09:05am CET (08:05 UK Time)   A nice lazy start and a day at home in the sun for me today so I may have some trades to report as the day progresses.

The U.S. markets had a reasonably optimistic session yesterday on the back of positive earning results, weaker Dollar and cheap oil prices as levels rise towards the next resistance point although Europe was slightly more subdued as traders wonder just how much more buying is possible over here. The German Dax 30 index has been subject to profit taking over the past few sessions and seems to have developed a new resistance level around 12,400 as worries over Greece continue to weigh heavily but the London FTSE 100 was at new highs yesterday despite being in the middle of an election campaign with all the uncertainty that it brings.

Crude oil prices in the U.S. rose to the highest level for 2015 after the Energy Information Administration announced that weekly inventory numbers rose by just 1.3million barrels instead of the widely expected 4million. This news gave commodity traders some hope that demand was picking up as well as production falling and yesterday’s large rise means that the WTI Crude price is now well above the previous $54 resistance area so further gains are possible in the eyes of technical traders although watch for some exhaustion selling back to that level first.  Although Gold had a positive session yesterday it is still stuck in the narrow band between $1180 and $1220 and traders are waiting to see where the indices go in the next few weeks before any concerted buying or selling takes place, my daily chart does suggest a move up to $1210 in the short term.

Market Close Wednesday 15th April 2015:   Dow Jones 30  +75.91 @ 18,112.61  S&P 500  +3.41 @ 2,095.84  NASDAQ  -11.56 @ 4,397.65  FTSE 100  +10.96 @ 7,075.26  UK AIM  +2.27 @ 741.80  DAX 30  -111.13 @ 12,227.60  CAC 40  -36.06 @ 5,218.06  IBEX   -161.70 @ 11,704.70   Nikkei 225 (Today)  -71.43 @ 19,837.25  Hang Seng (currently)  -10.15 @ 27,551.34

All times below are CET (UK Time +1hr)

09:25am    Nothing much happening on my charts at the moment so I’m off for a cycle ride along the bay path southward with some friends who arrived earlier – back in an hour or so.

11:55am    Been back a short while and I’ve just got into a ‘short’ trade on my S&P 500 chart using one of the trendFX strategies. My stop loss is 28 pips.

13:40pm    Going off for lunch in a minute  in town so I’ve closed off my S&P position — fairly happy with the score, it’s managed +70 pips.

15:55pm    Back from lunch and scanning a few charts – there’s a possible ‘short’ trade setting up on my Gold chart.

16:10pm    I am now in a ‘short’ position on Gold using the same trendFX set-up as this morning – my stop loss is 28 pips.

16:50pm    Just come out of my Gold trade, it’s resulted in a +59 pip profit and I’m off now for a while to give a neighbour a lift to Inca.

20:10pm    Just arrived back home so no trading to report for the evening — and we’ve just been invited on a day out on a friend’s boat tomorrow, so no Market Update in the morning and no trading all day as we’re off at 7am.