07:25am  ~  I have a full day at home today, a whole heap of Skype calls + emailing and some chart watching of course.  I am still working my way through the hundreds of entries for my ‘name-a-trading-system’ competition as well.

The markets seem to be at a crossroads at the moment, the Dow Jones 30 finished up yesterday at another all time high (16959 up 23 points) although there are technical hints on the daily chart for a reversal – over at the S&P500 there is a similiar story as traders yesterday seem to be buying into the good U.S. jobs news from last week. Over in London, the FTSE100 is not quite at the record 6900 level, but yesterday’s trading session end seems to suggest another bullish day although a move down below 6800 should get the bears excited for a short while.  Spread betting companies are reporting a large number of their clients are taking a bearish stance in equity trading, so maybe there will be some profit taking in the next few days.

The WTI Crude Oil prices lost 17 cents yesterday, down to $104.29 after some profit taking due to the previous day’s sharp bullish move.  There is speculation that oil inventories in the US fell for a second week which acted as good support, ignoring some renewed strength in the dollar. Meanwhile OPEC is due to meet later today and it is expected that quotas will remain unchanged at 30 million barrels a day. Gold traders and investors went out bargain hunting yesterday after the steep fall in prices, the recent resistance around $1258 was broken as the U.S. trading session opened and the value ended up $7.3 higher at just below $1260. Reports hint at China being the biggest buyer in the past 24 hours and if there is a drop in equity markets today we may see further safe haven buying.

08:40am  ~  While watching my charts here in the study I can see a few possible opportunities developing although one stands out – a ‘long’ trendFX trade on my Gold chart if the current candle forms a reversal pattern and we get a move to the upside. More news soon…

09:25am  ~  The Gold trade has triggered and I am now also in a ‘long’ position on my Brent Oil chart as well – another trendFX set-up.  Additionally there is a ‘short’ setting up on my S&P500 chart as well.

10:00am  ~  In the last few minutes the S&P500 price has dropped sufficiently to allow an entry at the 19476 level – it is yet another trendFX pattern. All these trades have low stop losses – around 15/20 pips.

12:15pm  ~  All is going quite well with two of my positions – the Brent Oil is still struggling around break-even – and as I’ve invited out to lunch soon I’m going to start closing off the trades.

12:40pm  ~  Right, I’m out of all three positions now and I am off for some lunch –  here are the scores:   S&P500 ‘short’ trade +53 pips     Gold ‘long’ trade +15 pips    Brent Oil ‘long’ trade +2 pips.  I have taken some chart screenshots so will send them out to students this afternoon.

16:30pm  ~  Back home after a tennis match, I shall switch on an S&P500 chart soon to watch for any ‘evening’ system trades.

23:05pm  ~  I did watch the S&P chart for a few hours before we went out at 8pm but there were no opportunities. Very happy with my +70 pips from earlier though.