08:40am   Slightly later start to my “working” day after some technical issues earlier with computer hardware but my plans are to spend the morning here in my home office catching up on emails and do some chart watching at the same time. Any trades I have will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

U.S. equity indices broke a 5-day winning streak to close slightly down last night after worries emerge that Trumps’ tax reform plans are going to take longer to implement than fist envisaged.  The Dow Jones 30 fell 76:77 to close at 24,508:66 and the S&P-500 was down by a similiar percentage with the tech heavy Nasdaq falling slightly less but still ending in negative territory.  This pessimistic outlook carried on to the overnight Asian trading session where all the major bourses closed down with the Hang Seng being the worst performer, falling 340.68 points (-1.17%) as major exporters in the region suffered bouts of selling as the U.S. Dollar became weaker.

Oil markets are fairly well supported at the moment with OPEC and Russia reiterating their resolve to restrict production well into 2018 and the Forties problem in the North Sea also contributing to lower oil supply. UK Brent Crude rose 53 cents during yesterday’s session to close at $63:34 and this morning it is continuing its march up towards the recent high at $65:80 although the weekly chart does suggest a move down now for the rest of the month.

As mentioned above, the U.S. Dollar is weaker at the moment which is boosting the Gold price, it has moved up from a low of $1236:30 at the beginning of the week to its current level of $1256:00 this morning and price action on the 4hr chart is suggesting further bullish moves into this afternoon.

Trading Diary:

09:10am    Nothing much to see on my collection f favourite charts at the moment so I am off for a bracing cycle  11-mile ride.

13:05pm    Now in a GOLD ‘long’ position, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A set-up with a 15 pip stop loss.

13:10pm   Also in a ‘long’ position now and this time on my German DAX-30 chart.  Same system but it’s a Strategy-B pattern with a 19 pip stop loss.

13:50pm     The GOLD price is incredibly volatile at the moment and although it risen quite quickly it has started to come back down equally as fast so I’ve closed my position off to protect some of the profit. My score is +20 pips.

14:20pm    The volatility continues as is quite normal for this time of the day and I am now out of my DAX-30 position now as well. My score is +27 pips giving me a total of +47 pips for the day and +131 pips for this week. Happy to finish my trading for the day, I will be back in front of my screens on Monday morning for the last few days of trading before the Christmas holiday break.