09:10am  ~  After a late evening out a lie-in was in order this morning. I am going to have a lazy day at home today putting the final touches to the updated “Trade With A Day Job” evening system and also doing emails and some chart watching.

European equities are in a bullish mood and should open higher this morning. Yesterdays rally pushed the major indices in to higher territory for the year but when resistance levels are broken there is always the risk of hasty retreats as well. With traders now seemingly comfortable with the Fed’s tapering commitment and an easy outlook for monetary policy on the immediate horizon it looks like the usual January charge upwards for equity markets may at last be happening. The Dow Jones 30 gained 109 points to 16,468 as the World Bank upgraded its global growth forecast for 2014 and Bank of America beat estimates sparking a rise in the financial sector.  Conversely – the S&P500 hit the big resistance level on the daily charts yesterday, so keep an eye on another retreat from the 1851 level again, it may give some trading opportunities.

Surprise news regarding a massive drop in U.S. oil inventories gave the WTI price a boost and also helped my Brent Oil trade yesterday.

09:45am  ~  Change of plan, two friends are coming round in 5 minutes and we’re off for a cycle ride – east along the river – so I will be back around lunchtime for some chart watching after the U.S. trading session open.

14:20pm  ~  I have been watching some charts for a few hours now and most of them are trading in a range, no trends or nice reversals to get my teeth stuck into, so I’m switching them off and going into the garage to tinker about with three old cars that will be coming out from their winter break in a few months.   I’ve offered to do an oil change on a friend’s Austin 7 as well so he will be here soon.

18:30pm  ~  I’ve two computer screens here in the garage and I’m currently in a short position with my “Trade With A Day Job” strategy – it’s actually one of the new set-ups from the updated manual that’s going to be available in the next few days. I will report back later on the result.

20:50pm  ~  Well I am out of that earlier S&P500 position and we’re off to the pub now.  The trade ended with a 20 pip profit, jut above the 16 pip stop-loss value.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES  (+20 pips)