08:30am  Good morning and welcome to 2018. My plan is to do some chart watching through the day while catching up on emails that have come in over the past few weeks while I’ve been away from my screens. Any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

Asian and U.S. markets rose on their first day of trading in 2018 and the S&P-500 and Nasdaq once again hit new intraday and closing highs. The Nasdaq was up by 1.5% to finish above the 7,000 level for the first time plus the S&P index closed up by 0.8% at 2695.79 and in futures trading this morning it is already higher at 2697.45 with the next target of 2747 in its sights. The overnight Asian trading session closed slightly up across the board again although with less vigour than was seen on Tuesday as it tracked the positive close on Wall Street, the Japanese Nikkei-225 index was not trading due to the three day new year holiday but in all other regions, traders seem to be optimistic about the start to the new year.

Gold is taking a breather this morning after hitting a 3-month high late in yesterday’s trading session. It touched the $1323 level for the first time since September last year before traders took some profits and drove the price back to the $1314 area where it is still trading at the moment and looking at the Daily Chart, we could see a fall towards $1305 which was the high for October 2017.

Oil has performed well in the closing stages of last year on the back of the OPEC production cut agreement between members and also some non-members such as Russia although oil traders I have spoken to in the past few days have expressed concerns that the promised cuts from Russia are not materialising at the moment as Putin is reluctant to forgo the tax revenues that are currently bolstering his ailing economy. Brent Crude, the international benchmark for the industry is $66.53 this morning, down from yesterday’s high at $67.26 and a move down to the support/resistance line at $65.75 is a possibility (chart soon for subscribers)

Trading Diary:

10:35am    Nothing to see on my collection of favourite charts so far this morning so off for a 10-mile cycle ride.

11:35am    Just got back and taken a late entry on a ‘long’ Master-The-Trend set-up which triggered about 15 minutes ago but as the price has dropped back slightly I have got in at a more advantageous level.  It’s a Strategy-B pattern with a 17 pip stop loss.

12:25pm    Just taken a quick +27 pip profit from my WTI position before I go out to lunch.

14:25pm   Back home after an extended lunch out and I am now in a ‘long’ position on my U.S. S&P-500 chart. It’s another Master-The-Trend set-up on the 1-hr timeframe but a Strategy-A pattern this time and my stop loss is 23 pips.  Not really sure how long I will be in the trade as the markets are quite volatile at the moment.

15:45pm   I am now out of my S&P position with a +103 pip profit.  The price has shot up very well over the last hour but the bullish momentum is slowing dramatically now.  My total for today is +130 pips, a good start for the year !

15:50pm   Switching off my screens for the day but I will be back early tomorrow morning.