08:50am   I am at home this morning watching my screens before a shopping trip to Cambridge after lunch so any trades I find will be detailed below in the Trading Diary.

Market Update:

European markets closed mainly lower yesterday afternoon as traders awaited the latest interest rate news from the U.S.  Later in the evening the Federal Reserve announced they were raising the minimum lending rate by 0.25% and this caused a fair amount of volatility in equity markets and at the close both the Dow Jones 30 and S&P-500  were down by around 0.20%. The FOMC economic forecast was upgraded and we are looking at 2  more rises this year with more for 2019 upto 2.9% if the economy stays on its current trajectory.

The overnight Asian session that has just come to a close was mixed as traders and investors digested new of the first U.S. rate rise this year. The Japanese Nikkei-225 was back after a bank holiday and rose almost 1% to finish at 24,591.99 (+211.02) and the South Korean Kospi jumped 0.44% to 2,496.02 to hit a 7-week high. Bothe the Hang Seng Index and the Australian ASX-200 were down by the close although only marginally after a volatile session.

Oil markets are on the rise after a surprisingly upbeat U.S. Crude Inventories report yesterday. They fell by 2.6 million barrels in the week ending 16th March to 428.31 million barrels and this was down mainly to a cut in imports by approximately half a million barrels per day.  The restraint in production shown by OPEC members and to a certain extent Russia as well is also having an effect. U.S. WTI Crude closed up $1.80 last night at $65.43 but is suffering from a bout of profit taking this morning and is currently sitting at $65.06.  As expected, the U.S. Dollar had a small blip on the interest rate forecast and this caused Gold to rise, it closed up by $21.30 at $1331.90 and is broadly at the same level now having gone mostly sideways during the overnight Asian session.

Trading Diary:

09:00am   Nothing on my collection of favourite charts so far this morning so I am off for a cycle ride.

12:40pm   Switching my charts off now as I am away soon for the rest of the day – no trades to report.