08:30am   I am planning to be at home today doing some chart watching from time to time although we have a sickness bug here that’s overwhelmed the family so all may not go to plan….

Market Update:

During yesterday’s U.S. trading session the S&P-500 rose above the 2600 for the first time and settled at a new record close of 2599.03 after a concerted tech rally that saw Apple shares advance by over 1.9 and was the best performing company on the Dow Jones Index.  The tech-focused Nasdaq rose by 1.1% and also reached a new record high which has been attributed to the main shopping season of the year starting this Friday and shoppers buying tech gadgets in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

This momentum largely carried on during the overnight Asian trading session with the Chinese Hang Seng Index closing above the 30,000 level for the first time ever and the main Chinese Shanghai Composite also rose by a similiar percentage on a weak Dollar and an optimistic outlook on tech stocks in the region.  Oil markets could push up towards monthly highs as U.S. stocks look to be lower this week although the official figures are not out until this afternoon. U.S. WTI Crude closed at $57.06 last night, up around 0.8% and is now at $57:60 and very close to the November high of $57:89.  Gold is still trading with a fair amount of volatility as equity traders concentrate on new highs in the markets, it is still above its 200-day moving average which is a bullish sign for the moment but there is still no trend emerging in either direction.

Trading Diary:

10:20am   I have just taken a ‘long’ position on my 30-min Brent Crude Oil chart, more details to follow.

10:55am   The above trade is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A set-up with a 19 pip stop loss.

13:10pm    Still in the Brent position and nothing else has popped up so far this morning.

14:30pm   The Brent Crude price has dropped significantly and caused my trade to be stopped out so my score so far today is -19 pips.

15:35pm   I am now in a ‘short’ position on my 30-min UK FTSE-100 chart. The pattern I have used is a Master-The-Reversal UTB set-up with a 13 pip stop loss.

16:30pm   I’ve just closed off my FTSE position with a +31 pip profit. Turning my charts off now but I’ve yet to decide whether to trade tomorrow as the U.S. markets are closed for their Thanksgiving Holiday so volumes will be lower than normal.