07:55am    Back from a short trip away – I shall be here at home for most of today so any trades I have will be detailed below.

Market Update:

Shares in Asian ended mostly optimistic earlier this morning after initial worries over the Japanese earthquake subsided – damage does not seem as bad as first thought although there is still a tsunami warning of upto 3 metres for part of the country at the moment. This bullishness comes after U.S. equity markets closed up on Monday evening with all three major indices hitting record highs – the main driving force seemed to be energy stocks which were bullish due to rising Crude Oil prices.

U.S. WTI Crude Oil rose $1.72 during yesterday’s session to close at $48:31 and is around the same level this morning after almost touching $49 in the overnight Asian session. This optimism is mainly down to hopes that a production cut will be agreed by OPEC members before the end of this month and although previous attempts have ended in disappointment, traders seem ready to raise hopes this time.

Gold was down around the important $1200 level last week so a bounce upwards was inevitable but unusually this price surge has been supported by physical buying (in Asia) rather than traders just bargain hunting on technical movements. It had another positive session yesterday where it rose $6:10 to close at $1213:90 and is up further after the overnight Asian session – currently sitting at $1216:45

Trading Diary:

09:00am    The European session is still getting underway and there is not much excitement on my collection of favourite charts* so I am off for a 10-mile cycle ride now.

* My favourite 6 charts — S&P-500, FTSE-100, Dax-30, Gold, Brent Crude, WTI Crude.

12:55pm   It has been quite a quiet morning with regard to trading opportunities but I am now in a ‘short’ trendFX position on my U.S. WTI Crude Oil chart – it’s a strategy-3 pattern with a 35 pip stop loss, slightly higher than normal reflecting the fair amount of volatility at the moment.

13:15pm   Out for lunch now – markets are still quite volatile for some reason but I’m keeping my stop loss as it is and setting a target of +35 pips. There has  been a few other trendFX  opportunities but the charts involved had far too many ‘gaps’ between the candles – I will send out a chart screenshot later illustrating this point to my subscribers.

 14:30pm   Just got back from lunch and seen that my trendFX WTI Crude position has hit its target of +35 pips.  I have taken a screenshot of the chart showing entry/exit details which will be sent out later with my ‘Nick’s Trades’ daily email.

15:40pm    Helping neighbour clear fallen oak tree in his garden so no more chart watching for me today.   Back tomorrow morning…