07:45am  ~  An unusually early start for me on a Monday, I don’t usually do much today but I’ve got some ‘office’ work to get done early so I can get out and do some clay-pigeon shooting at 10 o’clock for the rest of the day.   So –  I’m in the study and just switched on my MT4 charts to watch for any trades over the next few hours while I answer emails and have some Skype calls with new traders.

09:30am  ~  I had one trade earlier – on the S&P500 futures market. I got into the trade just after 8am using one of the trendFX strategies and as the price shot up fairly quickly I came out after 30 minutes with a small profit of 26 pips.  As I teach my students, it’s a good idea to have a small daily target so that you’re not always striving for large trading profits – this helps with the psychology of trading and will get rid of the stress associated with fear and greed, the two enemies of new traders.  As you may know, my daily target is just 20 pips and has been for the past twenty years, although if the markets allow me to take a larger profit from a trade, I will take advantage of this. For more info on this subject, please email me. Apart from this one trade I took, there was not much else happening with the collection of charts I usually watch, this often happens at the beginning of the week as the markets get going after the weekend break.

17:35pm  ~  Just sat down here in the kitchen with a glass of wine after a day’s clay-pigeon shooting. I’ve decided to watch some charts this evening even though I’ve already had a successful trading session earlier on – so my MT4 charts are just coming on.  I will report back later with any trades I might have.

21:10pm  ~  I have just come out of my second trade of the evening, a short trade on the S&P500. I managed a profit of +25 pips and together with an earlier position on the same chart for 20 pips gives me a total of 45 pips this evening.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES  (+71 pips)         I traded for a couple of hours this morning and just over three hours this evening.