U.S. equity markets experienced their biggest drop of this year so far after the 10-year treasury yield rose higher than expected which raised concerns that the possibility of higher interest rates would affect the burgeoning bull market. Equities do not like rising treasury yields because this ultimately makes borrowing more expensive and U.S. companies have been growing on cheap money over the last 10-years. The Dow Jones 30 index fell 177 points to close at 26,439 and the S&P-500 was down by a similiar amount with the Nasdaq down 39 points at 7466.  Many analysts have been predicting a pullback after such a fast rise and I will send out a chart to my subscribers shortly with some thoughts as to where the price may be going next.

The overnight Asian market was also affected by the negative sentiment from the U.S. and most bourses closed in negative territory with the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets down by more than 1% and today’s European open is slightly in the red as well.  Oil is also suffering a downturn with Brent Crude having a negative session yesterday after reaching a high of $70.75 at the end of last week. The global benchmark fell 94 cents during Monday’s session to close at $69.16 last night and further down this morning at $68.78 on a rising U.S. Dollar which is affecting demand.  Gold fell yesterday as well as the rising Dollar has caused some traders to cash in their gains after a near 3% gain in January, it is currently sitting at $1338.50 and is eyeing up the fairly solid support/resistance level at $1325 which is also around the 20-day moving average.

Trading Diary:

09:45am   Just taken a ‘long’ position on my Brent Crude Oil 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Reversal UTB pattern and my stop loss is 22 pips.

10:50am    I am out of my Brent Crude position, happy with a 1:1 risk/reward score of +22 pips. The trend is down this morning so it’s most probably going to fall after this small price reversal.

14:25pm   Back home from lunch and just glanced at my collection of favourite (6) charts and there’s nothing setting up so I am switching off my screens now and getting on with some odd jobs around the house.  Back here tomorrow morning.