09:00am   A planned trip away for 3-days has been put back 24hrs so I am unexpectedly at home today which means I will be watching charts this morning from time to time – any trades I find and take will be reported below.

After today’s session I will back trading on Tuesday morning.

Market Update:

The overnight Asian markets ended fairly upbeat partly due to favourable currency swings and also the continued bullishness in the U.S. where the Dow Jones 30 index continues its march towards the 20,000 level. The leading U.S. index closed at 19,852, up nearly 60 points on Wednesday’s close with the wider S&P-500 posting similar gains but so far this morning the start to the European session has failed to carry the bullish baton, most indices are flat to negative.

There has been a small rise since late on Thursday as OPEC member Kuwait announced that it was cutting supplies to customers and rumours are abound that these cutbacks are slightly larger than expected at 1.8 million barrels a day. Also significant is an expected cut by 11 non-OPEC countries in January and these moves are expected to establish a support line on the WTI Crude chart around $60 with a target of $60 for 2017. The U.S. benchmark closed at $51.04 last night, up 37 cents on the day but it is trading slightly lower this morning.

Gold is still declining as U.S. indices march further into record territory but there does seem to be a small amount of buying today as the price hit a low of $1122.50 and is slightly up at the moment at $1133.01

Trading Diary:

09:25am   Entered a ‘short’ position on my WTI Crude chart, it’s Master-The-Trend Strategy-A pattern with a 12 pip stop loss.

09:35am    Quick bracing 10-mile cycle ride now, leaving stop loss on my WTI trade where it is and no target. Currently sitting at +7 pips.

10:55am    The WTI Crude price has come down quite well although it is now starting to climb slightly so I am out with a +32 pip profit.

11:15am    Head office wants to go shopping this afternoon and for some reason take me with her (?) so I think that’s it for chart watching today – and this week.

My total pips in the past 5-days is 251 pips giving me +373 for December so far although not sure how much trading I will be doing in the run-up to the Christmas break.