08:20am   Freezing conditions outside gives me more reason to be here in my home-office this morning catching up on emails and doing some chart watching. Any trades I have will be reported below.

Market Update:

U.S. equities had a fairly negative Tuesday as concern grows regarding President-elect Trump’s policies once he gets into the White House, the main S&P-500 index fell by 6.75 points by the close last night and is now struggling to get back up to the previous 2282 level it reached during the first week of January – currently sitting at 2269.09 this morning. Not all this negativity spilled over to the overnight Asian trading session, it ended mixed with Chinese markets mainly up but Japanese and Australian indices in negative figures. Trump’s comment that the U.S. Dollar was “too strong” sent it’s value falling against the Yuan which is good for Chinese exporters, hence the rise in equities as many companies in the Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng Index sell their goods abroad.

Here in Europe, UK Prime Minister May’s remarks yesterday concerning a tough exit from the EU means equity markets are struggling to make any headway. German, British and French indices are all down this morning although from a technical point of view they are mostly oversold so we could see a small bounce today.  The weaker Dollar also has an effect on Crude Oil prices as a weaker U.S. currency results in dollar-denominated oil products less expensive for users of other currencies so potentially increasing demand.

As expected with all the uncertainty surrounding the first few weeks of Trump’s Presidency, Gold is still enjoying a good run-up from the lows of December at $1122.50, it closed at $1216.80 last night although there has been some profit taking in the past few hours and is currently at $1212.75.

Trading Diary:

10:10am  Nothing to report so far this morning on my collection of favourite charts, I’m going on a cycle ride for some much needed exercise.

12:20pm   The markets/charts that I generally trade have been fairly low on volume today as traders sit on their hands and wait for Fed Chairman Janet Yellen’s speech later tonight and as a consequence there has been no trading set-ups or patterns for me to take advantage of this morning. This situation may well continue this afternoon so I will monitor the situation and report back here in a few hours.

13:50pm   I was just about to close my charts and agree to an offer of a game of golf but a few minutes ago a ‘short’ opportunity started to develop on my WTI Crude Oil chart and the price has just fallen sufficiently to trigger a valid trade. It is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A pattern with a 21 pip stop loss – about average risk for a 15-min timeframe.

14:05pm   The oil price is quite volatile, matching U.S. equities at the moment so I have taken a quick +33 pip profit. I will send out a chart screenshot with full details of the trade to all subscribers in a moment.

16:20pm    I was not really looking for any further trading opportunities but while I was answering a question from a new student regarding Brent Crude I noticed a UTB price-reversal pattern triggering on the 30 minute timeframe. I am now in that  (long) position with a 31 pip stop loss.

17:10pm    The Brent Crude price has come up quite nicely and it’s also time to finish work for the day so I am now out of the trade with a +60 pips, giving me a total of +93 pips today.  Back here tomorrow morning as usual.