07:30am  ~  Up early to do some emails and admin before we are off to Ladies Day at Royal Ascot later this morning.

There is plenty of economic news out today to get the markets moving, kicking off with the Bank Of England’s Monetary Policy Committee’s last meeting vote and ending with the Fed’s FOMC Statment and the usual Janet Yellen speech where she’ll give subtle hints on future policy.  Although the main Dow Jones 30 index gained 28 points to 16,804 at the close of yesterday’s session there were large swings up and down as traders on the one hand remained in a confident mood regarding the US economic growth but turned bearish regarding weaker than expected housing data on both building permits and housing starts — inflation also came out higher than estimates fuelling speculation that an interest rate increase may occur sooner than previously thought. The S&P500 gained just over 4 points to 1941.99 after a similarly roller-coaster session and here in the UK the FTSE100 index was 12 points higher at 6767.

With violence and unrest engulfing northern Iraq, the southern terminals are set to increase oil production suggesting that part of the country which supplies crude is now under government control at last. This news helped WTI Crude ease down slightly, finishing yesterday’s session at $105.93, 18 cents down.

10:35am  ~  I was not really planning on doing any trading this morning as we are travelling down to Ascot just before Midday but I have been watching a few charts over the last hour and a UTB pattern has just occurred on my Gold chart, so I am now in a ‘long’ trade. The stop loss is 25 pips.

11:40am  ~  As we are off in a minute and my Gold trade has not yet hit its target, I have set-up an order to close the trade off at +25 pips and brought the stop-loss upto break even as we’re now at +10 pips in profit. You can see for yourself if the trade works out, the price has to get to $1271.80 – there is near-term resistance at $1272.00  so there’s a fair chance it’ll get up there.

01:05am Thursday morning  ~  Just got in and had a quick look at my MT4 platform and I can see that my Gold trade hit its target of +25 pips.