08:20am   After a busy few days, I am planning a quiet time at home today catching up on emails/Skype calls and doing some chart watching from time to time. Any trades I take will, as usual, be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

Wednesday’s trading across the globe was slightly better than the beginning of the week with U.S. equities reversing the recent declines, the Dow Jones closed up 72.50 points at 26,149.39 posting its best month’s performance since March 2016 (up 5.6%). The fall at the beginning of the week was mainly put down to markets looking over extended but corporate earnings are still coming in ahead of expectations so we may yet see a record close for February as well.  The Federal reserve left its interest rate on hold after their statement last night but commented that they expect inflation to rise slightly towards the 2% target which hints at further rate hikes in the short term.

The overnight Asian trading session was fairly buoyant with most bourses closing ahead although the main Chinese index the Shanghai Composite closed down by -0.99% (34.59 points). There was a general sell-off of shares across the region at the beginning of the week and traders are now spending time looking for bargains which sent the majority of indices higher by the close this morning.  The Japanese Nikkei-225 index was the best performer, rising 1.68% as the U.S. Dollar firmed up against the Yen. European markets are also set to post a positive morning on the back of the optimism.

Oil markets reversed a two day decline yesterday and closed ahead on news that OPEC supply constraints are being kept across all members but to counter this it was revealed that U.S. oil production hit 10 million barrels per day for the first time in 50 years. UK Brent Crude, the global benchmark rose 98 cents to $68.83 by the close last night and is up further this morning at $68.90.  Gold has dipped slightly overnight on an expected rise in U.S. interest rates although it is still finding support at its 20-day moving average around $1330, currently sitting at $1339.60.

Trading Diary:

10:50am  It has been a fairly quiet morning so far on my collection of favourite charts but I did find a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B set-up a few minutes ago and I am now in a ‘short’ position. It’s on my S&P-500 15-min chart with a 30 pip stop loss.

11:15am  My S&P position has just hit its first target so I am now out with +30 pips.

12:55pm   Out for run, no trades setting up at the moment.

14:40pm   Been invited out for a game of golf so switching off my screens for the day. It is Non Farm Payroll day tomorrow so taking a break from the markets, I will be back in front of the screens on Tuesday morning.