Good morning to you all on a very autumnal October morning – the wet weather has eventually reached the South East of England !

Well – Friday’s trading day was always going to be slightly unusual, due to the U.S. Non-Farm-Payrolls announcement due out at 1:30pm (GMT) so care was the order of the day – and afternoon trading is really a no-no. What tends to happen is the U.S. and European indexes tend to be stuck in a boring, listless trading range – which means little or no trade signals. having taken the time to look over my trading diaries over the past few years, the first Friday of every month is never that profitable, and there was a time that I never used to bother working on NFP days – not because I would have a losing day, it’s just that there was never that many opportunities, so a day away from the screens was the best alternative.

Friday started with a short cycle ride at 7am and I was in front of the screens a few moments before 8am – loaded with coffee – and the first trade signal with my “Any-Time” system came at 8:15 on the USD/CHF currency pair – and that netted an opening +9 pips. Just 2 more trades occurred in the next hour and that was it for the morning. It is always a good idea to stop trading around midday, as there is no way of telling how the market is going to react once the NFP figures are released at 1:30pm (GMT) – but I did notice a nice signal on the FTSE 100 Index at 1pm – but this is far too close to announcement time – so I just sat on my hands and watched with interest. Shame really as it would have achieved 50 or so pips ! But that is just pure gambling !

The afternoon session is not worth trading as the markets are all over the place – reacting to the economic figures, so I spent the remaining few hours working on my forthcoming U.S. only FX trading system.

I did not trade the “Evening System” for the above reasons – so an early end to my ‘working’ week was welcomed with a day’s total of 38 pips

Jumping forward to today (Monday) I have been in front of the screens since very early – and I am pleased to say the markets have returned to ‘normal’ – so I  am looking forward to a large pip count by the end of the afternoon.