8:20am    Beautiful day out there so will mainly be in the garden today but I shall be watching my charts from time to time as well – and there is already a possible ‘long’ trade on my Brent Crude chart. More details below in my Trading Diary.

This will be my last trading day of the week and I shall be back in front of my charts next Tuesday.

Market Update:

Main news at the close yesterday was the Federal Reserve’s position on interest rates. As expected, they are staying with the current level of 0.50% but Fed Chairman Janet Yellen has conceded that the economy is not growing as she thought at the beginning of the year but despite these comments, she has still left herself room to possibly increase the minimum lending rate in June and this sentiment together with the Bank Of Japan’s decision to cap their stimulus package instead of increasing it has given a bearish slant to the overnight Asian trading session – the Nikkei 225 index closed over 3% down a short while ago.

This pessimism has spilled over to this morning’s European session with UK and German markets gapping down earlier and the Dax-30 index sitting right on its 20-day moving average. Crude oil reached its highest level of 2016 last night with U.S. WTI Crude closing at $45:30 and even though there was a certain amount of profit taking overnight, the price is up slightly again this morning.

Trading Diary:

08:40am   With reference to the comments above regarding a possible Brent Crude trade  – I am now in that position. It’s a UTB pattern and my stop loss is 26 pips.

10:10am  Just closed off the Brent trade, the price has started to retreat back from the $47:25 level and I’ve managed a profit of +39 pips.

Chance To Answer a Popular Question

Having a successful trade this early in the day gives me a chance to comment about a query I am asked at least once a week – and this probably means there are many other traders who are reading this trading diary and are thinking the same question.

If you have a successful trade at the beginning of YOUR trading session (no matter what time of the day or night you’re watching your charts) do you carry on trading or do you call it a day and retire gracefully ?

Well, I would suggest that if you’ve been trading for less than a year and you are still getting to grips with this new career of yours, you leave your charts now and go and do something relaxing and un-trading related. My profit of 39 pips is more than adequate for a day’s earnings so as you are in profit for the day, retire happy.

If you really want to carry on trading (for practice) – just do some paper/demo trading instead so you do not risk losing your day’s profit.

In my case, I am going to continue trading as I’ve reached the happy position of trading for fun and not money. I enjoy the game of beating the markets and winning or losing money really does not matter any more because I know the probability of my systems coming out ahead is in my favour so my account will always be in the black.

Hope that helps !

And now I’m off for an invigorating cycle ride….

11:25am   The Spanish IBEX-35 index, not a chart I watch very much but many years ago I did used to analyse it for a private client and at the moment I am waiting for a possible ‘short’ trade to develop. It is quite volatile at times but if the price drops low enough (to 9136) to trigger a trade I will be in.

11:40am  The IBEX price has dropped sufficiently so I am now in a ‘short’ trendFX position. My stop loss is 22 pips.

14:15pm   Just got back from lunch to see my IBEX trade has been stopped out at -22 pips.

15:40pm   Have entered a ‘long’ trendFX strategy-3 position on my Dax-30 15min chart, the stop loss in the case is 23 pips. There are also virtually the same opportunities on my FTSE-100 and S&P-500 charts but those trades has not triggered so far although they are heading in the right direction.

16:10pm   Well that was a quick one. The Dax price-action has slowed considerably and it’s started to reverse from the 10330 level so I am now out of the position with a +58 pip profit.  I think that’s it for the day as far as trading is concerned, I have some finishing off to do in the garden  – back here trading on Tuesday.