08:40am   I’ve not been at home much this week so I am having a relaxing day catching up on emails and unusually for a Friday – doing some chart watching from time to time as well. Any trades I do have will be reported below.

Market Update:

The overnight Asian trading session ended mainly down as energy stocks fell after further declines in the crude oil price. U.S. WTI Crude had a fairly positive time yesterday but once it hit the $50 level during the U.S. afternoon trading session it quickly retreated and carried falling with a brief respite a few hours ago. It is now trading in the $49.50-$49.60 range with the daily chart suggesting a small move up today.

Thursday’s U.S. trading session closed slightly down after a fair amount of volatility due to the latest round of corporate earnings and the value of sovereign bonds falling across most of the world. These bonds are issued by governments as a way of borrowing money and smaller, less stable countries will often issue them in U.S. Dollars or other ‘well-respected’ currencies so as to make them more attractive to investors and traders.

Fairly strong U.S. home sales data released on Wednesday is pointing towards a Fed rate rise this year and this is one of the factors keeping European equity markets lower this morning and later today there is the U.S. Advance GDP numbers out which analysts are predicting will rise month on month – another reason rates could be hiked soon although the smart money still seems to be on a December rise and no sooner.

Trading Diary:

10:25am    Found a ‘short’ trading opportunity on my GOLD 15-min chart, it’s a trendFX strategy-1 set-up and my stop loss is a very reasonable 11 pips.

11:35am    Now in another ‘short’ position, this time a UTB trade on my WTI Crude chart – the stop loss is also 11 pips.

13:35pm   Due to the expected volatility now that the U.S. trading session is getting underway, my GOLD position has just been stopped out at -11 pips but so far my WTI Crude trade is doing ok so I will stick with it for a while.

14:10pm   A minute or so ago I came out of my WTI Crude position as the market got increasingly volatile as well – my score was +36 pips so I’ve managed +25 pips today at the moment. Off for a late lunch.

15:30pm    Back from lunch and nothing much happening on my collection of favourite charts so I am finishing for the week and turning my MT4 screens off – back here on Tuesday morning.