07:50am   Nice relaxing day at home today so I shall report any trades I have here in the diary.

No Market Update (or trading) tomorrow (Wednesday) as I am off very early for a Clay Pigeon shoot in Hampshire.

Market Update:

The first trading day of the new month saw equities generally bullish with acceptable European and U.S. PMI numbers being announced yesterday. Both the Dow Jones 30 and S&P 500 ended the day around 1% higher with both indices touching near term resistance levels so there maybe a slight pullback today.

Overnight Asian stocks were mixed with the Hang Seng Index up 1.05% but the Nikkei 225 and Shanghai Composite down despite the Reserve Bank of Australia holding their key interest rate at 2% for another month. Their rate statement a few hours ago included comments about the economy starting to ‘firm up’ which traders took to mean that there maybe some further easing in the future although the Australian Dollar has surged coming up to the European session open.

The oil market struggled yesterday on disappointing economic news out of China which is restricting demand and also news of Hedge Funds adding to their short positions on WTI Crude did not help to lift sentiment.  U.S. Crude ended Monday’s session ended 12 cents down at 46:10 and has developed a few bearish reversal candles on the daily chart while trading in a very narrow area so a move down maybe on the cards.

Trading Diary:

09:30am    Just quickly checked my group of favourite charts and there’s nothing much happening so going out for a cycle ride.

11:40am    Back home and I’ve just found a trade on my UK Brent Crude chart – I have just entered a long position with a 20 pip stop loss using the trendFX strategy-3 set-up.

13:00pm   Does look as though my Brent trade is going to be stopped out but on a different note, I can see a possible ‘short’ trade on my Gold chart  – another trendFX strategy-3 set-up.

13:25pm   Out of one trade and into another. The Brent Crude position has been stopped out at -20 pips and  I am in the Gold trade mentioned above — the stop loss on this new position is 26 pips.

15:40pm   Happy with my profit on the Gold position so I  am now out with a +76 pip profit and +56 pips overall for the day.