08:50am   Planning another quiet day at home interspersed with some chart watching while catching up on emails and Skype calls. Any trades I have will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

Markets in the U.S. started Tuesday’s session fairly upbeat but quickly became negative on worries of a Government shutdown by the end of the week unless Democrats and Republicans put their differences aside and vote to increase spending limits. We have been in this situation before and there always seems to be a last minute deal to save the day so many traders are adjusting positions to take advantage of a potential stock buying spree at the end of the week.  At one stage yesterday the Dow Jones 30 index was up by 283 points and was briefly above the significant 26,000 level but it closed down 228.46 points at 25,803.19 (-0.89%) and the S&P-500 index was down by a broadly similiar amount.

The overnight Asian session suffered from the U.S. equity fall-out and most region’s markets finished in negative territory although the Shanghai Composite did claw back some early losses to close marginally ahead at 3445.36 (+0.26%).  European markets are starting Wednesday on the back foot after negative U.S. and Asian sessions and there is no real economic news out today that will move indices by any margin so watch for technical indicators to hint at trading opportunities. Gold is struggling to get over the $1345 level and suffered further falls yesterday, it closed at $1338.20 down $2.05 on the day and is further down this morning although we could see a slight resurgence if money continues to pour out of equities.

Oil traders have been bracing for some falls after the long run up of the crude price this year and yesterday’s session gave us some concrete evidence. Brent Crude fell 74 cents on the day to close last night at $69.28 and is further down this morning at $68.80 where there could be some limited support.

Trading Diary:

09:50am     Going out for a couple of hours to help a neighbour, there’s nothing much happening on my collection of favourite charts at the moment so not missing anything.

14:45pm    There’s been nothing to report so far today and I am now just back from lunch so I shall watch my screens over the next few hours t see if we can pick up a late trade.

15:50pm    I have just taken a ‘short’ position on my 15-min FTSE-100 chart, it is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern with an 11 pip stop loss.

16:35pm    Now in another Strategy-B position, this time on my Brent Crude 15-min chart. My stop loss is slightly higher this time at +23 pips.

16:55pm     Taken a quick profit from my Brent position, I am out with a +30 pip profit. My FTSE trade is still trundling along although it’s now in negative territoty.