07:20am   Early start for me today as I am off soon for a meeting but I shall be back mid morning to watch my charts for the rest of the day. Any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

U.S. equity markets surged yesterday and the Dow Jones closed up by 213.59 points at 24,786.63 after some of the country’s largest companies released upbeat earnings. The most widely reported company was Netflix after their shares rose 9.2% during the session after reporting higher than expected subscriber numbers and UnitedHealth, Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson also surpassed expectations.  Traders are reporting that 1st Quarter earnings are going to keep the equity rally going over the next few weeks so we can expect the S&P-500 to reach for the 2875 level once again (currently sitting at 2710.35).

This investor optimism continued during the overnight Asian trading session with most markets finishing in positive territory. The best performer of the night was the Japanese Nikkei-225 index which finished ahead by 1.50% at 22,175.20 with the retail, technology and utilities showing the best gains.  The Australian ASX-200 was dragged down throughout the session by the financial sector but it managed to end the session up by 0.34% after energy and materials boosted the index.

The oil market was bullish during yesterday’s trading sessions after reports that U.S. crude oil inventories are going to show a slight decline, this will be confirmed later today with the weekly stock report. There are also continuing supply concerns in the Middle East and this has helped push the price of WTI Crude up to $67.03 this morning, it started Tuesday’s session at $66.36. Gold is starting to become slightly bearish as funds are diverted into equity markets, it actually rose during yesterday’s session by $1.80 to $1347.30 but is down $2.70 already this morning.

Trading Diary:

11:25am   Back home now and I’ve just taken a late entry on my Brent Crude 1-hr chart. It’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A set-up with a 21 pip stop loss, as I noticed the opportunity late I have managed to get a better entry level than the rules dictate.

12:40pm   Unusually I am watching my Brent position more carefully than usual as the weekly Crude Oil Inventory numbers are being released soon and there is also the fact that U.S. traders are getting to work now and adjusting their own positions in the next hour or so.  It is expected that the Inventories number is going to show a drop in crude stocks so we may well see a rise ahead of the release.

13:30pm    Out of my Brent position as it has reached a previous high from last Friday – my score is +50 pips.

13:45pm     Out for late lunch now.

15:35pm     Just taken a ‘short’ position on my Gold 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Reversal UTB pattern with a 22 pip stop loss.  The price is very volatile so I will keep a close eye on the chart and close the trade off as soon as the move gets unpredictable.

17:10pm    This has been a later session than normal but I did start later.  I have just come out of my Gold position as it reached the stop loss level although with a bit of slippage I ended up with +20 pips rather than the planned +22 pips – these things happen occasionally but luckily not very often.  Score for the day has ended up at +70 pips.