08:00am   I am planning to spend this morning at home continuing to catch up on emails plus watch my collection of favourite charts for any trading opportunities – any trades I find will be detailed below.

Market Update:

The North Korean/U.S. situation is persisting with more pessimistic words from President Trump last night and this is continuing to weigh on equity markets around the world, the S&P-500 dropped 1.45% (-35.81 points) by yesterday’s U.S. close and has now dropped below its 50-day moving average which is quite a bearish sign.  The overnight Asian trading session was similarly bearish with all major indices posting negative numbers with the South Korean Kospi index in focus for obvious reasons, it fell 1.71% with Samsung Electronics contributing a maority of the losses.

This morning’s European session has also got off to a slow start with no positive numbers being posted at the moment although in the past few hours the rhetoric from the U.S. seems to be focusing on the fact that diplomatic avenues are seeing small successes in the North Korean situation so if you are trading today watch the news flows from Bloomberg and the BBC for latest news.  Oil markets took a tumble yesterday n over supply concerns, the U.S. WTI Crude fell $1:18 during Thursday’s session to $48:48 and is currently trading slightly lower at $48:19 and right on the 200-day moving average so watch your charts carefully for potential trading opportunities at this level.

Gold has benefited from safe haven purchasing this week and has risen from $1251.00 to its current level of $1285.88 this morning on the back of geo-political worries in Asia and looks to be heading for the next major resistance area at $1295.00, watch for a price reversal around here next week.

Trading Diary:

08:25am   Just entered a ‘short’ position on my Brent Crude Oil 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A set-up with a 17 pip stop loss.

09:05am   Nothing else to see on my charts at the moment so off for a cycle ride in the sun…

10:55am    Just got back and seen the price on the Brent Crude chart is slowly advancing back upwards so I have just closed my position off at break even as it look as though it’ll hit the stop loss very soon.

 11:55am   I have just entered another Master-The-Trend position, this time on my FTSE-1oo chart.  It’s Strategy-A pattern again with a 9 pip stop loss and I am on the 15-min timeframe.

12:05pm    I am off out for an early lunch with some fellow traders so I have set my take profit level at +9 pips and kept the stop loss at -9 pips.

14:50pm    Back from lunch and I can see my FTSE position has been closed at +9 pips.   Looking through my collection of charts I can see there is a fair amount of volatility now so I am going to start my weekend early and turn my screens off.  I will be back next Tuesday morning.