09:40am   Slightly late Market Update this morning as the builders are in once again for a few days. I’m in and out of the house for most of the day but any trades I have will be reported below.

Market Update:

The Asian markets ended broadly lower earlier this morning after Chinese PMI data failed to excite traders and despite optimistic Australian GDP which came in at +3.1% well ahead of expectations. The Japanese Nikkei 225 index was the biggest loser of the session after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was reported in the media to be coming close to announcing a delay in the new sales tax rise for two years and while this is undoubtedly good news for consumers, it does show that the government is worried about the size of its debts, currently sitting at just over 220% of GDP.  As a comparison, the UK government debt stands at 88% of GDP and the U.S. is 104% currently all way above that of Kuwait and Estonia who come in at just 6%.

The U.S. markets are in focus this week as traders sort their positions out ahead of Friday’s employment numbers causing the daily S&P 500 chart to travel sideways for the last three sessions and now looks to be returning to the 2082 support level ahead of the Non Farm Payrolls announcement in a few days. European markets have opened mainly down this morning after the negative overnight Asian session with the UK FTSE 100 index gradually slowing down and becoming slightly negative as we approach the EU in/out vote in just over 3 weeks time – this also should trigger some investment in Gold as traders move to safe haven commodities in the days before the referendum.

Trading Diary:

10:10am   Not much to see on my collection of favourite charts so I am off for a bracing cycle ride in the rain for an hour or so.

12:05pm  The price is dropping fairly well on my WTI Crude chart so I am now waiting for it go lower than $48:45 when it will trigger a ‘short’ trendFX position.

12:10pm    Now in the above position, it is a strategy-1 set-up and my stop loss is a very reasonable 13 pips.

12:35pm   Off out to lunch now so set target at 20 pips.

13:55pm   Back home and seen that my WTI Crude position has been stopped out at -13 pips.

16:00pm   Possibility of a ‘long’ UTB trade on my Brent Crude 15min chart, just waiting to see if the price rises slightly, specifically above $49:13.

16:10pm   I am now in the above mentioned position with a 24 pip stop loss.

17:15pm   The Brent Crude price once again come close to the $50 level and reversed back so I am now out of my position with a +75 pip profit so I have finished the day ahead despite my earlier loss.

Chance To Answer A Popular Question

This is a question I am asked a few times every week and today’s trading brought it to mind just now.

“Will I have a trade every day with your systems ?”

If you’ve been trading for just a short length of time you will know the answer – nobody knows !  The markets do move in regulated patterns dictated by human behaviour but even so, there is no way of predicting exactly when a trade is going to come along.

Having said that, if you look back through the last seven years of my Trading Diary, you can see that it is very rare that I do not have a trade whenever I am in front of my charts for a trading session.

How is this possible ?

It’s a numbers game – as most things are. On a daily basis, I trade my main two systems (Any-Time/trendFX) and between them they have around 8 strategies to use and my favourite charts give me a choice of six instruments to trade.

And trading is also mainly psychological so if I expect to have trades each time I sit down in front of my charts, I will then have trades – it’s the way the world works I believe.   I also expect to be profitable more times than I lose but new traders who’ve had a few early losses then expect to carry on losing and the world gives them what they expect.

I firmly believe that a positive outlook produces positive results – so be careful what you think about.