09:25am   Late start to my day as I’ve been helping the builders with renovations already this morning but  I am planning a reasonably quiet day at home catching up on emails plus some chart watching every 30 minutes or so if the work going on outside allows. Any trades I take will be detailed below.

Market Update:

U.S. equity markets closed mixed and largely unchanged with the S&P-500 index finishing down by just 0.04% and right on the significant 2600 level.  The price action on the daily chart is suggesting a small move down now from the 2606 high reached yesterday but watch today’s action for hints of concerted buying.  The Dow Jones had a better day however and did reach a record high (23,638.92) at one stage although it settled back to close at 23,580.78 (+22.79)  The overnight Asian trading session ended the day largely mixed as well following on from a lacklustre showing in the U.S. earlier and news from Japan that they have picked up radio signals suggesting that North Korea could be planning a ballistic missile launch within the next few weeks.

Oil markets are on alert as well with the likelihood of the U.S./Canadian Keystone Pipeline coming back on stream today or tomorrow which is going push up inventories and possibily push down prices.  There is also some doubt now whether Russia is going to join in with the OPEC-led production cuts for the rest of 2018, there’s a meeting on Thursday which will be keenly watched by traders. U.S. WTI Crude reached a high of $59:01 on Friday but has since slipped back and is currently trading at $57.52 with a potential target of $56.50 looking on the cards for later this week.

Gold is showing limited signs of bullishness and has been trading around the $1295 resistance level but is looking as though it could move back down towards its 20-day moving average at $1285 if equity markets rise through the rest of the week.

Trading Diary:

09:45am     Just popped indoors quickly and there looks like a possible ‘long’ set-up that’s developing on the UK FTSE-100 index.

10:10am    I am now in the above-mentioned trade, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern and my stop loss is just 10 pips.

10:45am   Now also in a ‘short’ position on my UK Brent Crude 15-min chart, it’s also a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern but my stop loss is slightly higher this time at 23 pips.

13:15pm    My Brent Crude trade has just been stopped out at 23 pips.

14:20pm    I am now out of my FTSE position as well now, the price has risen well but now looks to be consolidating, my final score for the trade is +32 pips giving me a total for the day of +9 pips.

I am going to switch off my charts now and get back outside in the fresh air to help the builders.