08:10am  ~  More site meetings plus a few sessions here in the study doing emails and some chart watching is what’s in store for me today but an invite from a trader friend in Gran Canaria makes me think that I should escape the UK’s winter weather for a week – I shall be booking flights today. It was 20 degrees over there yesterday !

The markets yesterday had a generally bullish time due to concerns over the emerging market problems temporarily subsiding and the post-taper fallout was not the feared blood bath some had expected,  but there are still fears that it’s a powder keg waiting to go off. With the sell-off on pause and a lack of bullish news stories, traders look to be in a holding pattern at the moment until new information comes to market or  holding positions over the weekend becomes too much to bear and they lose their nerve later today.

The US GDP figures showed a rise of 3.2% in the fourth quarter which was largely in line with estimates and consumer spending climbed 3.3%, the most in 3 years and at the end of the day the Dow Jones  rose 73 points to 15820. The combination of faster US growth and the Fed staying on course with their  tapering programme took its toll on gold prices which yesterday posted a steep sell-off of $24.2 to $1243.6. Not even the growing fears over emerging markets could stop that slump as investors probably favoured the dollar instead.  Oil traders took good U.S. news to be a catalyst for increased demand for crude so driving WTI prices 61 cents higher to $98.04 a barrel. In addition, bad weather in Midwest continues to play its supportive role.

08:25am  ~  I have just switched on my MT4 charts and have noticed that a ‘short’ trade looks as though it may be triggered in a minute on my S&P500 chart, so I’ll report back in a minute with an update.

08:55am  ~  The trade has been triggered and I have managed to get into the market at a better than normal level as the S&P500 price has retraced upwards slightly. My stop loss is 49 pips which is higher than normal but this is due to me using a higher timeframe.

11:35am  ~  The S&P500 is still staging a sell-off so my trade is looking ok at the moment.

13:30pm  ~  I am now out of my S&P position for two reasons, firstly the U.S. trading session is about to start so there maybe some volatility in the index, but more importantly, I am off out for lunch at The Lion with friends.  The trade came in at +151 pips and was a strategy 3 set-up from my trendFX collection of systems.

16:20pm  ~  I am back home after lunch and a fraught meeting with the builders, so I’m going to emails and then watch my “Trade With A Day Job” chart at 5pm for a short while before we are off to London for the evening.

17:50pm  ~  I’ve just got into the S&P500 with a ‘long’ trade.

18:00pm  ~  Well that was quick – the trade has hit its 20 pip target and I am now out for the evening.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES (+171 pips)