08:20am   Back in front of my screens after a 5-day break away and any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

U.S. equity markets ended up on the first trading day of the new week as tensions regarding Syria are seen to be subsiding and traders are starting to concentrate on company earnings rather than Middle East troubles. There will be a raft of first quarter earnings in the coming weeks and yesterday there was good figures from Bank Of America and J.B.Hunt Transport following on from better than expected results from major financial companies last week and Netflix announced a surprise rise in subscribers after Monday’s session closed which helped their shares spike over 6% in futures trading.

The overnight Asian trading session was slightly more pessimistic however after key Chinese data was released showing that their economy was expected to slow in coming months despite a good start to the year. Their GDP figure came in at +6.8% for the 1st quarter of 2018 which was slightly ahead of expectations although the growth was slower for March. Across the region only the Japanese Nikkei-225 and Australian ASX-200 finished in positive territory although only by a very slim margin.

Oil markets had a negative session on Monday as traders took some profits off the table, U.S. WTI Crude finished $1.03 down at $66.30 after a good run up from $61.82 earlier in the month but despite the small fall the Daily chart chart still look bullish. Gold had a flat session on Monday, closing at $1345.60 after a good showing on Friday (+$9.80) where it staged a bullish price reversal off the 20-day moving average.

Trading Diary:

09:10am   Nothing yet on my collection of favourite charts so I am off for a run.

12:05pm     Still no trades to report – off for an early lunch.

13:40pm    I have just taken a ‘short’ position on my GOLD 15-min chart. It’s a Master-The-Reversal  UTB price-reversal pattern and my stop loss is 13 pips.

14:20pm   I’ve taken a quick profit from my GOLD position as this time of the day is usually quite ‘unpredictable’  My score is +20 pips, the minimum profit I strive for even if the stop loss (risk) is less.

15:00pm    Far too sunny to be inside at the moment so my charts are now switched off.  Back tomorrow at the usual time.