08:15am ~  I got back here from a weekend away late last night, so there will be an easy start to the week for me today, I’ll be watching some charts later this morning while doing emails and a few Skype calls this morning.  A bracing cycle ride first along the (overflowing) river bank.

Over in the U.S. Janet Yellen , the newly appointed Federal Reserve Chairman is due to deliver her first speech on monetary policy later today. Traders seemed to be standing on the sidelines awaiting her comments and the Dow Jones closed rather flat around 15,800 mark last night. The S&P500 broke through the 1800 level so look out for long trading opportunities today and there was a rally in the overnight Asian trading session possibly on expectations that Yellen will not want to spook the global markets but maintain a happy medium, so the European markets should open slightly higher on the back of that.

After breaking above the psychologically important $100 mark yesterday, the U.S. WTI crude prices retraced in afternoon trading on profit taking closing slightly down at $99.90 a barrel. The US National Weather Service has forecast the winter storm may spread further across the country, hinting that chart support will stay for a while longer.

Gold prices rose again yesterday – this time up $9 to $1274.9 as Chinese buyers start to return into the precious metals market from holiday. The Gold chart is firmly on a rebound since the start of 2014 after dropping more than 30% last year and $1300 is firmly in traders sights.

10:05am  ~  Back in the study after a very wet cycle ride, switching charts on now to see what’s going on with my favourite few instruments.

11:50am  ~  Just got into a ‘short’ position on my S&P500 chart with a stop-loss of 17 pips. It’s a trendFX strategy one set-up.

12:15pm  ~  My S&P500 position was stopped out a while ago and I am off shortly to lunch at Loch Fyne with friends.

16:05pm  ~ Will be sitting down to watch some charts soon, I will report back later on how my late afternoon/evening trading session goes with the S&P500.

21:00pm  ~  I’ve had a few problems updating this blog earlier so I’m going to a complete run-down of my trading since 4pm. I have had three trades altogether, the 1st one was using my trendFX strategy one set-up on my S&P500 chart. I have not long been out of that position and I have come away with +137 pips.  As well as that trade I also had two trades with my “Trade With A Day Job” system, the first one dead on 5pm (which was stopped out at minus 13 pips) and the subsequent one kicked off just after 7pm and was closed  off at the same time as my initial trade at 18239 (+40 pips)

So all in all I’ve had four trades today, two losers, two winners and an overall profit of +147 pips.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES  (+147 pips)