08:15am  ~  An early start for me today – I have already been up the road to check on a building project and will be off on a cycle ride soon followed by meetings with architects/planners/builders before lunch. I shall be here at home this afternoon though, so may get time to do some chart watching.

The slide in U.S. equities had a brief respite yesterday, both the Dow Jones 30 & S&P500 formed spinning top candlestick patterns on their daily charts, and coincidently both reversals were around previous support levels, so we may see that level obeyed in the coming week or so.  Yesterday’s session saw  the start of the earnings season and there was a rather volatile session for the US stocks yesterday. After an initial sell-off, technology stocks lifted the equity markets, giving us a rebound in the afternoon but still the Dow Jones closed 17 points down at 16,246.  Aluminium producer Alcoa were first off the blocks and their results came in higher than estimates in the first quarter.

An escalation in the Russian/Ukrainian conflict renewed fears over energy supply in the Black Sea region and resulted in the WTI crude price climbing up  $1.65 to $102.35. The steep climb was also supported by news that Libyan rebels are sticking to their oil sharing conditions for allowing ports opening.  The tensions in eastern Ukraine also pushed gold prices $11.7 higher to $1308.5 on safe haven demand. At the same time, a weaker U.S. made dollar denominated gold look cheaper attracting some buying interest in the early morning session, followed by some profit taking around the U.S. trading session open.

11:25am  ~  I am back home now and in the study and I can see a nice ‘short’ opportunity on my Gold chart – the current level on the chart gives me a better entry price, so reducing my stop-loss right down to just 23 pips ! Here goes, it’s another trendFX strategy 3 set-up, the same as one of my trades yesterday.

13:25pm  ~  The Gold chart/price is starting to become volatile as we run-up to the start of trading in the U.S. – and I am also getting ready to go out for some lunch, so I have just come out of my ‘short’ Gold trade, It’s come in at +59 pips. There’s been a few other trade opportunities this morning that I’ve not taken as I have also been in meetings here with builders/architects – just had a look at them and they’ve all turned out profitable as well.

17:50pm  ~  Back home – so going to watch my S&P500 chart for a short while to see if there’s any “Trade With A Day Job” opportunities.

19:40pm  ~  Quick update as I’m off out for the evening in a few minutes – I had one trade with my “evening” system tonight – it kicked off just after 6:30pm and resulted in a +101 pip profit a few minutes ago after the S&P500 shot up nicely. The trade I took was actually two seperate trade set-ups which gives you more reasons to get into the market – ideal for new traders.  Nice end to a good trading day.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES (+160 pips)