09:50am    Back home and planning a quiet day catching up on email and doing some chart watching as well.  Any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary, nothing to report so far.

Market Update:

Technology shares helped U.S. equity markets close higher on Monday, the S&P-500 was up 5.15 points to 2806.98 although the Dow Jones index of 30 leading companies failed to follow suit and closed down at 25,044.29 (-0.06%).  There are quite a lot of companies reporting second results this week and expectations are high for earnings above analysts expectations. Google (Alphabet) shares rose just over 4% after releasing better than expected results and traders are now waiting for numbers from Facebook and Amazon later in the week.

The overnight Asian trading session was upbeat on the whole with the Chinese Shanghai Composite finishing with the biggest gains, it closed up 1.62% at 2905.94 and its sister index, the Hang Seng was close behind at+1.44%. These gains were mainly due to increased buying after the Chinese State Council announced they were going to engage in a more vigorous fiscal policy as their economy retracts.

Oil markets are cooling as previous concerns regarding high production causing oversupply are waning, Brent Crude rose yesterday to its 20-day moving average were it promptly reversed and closed slightly down on the day at $73.19 although there has been some limited futures buying this morning and the price is up 22 cents on last night’s level.  The escalating tensions between the U.S.and Iran have previously caused concern although traders now seem to be ignoring that story for the moment, Trump’s war of words could be holding less sway with markets as the White House now regularly issues denials and corrections regarding his Twitter posts.

Gold is continuing its fall from the $1265 level it reached earlier in the month, it closed down $6.97 last night at $1224.33  and is slightly down on that level this morning. A firmer Dollar and and rise in U.S. Treasury yields are the main drivers of this bearish activity and the war of words between Trump and Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani does not seem to be having much effect at the moment.

Trading Diary:

10:55am   Nothing has popped up on my collection of charts yet so I am off fora gentle 10 mile cycle ride in this scorchingly nice weather !

12:55pm    Just come indoors and seen that there could be a ‘long’ trade setting up on my U.S. S&P-500  15-min chart.

13:05pm   I have just taken a quick S&P-500 ‘long’ trade, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B set-up with a slightly higher than normal stop loss value of 30 pips which reflects the slight volatility in the market so far today.  I will watch the chart carefully as 1:30pm approaches for abnormal price swings – I may come out just beforehand if there’s a small profit.

13:30pm   Came out of the S&P-500 position a few minutes ago as the price is starting to become much less predictable. Score is +47 pips.

14:05pm  Too sunny outside to be indoors for too long today so I am switching off my charts for the day, back here tomorrow.  Seen on the BBC News Channel that Suffolk is once again the hottest region in the UK with the least rainfall so going off to enjoy it !