07:25am  ~  An early start for me this morning, I am off on a cycle ride in a minute with a bunch of friends and then back to some emailing and Skype calls upto lunchtime.  I shall also watch a few charts from time to time while I’m here in the study so I will report back later with any trading news.

I have been away in Cornwall since Friday and got back yesterday afternoon but I did manage to have a quick ‘short’ trade on the S&P500 later in the day using my “Trade With A Day Job” strategy – I came away with a +53 pip profit. The actual trade was a combination of two trading set-ups and when this occurs, it always gives new traders confidence to get into the market without hesitation.

Although there seemed to be continued improvement in some of the broader economic data from across Europe, with Italy and Spain in particular standing out, with some better than expected numbers this good news got lost yesterday due to the concerns about the deteriorating situation in the Ukraine, as fears grow of a civil war, as well as disappointment about the prospects for company earnings growth in a global economy that the OECD saw fit to downgrade its expectations for yesterday and With Chinese data showing no signs of a marked improvement the catalysts for further gains in world markets seem to be becoming more difficult to find. All this resulted in both of the major U.S. indices posting negative numbers by the end of the session and the sharp bearish move in the S&P500 was highlighted by a good trading opportunity with my “evening” strategy as you will have read above.  With a fall in equities you would expect investors to rush to safe-haven commodities but this did not happen with Gold yesterday, it formed a spinning top reversal candle after a narrow trading range and ended just a few dollars down on the day.

10:20am  ~  I am back from a wet 27 mile cycle ride so it’s time to sit down here in the study and get on with some emails + some chart watching as well.

11:55am  ~  It has been quite a quiet morning on my charts but there does seem to be a UTB pattern setting up on the  Gold chart – more news soon…..

12:40pm  ~  The UTB pattern is one of the seven strategies from my “Any-Time” system manual and the ‘short’ trade I mentioned earlier has now triggered. I have a stop-loss of 24 pips so that will be the first target.

13:10pm  ~  The Gold prices has gone (down) through my 1st target and is still going strong looking at the price-action at the moment.

13:30pm  ~  I am now out of the Gold trade – for three reasons. Firstly the U.S. pre-market has just got going so there maybe some surprise movements over the next 30 minutes plus the profit achieved is sufficient – but more importantly it’s time for my pub lunch.  The trade gave me +73 pips.

15:45pm  ~  Back home now but off out soon, I should be back by 7 o’clock – ish.

19:10pm  ~   Just looking at my S&P500 chart for any “Trade With A Day Job” set-ups.

19:30pm  ~  Well that was quick – I got into a ‘short’ position a few minutes ago and as quickly I was stopped out !  Score so far minus 11 pips.

20:30pm  ~  Now in a second trade – this time long with a 24 pip stop loss.

21:00pm  ~  The U.S. market is now closing so I’m out of my 2nd trade – I’ve managed +50 pips.