08:20am   Nice quiet day planned here at home so any trades I find will be reported below.

Market Update:

U.S. markets yesterday closed mainly down with the main Dow Jones-30 index falling a total of nearly 200 points over the last two days, mainly due to  disappointing profit figures from a variety of companies including IBM that contributed 57 points of that drop.  First quarter results from the financial sector is exceeding expectations however and is giving confidence to traders that the 2016 rally was genuine and not a result of a new President coming in.

The overnight Asian trading session ended mixed with traders treading carefully ahead of French elections although the situation between the U.S. and North Korea has quietened slightly and stronger Japanese export data also helped indices in the region.  This morning’s European are looking fairly bullish as traders eye up this weekend’s French election outcome and we also have Bank Of England Chief Mark Carney talking later so traders will watch carefully regarding his thoughts on the upcoming UK election and Brexit negotiations.

Crude oil price fell dramatically yesterday by around 3.9% globally with U.S. WTI Crude closing at $50.44 per barrel after the weekly crude oil inventories showed a less than expected fall in stocks although we have seen a small bounce overnight and it is currently sitting at $50.69 and yesterday’s price action showed the $50 level could be important going forward.  The Gold price is still being constrained by the small resistance level at $1295 even though traders are not particularly enthusiastic about spending money in equity markets, it is currently at $1278.88 after falling $9.26 during yesterday’s session.

Trading Diary:

09:25am    I have just got into a ‘short’ position on my UK FTSE-100 30-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A pattern with a 26 pip stop loss.

09:50am    Just been invited out on a cycle ride by some ageing fitness fanatics so I have brought my stop loss on the FTSE position down to 20 pips but kept the target open.

11:45am    Back home now and the FTSE-100 position is still trundling away around break-even and I am also in a ‘long’ position on my Brent Crude Oil chart. It’s a Strategy-B pattern from my Master-The-Trend system manual and I have a 21 pip stop loss.

12:20pm     Off out to lunch, leaving the stop losses where they are for moment.

15:00pm     I have just got back from a rather long lunch hour and noticed that both my earlier positions have been stopped out so my score so far today is -41 pips.

15:50pm    The markets are fairly volatile this afternoon so I am finishing my trading for the day – back here tomorrow for the final trading session of the week.