08:10am   Back from a short trip away and a quiet day planned here at home  - today’s trades are detailed below.

Market Update:

U.S. equity markets are seeing a cooling of the recent bullish momentum with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting its first negative score for many weeks, it ended yesterday’s session at 20,924 down almost 30 points. Investors and traders are unsure of the effect of the probable interest rate hike this month and Friday’s U.S. jobs report is going give further confirmation of the Federal Reserve’s intentions regarding their monetary policy.

After the world’s largest economy had a slight downturn yesterday, the overnight Asian trading session was never going to really bullish and most markets closed slightly in the red with the Chinese Hang Seng being a notable exception, finishing up 0.37%.  Equities were dragged down on escalating geopolitical risks and a surprising Chinese trade deficit revealed, exports were largely as expected but imports grew at a faster pace.

European markets are opening lower this morning as traders have real appetite for buying at the moment, there are worries over French elections plus we have the UK budget looming and a U.S. rate rise expected.  Crude oil is still suffering form over capacity and high stocks and U.S. WTI Crude is down to $52.69 this morning although it has found some support at its 50-day moving average – watch this situation today for trading opportunities to the upside.

With an expected U.S. rate hike, the attraction of Gold to investors is waning slightly and it close down $9.71 last night at $1215.50 and is falling further this morning – its sitting at $1212.98 currently.

Trading Diary:

08:15am   Just entered a ‘short’ Master-The-Trend position on my WTI Crude chart, more details soon.

08:25am    The above position is a Strategy-A pattern on the WTI Crude Oil 30-min chart and my stop loss is 15 pips.

09:15am   I have also entered a ‘long’ position on my German DAX-30 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern with a 23 pip stop loss.

10:40am    The Dax price seems to have hit a small resistance point on its travels upwards so I have come out of my position with an acceptable +30 pips and I’ve just entered a ‘short’ Master-The-Trend Strategy-A trade on my Gold chart (12 pip stop loss).   My Crude Oil trade is still hovering around break even so just leaving that alone for the moment – busy morning…

10:50am   Going off for a cycle ride for an hour or so now, leaving the stop losses on my existing positions as they are but leaving the profit targets open.

12:20pm   Just got back and seen that my Gold position has been stopped out at -12 pips.  My WTI Crude trade is at +19 pips but has not moved much recently so I will review it again before I go out for lunch.

12:40pm   I have just closed off my WTI Crude Oil position at +21 pips as it has not dropped much further and I am out now for a couple of hours.  My score so far today is +39 pips.

15:00pm   Just got back home and had a quick look at my collection of favourite charts and they all seem fairly ‘busy’ but nothing in the way of profitable patterns so I am going to call it a day as far as trading is concerned today.

Back in front of my screens tomorrow morning.