09:00am   After a busy week so far I am having a quiet day at home today catching up on emails and doing some chart watching from time to time – any trades I have will be detailed below.

Market Update:

Equity markets have taken on a bearish slant since I’ve been away from my screens and Tuesday’s U.S. trading session ended negatively (Dow Jones 30 closed -54 points) on disappointing corporate results – it was probably the busiest one-day of reporting this year so far as around 90 companies released latest earnings. Another factor that’s dragging markets down is the fall in Crude Oil prices at the moment which has been triggered by worries over lower demand for this time of year together with growing stocks. This will be confirmed later today when U.S. Crude Oil Inventories are released (in around 7-hours time) so watch for a small spike in the WTI Crude chart.

Overnight, the Asian markets followed followed the general sentiment and ended largely down although Gold is holding up fairly well which can partly be attributed to the October/November Indian Festival  Season plus the shift from equities into safer commodities – the price hit a 3-week high during yesterday’s session of $1276.60 but has slipped back slightly this morning on profit taking.

Trading Diary:

10:50am   Just entered a ‘long’ position on my Brent Crude Oil chart using the UTB set-up – it will not be an extended trade as the market is fairly volatile due to the the Crude Oil Inventories coming out soon so I shall be watching the chart carefully over the next hour. My stop loss is 14 pips.

11:25am   Out of my Brent position now – I did close it at +14 pips due to the volatility but due to some rare slippage the profit came out at +13 pips.

13:10pm   No other trades to report so far — off for a late lunch for a few hours.

15:35 pm    Been back from lunch for half an hour and have seen no further trading opportunities so I am finishing my trading for the day – back here on Friday as I have the chance of a day out with some fellow traders tomorrow.