08:20am  After an unusual week away from my screens things are back to normal at last and my plan is to be at trading at home for the next three days ahead of another family wedding on Friday.  Any trades I take today will be detailed in my Trading Diary below.

Market Update:

Market volatility is still prevalent across most regions and U.S. equities ended last week in the red after the Dow Jones 30 index fell 572 points on Friday to close at 23,932.67 (-2.34%) and the S&P-500 and Nasdaq finished down by similiar percentages on continuing trade war concerns. News from the White House emerged late in the week that President Trump had asked the United States Trade Representative to consider a further $100 billion in additional tariffs against China and this prompted an equally strong response from China’s Commerce Ministry.

The start to this week’s Asian trading session was surprisingly mixed as many traders shrugged off the negative war of words at the end of last week, the Japanese Nikkei-225 index closed up by 0.51% at 21,678.26 after a muted start to the day and the South Korean Kospi and both Chinese indices closed in positive territory. Even Australia’s ASX-200 managed a good finish although it was dragged down slightly by the energy sector. U.S. equity futures overnight are also pointing towards a positive open but much could happen in the next few hours.

Gold would normally be expected to thrive in these times of uncertainty as traders look for some safety and although it rose $4.20 on Friday to close at $1331.10 it has fallen during the overnight Asian trading session and is now at $1329.45 but a small support area around $1320 should limit losses this week. Oil prices are holding fairly steady this morning after losses on Friday caused by U.S./China trade war worries but supply concerns this morning over the Syrian conflict have given a small boost to values, U.S. WTI Crude closed on Friday evening at $61.95 but is now at $62.33 and heading back upto the 50-day moving average.

Trading Diary:

11:25am     Nothing to report so far on my charts this morning

12:15pm   I have just taken a ‘short’ position on my GOLD 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A pattern with a 17 pip stop loss.

12:55pm    My GOLD position has been stopped out at -17 pips.   Off for some lunch now.

14:15pm   I am now in a ‘short’ position on my FTSE-100 15-min chart, it’s another Master-The-Trend Strategy-A pattern and the stop loss this time is 11 pips.

14:50pm   Just taken a quick +15 pip profit amid a fair amount of volatility that’s usual for this time of the day (U.S. trading session open)

 15:20pm   I have been invited out on a cycle ride now so switching off my charts for the day, back at usual time tomorrow morning.