08:40am    I am at home today watching my charts from time to time ahead of a 4-day break away for eldest son Max’s wedding celebrations. Any trades I take today will be detailed below in the Trading Diary.

Market Update:

U.S. markets had a bullish finish to Tuesday’s session after Chinese President Xi Jinping revealed plans for his government to lower import tariffs on a wide range of goods which is widely seen  as conciliatory in nature and should allay concerns for a trade war with the U.S.  The Dow Jones 30 index ended the day 428 points up at 24,408.00 (+1.79%) and the wider S&P-500 index closed up 1.67% at 2,656.87.

The overnight Asian session was not bullish however by the close although there was a strong start last night but most indices suffered from some profit taking later on. The Chinese Shanghai Composite was the best performer, it closed up +0.56% at 3208.31 and the Hang Seng index also closed in the black (+0.49%)  The Nikkei-225, Kospi Index and Australian ASX-200 all closed in negative territory.

Oil markets were buoyant yesterday on concerns that air strikes in Syria may well disrupt oil supplies in the region, WTI Crude closed the day at $65.48 (+$2.19) and is approaching the $66.50 resistance level once again. Later today there is the weekly U.S. stock situation so expect some volatility on WTI and Brent Crude charts as the American Petroleum Institute reported yesterday that there has been a rise in Crude Inventories of 1.8 million barrels and this will be confirmed later this afternoon (UK time)

Gold is rising for the fourth day in a row as continued geopolitical concerns continue and a weak Dollar keep investors pouring money into the safe-haven metal. The price reversed at $1320 at the end of last week and is now at $1343.80 and looks to be heading towards the $1356 level before the end of the week.

Trading Diary:

10:25am   I have just entered a ‘long’ position on my GOLD 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A pattern with a 12 pip stop loss.

10:50am   I was going out for a cycle ride but there is the beginnings of a possible ‘short’ UTB trade on the German DAX-30 chart so I will hang on for a while.

11:05am   The DAX-30 price has dropped sufficiently to trigger a Master-The-Reversal  UTB trade so I am now in a ‘short’ position with a 26 pip stop loss.

11:25am  Both my trades have reached a more than acceptable profit level so I have closed them both off enabling me to go out on a cycle ride with a number of my neighbours. The GOLD trade achieved +33 pips and the DAX came in at +43 pips giving me a total so far today of +76 pips which I may well retire on…..

13:10pm   Off to lunch now and I am happy with my score so far today from the two trades I’ve had so switching off my charts.