07:10am   Early start today as I wanted to check my charts after yesterday technical issues – all seem ok at the moment. Last day of trading for me this week and any trades I do have will be reported below.

Market Update:

Yesterday’s U.S. ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI survey came in well under expectations with a figure of 51.4 which although is still above the benchmark 50 level that denotes expansion was far lower than the July figure of 55.5.  This contraction is leading traders to believe the U.S. economy could be slowing slightly which in turn puts a September rate hike from the Federal Reserve in jeopardy so markets are starting to look generally bullish once again in Europe and the U.S.

Despite the optimism in equity markets, Gold is seeing a surge at the moment as U.S. interest rates look to be kept at record lows for a further few months, it rose $23.50 during yesterday’s session to close at $1349.80 and is little changed this morning. Across on the oil market the announcement on Monday that Saudi Arabia and Russia would agree production limits in their respective oil industries gave WTI and Brent Crude an initial boost in price but as the week has advanced there are now doubts on trading floors that any pact will work (or ever be signed off) so we’ve seen a halt in the bullish sentiment in the crude markets in the past 12hrs.  UK Brent Crude is trading this morning at $45.12 against a high on Monday of $46.51

Trading Diary:

09:35am     There are no upcoming trade opportunities on my usual collection of favourite charts so I am off on a cycle ride for an hour or so.

11:45am     There could well be a potential trendFX trade on my 15min S&P-500 chart if the price drops below 2184.10 in the 30 minutes or so.

12:05pm    The price has dropped and I am now in the above mentioned ‘short’ position — my stop loss on this occasion is 13 pips.  I have also just entered a long UTB position on my Gold chart, it has a 15 pip stop loss.

13:05pm    Just been stopped out of my Gold position at -15 pips.

 13:35pm   I am also now out of my S&P-500 position, as expected it became very volatile as today’s session opened and closed it off at +16 pips.

15:40pm    Back from a rather late lunch and looking at my charts and they do seem to be acting/moving with quite a bit of volatility still so nothing to report yet. I’m sititng here catching up on emails for the next few hours and then two Skype calls at 5:30pm and 6pm so I will still watch them from time to time and see if there are any other opportunities.

18:15pm   Nothing more to report trading-wise, time for the pub after a long day in the study.