08:15am  ~  Up to the cottage in Suffolk later this morning to sort out some reported storm damage and then off Skiing in Chamonix tomorrow with some trader friends.

Yesterday on the markets both the Dow Jones 30 and S&P500 formed reversal candles at resistance levels on the daily charts and already in overnight trading have fallen from the highs of Wednesday’s session.

Optimism regarding the US economic growth gave the markets a boost but then we had some disappointing corporate earnings especially coming from brand names like Procter & Gamble and Amazon hence markets ended rather flat on the day.  Over here in London the FTSE100 formed a Spinning-Top at the 6700 level during yesterday’s session, a point at which we previously had some short term support in the first few weeks of January, so we could have some short trade opportunities today.

U.S. WTI Crude initially rose in early trading but crude oil inventories numbers that came in slightly higher than anticipated caused a drop by the end of the day, ending just above $100.

08:45am  ~  I have a pile of emails to answer plus some charts to send customers so I am going to watch a few of my own charts for the next few hours as well to see if any trading opportunities come up.

09:10am  ~  I am now in ‘short’ position on my S&P500 chart, it looks like it may move down towards the 1810 level which is a previous resistance level so may provide support this time – we’ll see…….

10:45am  ~  Nothing much happening with this S&P position but I’ll hang on a bit longer in the market before I have to go up to Southwold.

11:20am  ~  I have to leave now so I’m setting up a stop-loss and going to leave it alone  -  I shall check back this afternoon when I get up to Suffolk. During my normal trading I manually come out of trades at either my profit level or stop-loss but as I’ll be away from the screen for quite a few hours I need to ensure that my risk is limited.

14:25pm  ~  Just turned on my charts up here and I’ve closed off my S&P500 position as the U.S. market is going to open in a few minutes time – often there is a volatile reaction and the trade has got to +41 pips which I’m more than happy with.

17:10pm  ~  I have been on the roof for most of the afternoon trying to rebuild part of one of the chimneys but I’m now back in the study to watch my S&P500 chart – and see if there’s any evening trading set-ups.

18:15pm  ~  There’s been no “Trade With A Day Job” opportunities yet but I am now in a ‘long ‘ position on the S&P500 with one of my trendFX strategies.

20:05pm  ~  I am still in my earlier trade and I’m now also in a ‘short’ position with my “Trade With A Day Job” system. The 1st trade is not going to last though, cannot be long and short on the same chart !

21:10pm  ~  It’s the end of the U.S. trading session so the two trades are done and they’ve ended ok. The 1st trade came in at +30 pips and the other was ended at +23 pips.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES  (+94 pips)