07:40am (6:40am UK time)  ~  After a day away from the markets I shall be doing some chart watching today while here in the study doing emails and Skype calls.

It would seem that geo-political worries across the world are having less of an impact on equities this week than previously, overnight the Asian markets have rallied on the back of good data regarding the state of the U.S. housing market, it is good to see traders once again concentrating on fundamentals rather than political problems. having said that, tensions in Ukraine seem to be subsiding and success in Iraq against IS forces are giving traders more reason to get buying once again and on the back of this plus developing mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. the Nasdaq hit a new high during yesterday’s session together with the leading Dow Jones 30 index climbing 175 points to 16838.

Oil prices across the globe eased off yesterday as the situation in Iraq changed in favour of the Kurds who drove IS fighters away from Mosul Dam, so showing the world that they have some fight left in them, although it’s not clear whether they would have been so successful without U.S. intervention. A barrel of WTI Crude fell just under $1 to $96.24 with Brent experiencing a similiar drop in value and is now at a level that’s not been seen since June last year.  Gold inevitably has been hit by the recent rise in Asian and U.S. equities and is now sitting just above the $1290 support level and the weekly charts still shows a move down towards $1240 is on the cards over the next few months.

Market Close Monday 18th Aug. 2014:  Dow Jones 30  +175.83 @ 16,838.74  S&P 500  +16.68 @ 1,971.74  FTSE 100  +52.17 @ 6,741.25  DAX 30  +152.73 @ 9,245.33  CAC 40  +56.29 @ 4,230.65

11:05am  ~  Not much happening on my charts over the past hour – so I am off for a quick cycle ride towards Formentor with a neighbour for an hour or so.

13:25pm  ~  I am back watching my charts and there maybe a ‘short’ UTB trade coming up on my Brent Oil chart.

13:40pm  ~  The Brent Oil price has come down sufficiently to trigger a ‘short’ position so I’m in the market with a 15 pip stop loss.  The U.S. market is starting up quite soon so caution must be exercised with stop losses firmly in place in case of sudden volatility.

15:40pm  ~  Going to help the builders with some work outside so I’ve closed off my position. The end result is a small profit of +38 pips.

18:30pm  ~  Just come inside so after a shower I’ll watch my S&P 500 chart for an hour or so to see if there’s any “Trade With A Day Job” set-ups.

19:50pm  ~   In a ‘long’ position with a 10 pip stop loss.

20:40pm  ~  We’re out quite soon for the evening and the S&P has lost a lot of trading volume over the last 30 minutes so I have come out of my position with a +16 pip profit.

Daily Target +20 pips

Pips Achieved +54 pips