08:50am  This blog is working ok it seems this morning after some technical issues yesterday prevented me from posting on it, so I will detail any trades I take through the day. I took a couple of positions yesterday – both were Master-The-Trend trades, one on the UK FTSE-100 and the other on Gold. They both ended positively and my score for the day was +52 pips.

Market Update:

European stock markets closed mostly lower on Wednesday afternoon as corporate earnings came in mixed at best although this sentiment did not carry over to the U.S. session where the Dow Jones 30 index closed at a record high once again after also managing an intraday record as well. The index closed at 26,252.12, up 41.31 on the day after a volatile session that also saw drops of over 100 points at one stage. The wider S&P-500 index flat lined for most of the day and closed  at 2837.54 down by just 1.60 points and the Tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed down 0.6%.

The overnight Asian trading session ended negatively with most bourses closing in the red as Dollar weakness weighed on exporters. The Japanese Nikkei-225 index was down by 1.13% as auto, technology and financial sectors experienced declines.  Oil is surging with Brent Crude hitting the $71.00 level this morning for the first time since 2014 following on from a positive session on Wednesday after U.S. crude inventories fell for the 10th week in a row and OPEC/Russian production cuts continue to buoy values.

Trading Diary:

09:40am   Just taken a ‘long’ position on my S&P-500 chart. It’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern on the 15-min timeframe and my stop loss is set at 17 pips.  Off for a run now, leaving trade target open.

11:30am   Back home and the S&P position is in profit (+40 pips) but going to leave it run for longer and see where it gets to.  I have moved the stop upto +20 pips.

13:55pm   The S&P price has risen very well over the past hour and I am now very happy with the position’s score so I have closed off my trade at +107 pips.

14:05pm    Closing off my charts now for the rest of the day and also for this week. My score for the week stands at +159 pips and the total so far for January is +441 pips.