08:55am  ~  A nice lazy start to the week for me, I am off for a cycle ride in a minute with some friends, and then shall settle down to some admin in the study in the run-up to lunchtime.  Later this afternoon we will be heading upto the cottage in Suffolk for the week.

The week ahead in the markets could be an exciting one with a quarter of the companies in the S&P500 index reporting results in the next 5 days, so traders are on the starting blocks waiting for any clues that may hint at the direction the equity markets are going to head towards.  The Dow Jones and S&P500 finished broadly where they began last week and the same can be said of the gold price, although significantly it did hit a support level around $1270 so we may see a climb over the next few weeks.  There are also FOMC meeting minutes together with the U.S. employment figures out towards the end of the week so there’s plenty for traders to get busy with.

11:15am  ~  I am back home after my cycle ride so I shall be watching a few charts while attending to some emails before going off for lunch around 1 o’clock-ish.

11:40am  ~  There is a possible ‘long’ trade on the S&P500 setting up so I’ll watch the chart closely over the next 15 minutes or so.

12:15pm  ~  I am the above trade, it’s a trendFX set-up with a 16 pip stop loss.

13:05pm  ~  The S&P has lost its upward momentum at a previous resistance level and I’m off out for a pub lunch now so I ‘ve closed my trade off with a quick 18pip profit.

16:30pm  ~  I have a couple of Skype calls booked for the next hour or so, which means we will not be going upto to Suffolk for a while so I shall also watch my S&P500 chart for any “Trade With A Day Job” set-ups.

17:40pm  ~  There’s been a ‘short’ trade set-up come up, so I’m in the market with a 21 pip stop loss.

18:10pm  ~  I am now also in a ‘short’ position on the S&P with a trendFX strategy set-up.

18:40pm  ~  We really have to get going now, so I have closed off both of my trades. The S&P500 has come down fairly sharpish in the past hour or so, which has resulted in my 1st trade coming in at +107 pips and the trendFX position has given me +83 pips.