07:40am  ~  I’m up relatively early this morning as I have a meeting with architects and builders later, so I want to get some ‘office’ admin work done before I go down the road to meet with them. I’ll watch a few charts as well while I’m here in the study – and also have two Skype calls in a minute with student traders in Australia.

On the markets yesterday US stocks continued to head south led by financial sector (Banks etc.) as the optimism which has supported this September rally so far looks to be fading. The economic data was also weaker than expected with U.S. manufacturing PMI coming in at 52.8 versus forecast of 54.2. A few statements from Regional Federal Reserve Presidents failed to impress the market and the Dow Jones ended the day 103 points down at 15,394.  My favourite index (S&P500) also ended lower for the same reasons.

For the third straight session, the U.S. Crude Oil price slumped, losing $1.50 to $103.34 a barrel. It is part of the process of discounting the danger premium represented by the Syrian potential conflict as I have mentioned previously. As the US and Russia appear set to solve the issue via negotiations rather than an all out military attack, the downside pressure on the energy prices will be hard to ignore.

Gold stopped a two-day slide in value yesterday on speculation that demand may strengthen before China’s Golden week holiday as lower prices should lure buyers into the market. The yellow metal rose to $1328.63, up 48 points since the start of the play.  However gold’s main direction will continue to come from cues on what the Fed may do with stimulus.

08:30am  ~  Latest news is I’ve done my two Skype calls and I’m in a ‘long’ trade on the EUR/USD chart.  I was asked a couple of times yesterday about typical stop-loss amounts on my trades, and although it’s hard to generalise I can tell you that the risk on this trade was around 12 pips including the spread, not a lot for working off a 30 minute chart.

11:20am  ~  I am now out of my earlier EUR/USD trade with a 36 pip profit, it was a UTB strategy trade from the “Any-Time” collection.   The meeting was delayed so I am off out now for an hour or so, and then some lunch at The Boardwalk on the Pier and 3 Skype calls early afternoon.

Here’s a chart screenshot I took of my EUR/USD trade using my UTB “pattern” a few seconds after I came out of the position.

Incidently, here’s an email I received from a customer last week regarding the UTB strategy

Click on above image to enlarge

21:15pm  ~  I did manage to trade my evening “Trade With A Day Job” strategy while here in the kitchen cooking supper for four friends – my first trade kicked off just on 6:30pm and was stopped out shortly afterwards at -21 pips and my second one did slightly better and I came out a few minutes ago with +33 pips. I also had a trendFX strategy 3 “short” trade on my Brent Oil chart and came out earlier with +78 pips

Daily Target Reached ? YES (+147 pips)