08:05am  Back in front of my charts today after a long weekend break and I shall also be catching up on emails through the day.

My TRADE-ALERT service has begun today which gives traders an early-warning ‘heads-up’ regarding upcoming Triangle Trade opportunities on a range of 20-25 charts – if you’ve not yet had details of this unique service, contact me HERE for full details.

Market Update:

Asian markets suffered falls overnight as the Chinese trade numbers were announced – exports fell over 25% in February compared with the same time last year with imports dropping 13.80%. In Japan, their Nikkei 225 index fell mainly due to a strong Yen which hurts exporters and Sydney’s ASX200 also ended in negative territory, although only by -0.65%.

U.S. markets ended yesterday’s session slightly higher on thin trading – the optimism was mainly due to a rising Crude Oil price, UK Brent Crude is holding above the $40 level for the first time since December last year and the benchmark U.S. WTI Crude is at $37:59 currently, slightly down on last night’s finish.  This bullish sentiment is due to a growing willingness of producers in various countries to come to an agreement regarding output with even Saudi Arabia becoming more agreeable.

Gold closed at a 12-month high yesterday as traders are anticipating that the U.S. Fed will not raise interest rates at their meeting next week and equities showed no real enthusiasm during Monday’s session which boosted investors sentiment towards the precious metal.

Trading Diary:

09:30am   Not much on my charts yet but if the S&P-500 price drops below 1988:40 in the next 30 minutes it will trigger a ‘short’trade.

09:40am   Due to the S&P-500 price drop I am now in a ‘short’ position on that chart. It’s a trendFX strategy-1 set-up with a 29 pip stop loss.

10:55am   The price has come down nicely in the last hour but it’s now reversing upwards so I am out of my position with a +30 pip profit.

12:30pm   Not had much chance to look at any more charts in the past hour so nothing to report trade-wise — and now off to lunch !

16:00pm   Have not watched any charts since being back here after lunch – so no more trades to report.