08:05am   I am planning another quiet day at home today so any trades I take will be detailed in my Trading Diary below.

Market Update:

Wednesday’s European trading session ended on a largely positive note with most bourses showing a profit despite the U.S./China trade tensions showing no signs of dissipating and later in the day the U.S. markets closed mixed with the Dow Jones posting a small loss of -44.41 points but the S&P-500 finishing ahead by 4.73 points and the tech-centred Nasdaq experiencing another record high (+0.70%) after Facebook and Netflix had a bullish day’s trading.  S&P-500 futures are also looking bullish this morning, up around 6 points from last night’s close. The simmering trade tariff argument between China and the U.S. is still simmering so you can expect it will still have an ongoing effect on equity markets in the coming weeks although as mentioned previously, it could all be a negotiating tactic by businessman Trump so there are still surprises around the corner.

The overnight Asian trading session closed mainly ahead, mirroring the U.S. session as there was no new developments in the China/U.S. trade wars.  The Japanese Nikkei-225 index as the best performer of the session at +1.24% followed closely by the Australian ASX-200 (+1.06%) despite nearly all markets having a very slow start.  The  Gold price is still bearish despite a small lift this morning, it is sitting at 6-month lows at the moment and heading down to the $1200 support lvel fairly rapidly. It closed last night at $1268.81 and is currently at $1264.09.

Oil markets had a negative day with Brent Crude reversing at its 20-day moving average and ending the day down by 90 cents at $73.98 after Iran hinted that it would support an OPEC decision to increase the price of a barrel of oil. This move is seen as wider agreement by the oil cartel to slowly increase supply for the rest of 2018 which would allow the value of Brent Crude to fall further towards $70.00.

Trading Diary:

09:45am   I have taken a ‘short’ position on my 15-min FTSE-100 chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B pattern with a minuscule 8 pip stop loss.

11:40am   Bank of England interest rate decision soon so I will start to monitor the price movement more closely now.

11:50am  Bringing stop loss down to break even now in case of an adverse price move in ten minutes time.

12:40pm   The price has shot down after the Bank Of England decided to keep rates on hold but hinted at a rise in August and the bearish price momentum has cooled slightly so I have closed my position at +81 pips.  Out for lunch now.

15:10pm   Back from lunch and a cursory glance at my charts show no opportunities at the moment so they’re being switched off and I am retiring outside to the sun.