06:50am   Early start for me today as I am playing golf with some fellow traders first thing this morning but I will be back in front of my charts before lunchtime. Any trades I have will be detailed below.

Market Update:

The main news in the markets yesterday was Fed Chief Janet Yellen’s testimony which confirmed trader’s thoughts on the robustness of the U.S. economy. She said that any decision to put off rate rises too long would be a mistake and this sentiment gave equity markets a boost and the S&P-500 closed at another record high last night, up 0.40% at 2337.80. The overnight Asian session was driven by this positivity and closed mainly up with only the Shanghai Composite showing signs of selling in the past few hours.

The Crude Oil markets are seeing some falls as proposed OPEC production cuts are looking hard to police with Iraq not keeping to its part of the bargain so far and increased U.S. production also putting pressure on prices. U.S. WTI Crude fell from a high of $53.69 yesterday lunchtime to a current level of $52.84 this morning with further drops towards the 50-day moving avergae likely.

Gold values took a hit during yesterday’s U.S. trading session as Janet Yellen hinted at a Fed rate rise soon, it fell from a high of $1234.40 to $1226.30 last night and is down a couple of Dollars more this morning as the Asian trading session is coming to a close.

Trading Diary:

13:50pm   Back home now and in front of my screens – I can report that I have just entered a ‘short’ position on my Dax-30 15-min chart using Strategy-B from the Master-The-Trend system manual – my stop loss is 18 pips.   There was an early opportunity on my S&P-500 chart but I decided against it as the price was gapping quite a lot on my chart although it has now turned out ok and is well in profit.

14:20pm   The Dax price has come down quite sharply but in the past few minutes it has started to retreat back upwards so I have closed my position off as I am more than happy with the +34 pip profit it has achieved.

15:35pm     I am volunteering for some errands now as there’s not much to see on my favourite charts – so my score from above still stands for my day’s profit.  Back here tomorrow morning for my last day of trading this week.