07:45am   Planning to be at home for most of today catching up on emails and Skype calls plus some chart watching as well – any trades I have will be detailed below.

Market Update:

U.S. markets closed higher yesterday on hopes of a major tax reform before the end of the year and fairly solid corporate earnings from major companies – the S&P index of the 500 largest U.S. companies ended the day 0.76% up at 2355.84 and the Dow Jones 30 was not far behind. This optimism carried over to the overnight Asian session with most indices also closing in positive territory despite yesterday’s terrorist activities in Paris that were designed to upset their upcoming Presidential elections this weekend.

The French CAC-40 has kicked off this morning in negative territory as expected but is still well above Wednesday’s close of 4986, it is currently trading at 5055.67, volumes will be lower than normal as the population goes to the polls tomorrow and traders adjust their positions ahead of expected market volatility on Monday.  Gold had a busy session on Thursday but ended slightly ahead on safe haven buying, it closed at $1281.70 last night and is lower this morning at $1279.12.

Crude oil markets had their sixth losing session yesterday with WTI Crude closing at $50.29 after hitting $50 support level once again earlier in the day, there are still concerns that OPEC production restrictions are not going to materialise together with a global oversupply that has dogged the market since 2015.

Trading Diary:

09:55am   Nothing to report on my collection of favourite charts so I am off for a cycle ride.

11:40am   I have just entered a ‘long’ position on my GOLD 15min chart – more details soon, some friends have just arrived for an early lunch and the burglar alarm has gone haywire for some reason..

11:50am    The trade I’ve mentioned above is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern with a 20 pip stop loss.

12:15am    Just taken a quick +30 pip profit from my GOLD position as we are off out to the pub now for lunch.

13:25pm    Back home now and taken a ‘long’ position on my Brent Crude 15min chart, it’s a UTB Price-Reversal set-up with a 15 pip stop loss.

13:55pm   I am now out of the Brent Crude position, the chart is getting more volatile as the U.S. markets get underway. My score is +24 pips and I am happy with that so I am curtailing my chart watching activities for today and I will be back in front of my screens next Tuesday.

Today’s score of +54 pips brings my weekly points total to +37 pips and for the month of April I have accumulated +337 pips.