08:55am   I am planning for a quiet day at home, watching charts and working on this month’s edition of my Trading-Education eBook. Any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

Markets have started in a generally bullish mood with U.S. equities fairing well on the first trading day of this new week. The S&P-500 was up by 0.24% last night at 2857.05 (+6.92 points) and is now closing in on its all time high of 2877 that was reached in January, it has started today’s session in a bullish mood and should reach this month’s high of 2863.52 before the end of the day – currently 2858.55. This optimism is being led by traders who are upbeat about the forthcoming U.S./China trade talks and a general decline in worries over geo-political events.

The overnight Asian session was equally as upbeat with all the region’s bourses closing ahead for the day except for the Australian ASX-200 which closed down 52.11 points at 6383.01 after the release of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s August policy meeting where justification for keeping rates on hold was due to a more gradual improvement in unemployment and inflation than was originally hoped. Chinese indices were given a boost after regulators in the country suggested institutions should increase the level of lending to consumers and companies.

Oil markets are in contrast to global equities in that the price of U.S. WTI Crude is creeping up slowly this morning on pessimism regarding U.S./Chinese trade talks.  It rose 25 cents yesterday to close at $65.42 and is up slightly further this morning. Brent Crude is moving in a similiar fashion and is at $72.63 this morning, ahead of yesterday’s opening level of $71.53.

Trading Diary:

10:15am    I have just taken a short’ position on my WTI Crude Oil 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B (price action) set-up with a 22 pip stop loss on this occasion.

11:40am   Quick cycle ride as there’s nothing much happening on my collection of six favourite charts.

13:35pm  Back from lunch and noticed my WTI Crude oil has been stopped out. Forgot to mention earlier I placed a 25 pip profit level on the position as I was going to be out for quite a while.

14:10pm   Now in another position on my 15-min WTI Crude chart. This time it’s a ‘short’ trade using the same Strategy-B pattern as earlier today – my stop loss is 24 pips.

14:45pm   Just taken a quick profit on my 2nd trade as the WTI price has shot up in the last 20 minutes or so. My score on this position is +56 pips giving me an overall score for the day of +34 pips, happy with that so I’m switching off my charts now but will be back in the morning.