08:40am   I am going to be at my desk this morning catching up on email and doing some chart watching before leaving after lunch for a 5-day trip to Spain. Any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

U.S. markets were in the doldrums again yesterday with the main equity indices closing in negative territory and the Dow Jones falling 196 points and experiencing its 8th day of continuous falls. The percentage fall for the  S&P-500 was slightly less as companies that are exposed to the Chinese market are seeing their stock price tumble as retaliatory measures are coming into force over President Trump’s trade spat with China.

The overnight Asian trading session ended mixed with Chinese bourses closing up but the rest of the region seeing negative results. The Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng Index finished up around +0.30% as traders went bargain hunting after large falls this week but the Japanese Nikkei-225 index was the largest faller of the session at -0.78% after Automakers saw heavy losses in their stock although the South Korean Kospi did manage to erase earlier losses to finish slightly up on the day (+0.83%)

Oil markets are awaiting results from the OPEC meeting in Vienna today where member Saudi Arabia and non-member Russia are in favour of raising output which will place a drag on the price of a barrel of crude.  Other members including Iran are opposing this so traders are eagerly awaiting any announcements that may come through as the day unfolds. Brent Crude fell $1.34 yesterday to close at $72.82 although it has made some recovery this morning and is now at $73.45 but there could be some limited resistance at the 20-day moving average around $74.25 – watch for trading opportunities here.

Trading Diary:

 10:25am      Just got back from a run and checked my charts, nothing to report at the moment.

11:30am   I am now in a ‘long’ position on my S&P-500 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A set-up with an 18 pip stop loss.

13:00pm    As it’s getting close to the U.S. trading session open I have brought my stop loss up to break even and I’ll keep a closer watch on the price action.

14:20pm    I need to leave in a minute so I have just closed off my S&P-500 position at +30 pips.  I will send out full details plus my daily “Nick’s Trades” email later tonight when we arrive at our destination.