07:40am   Another lovely sunny day at home for me and my time will be shared between my charts and the garden, not sure about the split yet.

Market Update:

The U.S. markets traded in a fairly narrow channel yesterday as traders wait to hear what Fed Chief Janet Yellen has to say about interest rates on Friday and the overnight Asian market reflected this sentiment in a small way as indices ended mixed. The Nikkei 225 was the largest loser at -0.61% (-100 points) with the stronger Japanese Yen still negatively affecting margins for exporters.

The oil market is still fairly volatile with conflicting news being the main driver. Iran has confirmed increased production which is having a negative effect on prices although the upcoming OPEC announcement of production restraint by members has been the bullish driver in the market over the last week or so.  General sentiment from oil traders I have spoken to in London seems to be that Saudi Arabia will be reluctant to lose market share and both Russia and Iran need to increase production and exports to bolster their economies so really the prospects for much of a price rise in crude oil does not look good.

Gold is starting to trade in an every decreasing channel on the daily timeframe as commodity traders wait to see what happens with equities, subscribers to my Triangle Trade Alert service will be receiving an interesting chart on the subject later this morning.

Trading Diary:

09:25am   I have just entered a ‘short’ position on my Brent Crude Oil chart, it’s a trendFX strategy-1 set-up with a 28 pip stop loss.

11:00am    Friends have arrived for a cycle ride along the beach path so I have moved my stop loss up to break even but as usual I’ve left the target open and I will see how the trade’s doing when I get back in an hour or so.

12:40pm    Back home and I can see my Brent position has been stopped out at break even (zero).

13:55pm   Just got into my 2nd trade of the day, it’s a ‘long’ position on the S&P-500 30 minute chart and my stop loss is 17 pips.  The set-up I am using is another strategy-1 pattern from the trendFX system manual.

15:25pm  The price rise on the S&P-500 since the start of today’s U.S. trading session is growing weaker so I have just come out of my position with a +44 pip profit.  That’s it for chart watching today, back tomorrow.