08:55am   Had an early start this morning with 3 Skype calls with budding traders already – and I shall be here in my study for the next 3 or 4 hours catching up on emails and watching charts.  My new ‘Trade-Alert’ service began yesterday so I shall be scanning a group of 20-25 charts as well looking at developing Triangle Trades.

Market Update:

A depressed Crude Oil price and disappointing Chinese trade data kept a lid on bulls during the overnight Asian session, most indices ended the session down – the only exception was Sydney’s ASX-200 which finished up 46 pips at 5215.  U.S. WTI crude Oil has enjoyed a good run-up over the last month despite record world stocks, the low was $26 and it’s risen over $12 during this current bullish move but this momentum has slowed dramatically this week with a bearish reversal candle forming on the weekly chart while also being overbought. Later today we have the U.S. Crude Oil Inventories so there should be some interesting moves in the next few days.

U.S. equities had a largely negative trading session on Tuesday due mainly to the same reasons I have highlighted above and there is also the European Central Bank rate decision tomorrow for traders to absorb – the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting and interest rate announcement is due next Wednesday so market volume across the Atlantic will slow in the lead up to that.

Gold seems to have reached a high point in its current bull move, it got to $1280 on Friday and since then has failed a couple of times to breach that level and a move down to $1240 in the next few weeks looks likely.

Trading Diary:

09:30am    Possible UTB pattern setting up on my Gold chart at the moment – a trade will trigger if the price drops below $1256:60 in the next 30 minutes or so.

11:00am    The above trade came to nothing but there could now be a ‘short’ trendFX position on the 1hr chart.  The price is coming down quite quickly so I should know in a short while.

11:10am   The Gold trendFX position has triggered so I am in a ‘short’ position with a 51 pip stop loss – slightly higher than usual as I am working on a 1hr timeframe.

11:55am   I’ve just got out of my trade for two reasons — 1)  happy with a 1:1 profit ratio today (trade made +53 pips) and  2)  one of my neighbours has just invited me out on a cycle ride down towards Dunwich on the sea wall and I’m not too bothered about leaving the position open during the volatile U.S. trading session open given what the profit was at the time.

17:25pm    After I returned from lunch I did not watch any more charts – happy with my result from the morning.