfway through our four-week shares race, where  each participant started with $100,000.

This is despite the fact that it’s considering a capital raising, normally death for a share price, and that it has been downgraded by credit ratings agency Standard & Poors.

So what’s going on? Probably the usual story of a stock being marked down too far over bad news.

Boart Longyear’s explanation to the ASX’s third query in three weeks was that a ''substantial shareholder” had just about finished unloading the stock – another bad sign normally - so there was no longer an overhang over its price.

It’s also putting together  company results but, “does not believe recent trading in its shares can be ascribed to speculation about its half-year results”. Whatever, I’m not complaining.

Perhaps the market is coming around to all things mining again after an impressive week of production reports, not least from BHP Billiton. The race’s other top stocks, all three held by frontrunner Richard Pritchard, are Poseidon Nickel, Caeneus Minerals and Sirius Resources.

The market took the consumer price index in its stride, even though currency speculators immediately punted the Reserve Bank would have to raise rates.

Inflation rose 0.5 per cent in the June quarter for an annual increase of 3 per cent. The underlying rate is an annualised 2.8 per cent, which is smack on the Reserve’s forecast before the budget.

This week there will be key data for the US economy – Wednesday has the trifecta of GDP, a Federal Reserve meeting and employment statistics – so Wall Street will be critical. But then it always is.