08:25am   Back in front of my screens this morning for the first time this week, any trades I take today will be detailed in my Trading Diary below.

Market Update:

Despite U.S. markets being closed yesterday for their Martin Luther King holiday, equity futures rose to another record high and this morning we are seeing further pushes upwards.  The S&P-500 is currently at 2797.60 after touching a high of 2800.60 and traders are expecting another record session today with the Dow Jones 30 and Nasdaq also looking bullish.

The overnight Asian session is equally as bullish after U.S. Dollar weakness, the Hang Seng Index was the best performer as it rose over 1.8% in later trading and the Japanese Nikkei-225 index also rising well  and it hit +1.00% by the close. The only negative index this morning was the Australian ASX-200 after Energy, Telecommunications and Utilities traded lower although the index is heavily weighted towards financials which suffered through most of the night.

European markets are looking optimistic this morning after encouraging sentiment in Asia with only Swiss and UK indices in the red at the moment although the FTSE-100 should pick-up once the U.S. markets open in 5-hrs time.  Gold had another positive session on Monday and touched a high of $1345 yesterday before falling back on some profit-taking.  The next bearish target is around the $1325 level which we may see in the next couple of days as U.S. equity markets rise later today.

Brent Crude has hit the important $70 level at last and has fallen back slightly as European markets open, the price is being held up by increased demand and lower inventories in the U.S.   Usually there is a large production increase in U.S. shale oil when the price increases to this extent which then results in a bearish price adjustment but this is not occurring this time as companies are enjoying better revenues.  There is some talk on commodity trading floors this week that the OPEC production restrictions for 2018 may only last into the summer and will have negative consequences on the futures market which can be seen to a small extent in the past hour or so.

Trading Diary:

08:50am    Just taken a ‘short’ position on my GOLD 30-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B set-up with a 19 pip stop loss.

09:35am   Off for a 10-mile cycle ride now, leaving the stop loss on my GOLD position at 19 pips but the profit open.

10:55am   Just got back home and seen my GOLD position sitting at +52 pips so I have closed the trade off at that level — very happy with the profit.

12:10pm    Out for early lunch so no chart watching for the next few hours.

14:50pm  Back from lunch half an hour ago and the markets are still quite ‘volatile’ so I am switching my charts off for the day as I am content with the morning’s efforts.