08:15am   I am at home today but not sure how much chart watching I’ll be doing as everyone’s getting sledges and Land Rovers out in the snowy fields this morning. If I do take any trades they will be detailed below.

Market Update:

U.S. markets fell yesterday with the main Dow Jones 30 index closing down 299 points at the close as the incoming Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell addressed Congress and said that he envisages a continuous programme of rate rises through 2018 to contain inflation. U.S. Treasury yields rose quickly during Powell’s testimony regarding his thoughts on monetary policy and economic growth.  The S&P-500 also fell by the close of the session (-1.27%) and Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Netflix stocks all dragged the Nasdaq down too, closing at 7,330.35 (-1.23%).

The overnight Asian trading session fell across the board after a negative performance in the U.S. and Chinese PMI numbers missing expectations. Initially the falls were quite slow and some buyers did start appearing but within a few hours of the close, negative sentiment had crept into most markets and compounded earlier losses. The Nikkei-225 index dropped by 321 points (-1.44%) to close at 22,068.24 almost wiping out most of its recent gains.

The oil markets have turned pessimistic over the past few days on rising U.S. stockpiles and today’s Crude Oil Inventories should confirm this situation so further volatility could hit the WTI and Brent Crude charts.  West Texas Intermediate Crude fell 20 cents by the close last night to $62.80 and is further down this morning (currently $62.66)  Gold fell quite strongly at the beginning of yesterday’s U.S. trading session on interest rate ‘adjustment’ worries and closed down by exactly $15.00 at $1317.80 although any faltering in equity markets should see a rush to this safe haven metal. We could see a fall this week to the $1310 level before a small rise once again.

Trading Diary:

09:25am   Just taken a ‘long’ position on my 15-min S&P-500 chart. It’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern with a 44 pip stop loss (slightly higher than usual for this timeframe).  Outside for a while now so set target at +44 pips.

11:05am   My S&P position was stopped out while I was outside but now I am in a ‘long’ position on my DAX-30 15-min chart. It’s another Master-The-Trend trade but a Strategy-A set-up. My stop loss is 11 pips.

11:20am    Taken a quick +11 pip profit as the DAX price is retreating very quickly backwards.

14:00pm  Just back from lunch and decided to finish work for the day – screens off until tomorrow.

Today was the last day of trading for February and my total for the month has come out at +649 pips with 12 winning trades and 3 losing one. I hope you’ve also had a successful month’s trading.