08:35am (7:35 UK time)  ~   A quiet day for me today, we have friends arriving for the weekend so I shall be off to Palma airport later but before then I shall be doing some emails and a small amount of chart watching.

Asian markets took a breather last night after 4 days of upward movement, the Japanese Nikkei index ended broadly flat at 15302 in stark contrast to U.S. equities where the Dow Jones 30 reached a 2-week high at 16713 after trader optimism following President Putin’s speech largely dismissing any armed conflict in Ukraine – although there were reports a few hours ago that Russian military vehicles have driven across the border into Ukraine. In contrast to the bullish sentiment in the U.S. the EU is looking at the prospect of subdued growth and a threat of recession for the biggest of their members, although traders do enjoy this type of bad news as the case for money-printing (quantative easing) becomes more likely which in turn will boost equities.  The daily S&P 500 chart suggests a move back towards the high of 1992 that was reached at the end of last month but it may take a week or so to get there – so watch out for bullish trade opportunities after small pullbacks. WTI Crude price re-adjusted again down to a more realistic level yesterday as geo-political worries subsides and the stock situation shows bigger than normal supplies – the price ended down again last night at $95.56 with the next major support level is around $92

Market Close Thursday 14th Aug. 2014:  Dow Jones 30  +61.78 @ 16,713.58  S&P 500  +8.46 @ 1,955.18  FTSE 100  +28.58 @ 6,685.26  DAX 30  +26.22 @ 9,225.10  CAC 40  +10.64 @ 4,205.43

10:20am  ~  There’s not much happening on my charts this morning but there does look like a possible UTB pattern starting to show on my WTI Crude Oil chart – news of any development soon.

10:45am  ~  I am in the market with a ‘long’ position on WTI with an 18 pip stop loss.

13:25pm  ~  We are off out now to Palma but my WTI trade has not reached an acceptable profit yet – it is hovering around +16 pips – so I’ve set a stop loss at break-even and a profit target of +25 pips.

18:50pm  ~  I’ve been watching my S&P 500 chart for a short while and a “Trade With A Day Job” opportunity came up half an hour ago – which I took and has now ended with a 30 pip profit.  My earlier WTI Crude trade came out at its target of +25 pips.

Daily Target +20 pips

Pips Achieved +55 pips