08:20am   I shall be at home this morning catching up on emails and doing some chart watching but maybe out this afternoon playing golf – any trades I have will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

Asian markets had a busy session last night and early this morning and initial losses were pared back so most indices closed the day slightly up despite pressure from falling oil prices. Overnight news from the American Petroleum Institute of a build in U.S. Crude stocks of around 14.2 million barrels due mainly to the increase in shale production has caused WTI Crude to fall from the high of $54.30 last Thursday to its current level of $51.73 this morning – it lost over $1.40 during yesterday’s fairly volatile session.

U.S. markets closed marginally up on Tuesday evening and the finish would have been better had it not been for energy stocks dragging the indices down after negative news concerning crude oil stocks. At one stage the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up over 100 points at a new high but it fell back on profit taking and closed 37 points ahead.

European markets are mainly treading water this morning after a good run yesterday, UK traders are optimistic on the general economic outlook as the Bank Of England are hinting at a rate rise during the first half of this year, a good sign that the economy is on track for growth.  Gold looks to be moving up from its 200-day moving average, a bullish sign that is underpinned by the fact that U.S. equities seem to be struggling to move higher, the S&P-500 has tried in vein to get above the 2300 level in the past few weeks so watch for price going back up and giving us further trading opportunities.

Trading Diary:

10:35am   No interesting patterns or set-ups on my collection of favourite charts so far this morning so I am off for an hour’s cycle ride.

12:10pm   Just got back and checked my charts quickly and seen a ‘long’ trade has already triggered on my GOLD chart but I have been able to enter at a good level as the price has retreated back slightly since triggering at 11:35am.   It is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B set-up that is unusually showing up on both the 15-min and 30-min timeframes with a reasonable 31 pip stop loss.

13:50pm   I am off out now  playing golf for the rest of the afternoon so I have brought the stop loss on my GOLD position upto break even for protection and set the target at +31 pips.

18:25pm    Just got back home and seen my GOLD position was closed out earlier this afternoon at +31 pips.