09:25am  ~  After 17 days common sense has prevailed and a deal has been done to raise the debt ceiling in the U.S. early this morning, although it’s only a short term measure as the whole episode is going to be revisited in February next year. As Winston Churchill once said, you can always count on the Americans doing the right thing, after they have tried everything else. Due to the expectation of a government settlement, the markets rose prematurely yesterday afternoon, almost as soon as the U.S. trading session got underway, but we may now see some profit taking as everyone gathers their thoughts even though we may now begin testing the previous highs from mid-September.  Now the debt ceiling wrangles on Capitol Hill are resolved for the next few months, I would imagine the focus for the markets now is going to be whether the Fed is going to reduce their fiscal (money printing) stimulus programme. Gold initially dropped in value yesterday as the U.S. indices rose, but bargain-hunters quickly realised that buying opportunities were looking at them square in the eye, and the price ended roughly were it began. Looking at the chart this morning, I can see we’ve just bounced off an important moving average, so there should be a few trading opportunities before close of play tomorrow.

For me it’s going to be a cycle ride now, followed by a quick trip to pick-up some building materials for a project I’m doing up the road, then a sit down here in the study to watch some charts for a few hours. I will report back later if I get into any trading positions.

11:45am  ~  Back home now and looking forward to a few hours quiet reading, watching charts and a bit of emailing as well.

12:40pm  ~  The only thing I could find on my MT4 charts was a ‘short’  trendFX strategy one opportunity on Brent Oil – I am currently at break even.

15:05pm  ~  I’m happy with the way this Brent Oil trade has developed so I’m now out of the market with a 38 pip profit – my stop loss on this position was only 22 pips so there was a decent reward for being in the market for just a few hours. I will be back here at 5 o’clock to see if there any trade set-ups with my S&P evening system.

18:10pm  ~  Well, that’s the evening trading session sorted –  I had one quick  ’long’ trade on the S&P500 which I’ve just come out of with a 27 pip profit   –   my stop-loss was 14 pips.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES (+65 pips)      I have traded on and off since just before lunchtime.