08:25am   Back home after a short break away and I am planning a quiet(ish) day catching up on emails and doing some chart watching – any trades I take will be detailed below as usual in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

European markets yesterday ended mostly higher although many were on holiday – the UK and French indices were marginally up on the day with the Italian MIB-30 down and German and most other markets closed for a bank holiday. Monday’s U.S. trading session closed ahead with the Dow Jones 30 index finishing above the significant 25,000 level for the first time since March on hopes that the U.S./China trade war will dissipate, it is officially ‘On-Hold’ at the moment while the two sides come to the table and try to sort out some compromise.  The Dow Jones gained 298.20 to close at 25,013.29 and the wider S&P-500 was ahead by 0.7% at 2,733.01.

The overnight Asian trading session was not as impressed by the suspension of the trade tariff war between the world’s two largest trading countries and indices in the region closed mixed although many staged a late revival after a negative start. The Shanghai Composite reversed earlier losses to finish up by 0.02% but its Hong Kong counterpart closed ahead by 0.60%.  The Japanese Nikkei-225 and Australian ASX-200 were the main losers of the session with most sectors struggling despite record oil prices helping energy companies.

Oil markets are on the move upwards once again this morning after another positive session on Monday – there are growing concerns over Venezuela’s crude output after a disputed Presidential election may prompt U.S. sanctions on the industry.  U.S. WTI Crude rose $1.19 during Monday’s session to close at $72.60, another multi-year high and it is holding steady at that level this morning.

Gold is failing to make much headway from the $1285 support level that it has stuck around for the last week or so although it had a mildly positive session yesterday when it rose $2.60 to close at $1293.13 but it is down this morning ($1291.85 currently) as U.S./China trade wars subside and money is being moved across to more riskier assets.

Trading Diary:

10:15am    A few minutes ago I took a ‘short’ position on my German DAX-30 15-min chart, it is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A set-up with a 20 pip stop loss.

11:25am   I have just been invited out for a cycle ride and as there’s nothing very exciting happening on my collection of usual charts I am off for an hour or so. I am keeping my DAX trade’s stop loss at 20 pips but leaving the target open as the price is moving quite slowly at the moment.

14:00pm  Back from a longer than originally planned cycle ride and I’ve seen my DAX trade was stopped out quite a while ago, score is -20 pips.

14:50pm    I have now taken a ‘short’ position on my GOLD 15-min chart, the pattern is the Master-The-Reversal UTB set-up and my stop loss is 17 pips.

15:15pm    Out of my GOLD position with a +20 pip profit.

15:30pm     The sun outside is beckoning so I have switched off my charts and finished trading for the day.  I will be back early tomorrow morning.