07:55am  I’ve a few errands to run today but inbetween those I will be in front of my screens watching my collection of favourite charts so any trades I found will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

U.S. equity markets closed down for the first time this year over concerns that they will pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and also there is talk of China curtailing their purchasing of U.S. Sovereign Debt. It has been reported that Chinese government officials feel that U.S. debt is now less attractive than other forms of investment and current trade tensions could be the catalyst for China to halt their buying of Treasury Bonds.  The S&P-500 closed down 3.06 points (-0.11%) at 2748.23 with the Dow Jones 20 index down slightly less.  European stocks were mainly down yesterday as well although banking sectors across most countries in the region faired well.

The overnight Asian trading session closed mainly down following on from the lacklustre showing in the U.S. earlier with the Japanese Nikkei-225 lower by 77.77 points after car manufacturers dragged the index downwards although corporate earnings are looking ok for January so far.  Oil is also showing some bearishness at the moment as traders report the closing of long Brent positions and a new target of $67.00 (currently $69.05) amid concerns of an overheated market following a near 13% rise in the price in the past few months. A surprise fall in the weekly U.S. oil inventories has lessened the fall somewhat but expect some further bearish moves towards the end of the week.

Gold looks to be taking a breather from it bullish move over the last 4-weeks as traders take some profits off the table amid Dollar weakness although we could see limited rises once again on the Chinese news regarding their U.S. debt purchasing position. It was up $4.30 by the close last night at $1316.50 and is now at $1317.10 as the European trading session gets underway.

Trading Diary:

09:00am   I have entered a ‘long’ position on my Brent Crude Oil 15-min chart – more details soon.

09:15am   The above trade is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern with a 16 pip stop loss.

10:55am   I have just taken a quick +34 pip profit from my Brent Crude position as I need to go out for a few hours on an important errand.  Back here after lunch.

14:50pm   Just got back home and had a quick glance at my charts and there are no obvious trade patterns setting up so I am going to call it a day as far as my trading is concerned.  I have had a few invitations for tomorrow so not sure whether I will be in front of my screens tomorrow, I will make a decision later tonight.