07:45am    Early start today as the builders have already arrived, I am planning to be in the house for most of the day so any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

Once again I am reporting an optimistic U.S. equity market, stocks rose during Wednesday’s session with the Dow Jones surging 322.79 points (+1.25%) to close at 26,115.65 although it did touch a high of 26,130 late in the trading day. This is the first time the index has closed above the 26,000 level but has fallen back slightly in futures markets this morning. Yesterday’s bullishness is being attributed to better than expected quarterly results from some of America’s largest companies, some that reported yesterday were U.S. Bankcorp and Bank Of America which posted earnings much higher than traders were guessing although there is still the looming Government shutdown looming tomorrow if no agreement can be reached.

The overnight Asian session started well on the back of U.S. gains with the Japanese Nikkei-225 index posting a new 26-year high but fell back later in the night to close 104 points down at 23,763.23 (-0.44%) and most of the other indices in the region also finished in negative territory although the Chinese Shanghai Composite closed at its highest level for two years after data out late in the session showed the Chinese economy grew by 6.9% last year ahead of the Government’s target of 6.5%.

Oil markets are still providing good trading opportunities with values being held up by a falling stock situation in the U.S. and the ongoing OPEC production restraint. WTI Crude closed last night at $64.15 (+18 cents) but is slightly down on that level currently at $^3.82 and is heading for the 20-day moving average at $63.40.

Trading Diary:

09:30am    Just taken a ‘short’ position on my 15-min S&P-500 chart, more details soon – I am helping the builders at the moment.

09:50am    The above trade is a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B set-up with a 28 pip stop loss.

10:55am    My S&P position has just been stopped out at -28 pips.

11:30am   Nothing much to see on my collection of favourite charts so I am off out for a run.

12:45am    I am now in a ‘short’ position on my FTSE-100 15-min chart, it’s another Master-The-Trend  trade but this time a Strategy-A set-up with a (massive) 6 pip stop loss this time.

16:00pm    The FTSE price has just been going sideways for most of the afternoon and cannot seem to go below 7683 so I have close doff my position at that level giving me a small +11 pip profit.   Screens going off for the day and I maybe back here in the morning, it really depends on the builders and how much help they need.