08:20am   I am back from a short holiday and my plans today are to catch up on emails and also do some chart watching from time to time. Any trade positions I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

Fourth quarter trading in the U.S. started on a positive note with the Dow Jones finishing 152 points ahead, reaching another new high with the S&P-500 and Nasdaq following with equal optimism.  Bank and Healthcare stocks were the best performers and General Motors also had a good showing and the rise is partly being attributed to hopes that  tax reforms in the country are going to be finalised before the end of the year. The overnight Asian trading session was generally positive following on from Monday’s U.S. session and the Hang Seng Index closed up around 2% following their Mid Autumn Festival holiday but the main Chinese Shanghai Composite index is still closed for a second day for the National Day bank holiday. Other main news from the region is that the Reserve Bank of Australia kept their lending rate at 1.5% for the 14th month in a row.

Oil is continuing its fall with U.S. WTI Crude reversing from its high at $52:83 last Thursday on concerns over oversupply and closed at $50:44 last night and is holding steady at the same level as the European trading session opens this morning.  Iraq has announced that their crude experts have risen in September and OPEC also said their output has risen in the past few weeks despite promises that members would restrict production to try and prop the price up.

Gold is struggling as investors take money away and invest in equities, it closed last night at $1270.60 which showed a decline of $9:45 on the day and this morning the price is sitting slightly down at $1269:95 although the daily chart is suggesting some bargain hunting at the $1270 level.

Trading Diary:

09:25am   There’s nothing to see on my collection of favourite charts so I am off for a cycle ride on my new bike. Back in a couple of hours.

13:05pm  Just taken a ‘short’ position on my U.S. WTI Crude Oil chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B set-up with a very small 10 pip stop loss.

13:40pm  Out of my WTI Crude position now, the price has come down quite well but the bearish momentum has slowed now so I closed the trade off at +14 pips.

15:00pm    Just back from a quick lunch and I can see there’s no trading opportunities at the moment so I am turning off my charts and finishing for the day – back here tomorrow morning.