11:35am   Back an hour ago from a long weekend away and today I shall mostly be here at home catching up on emails and doing some chart watching inbetween errands and some shopping.

Market Update:

A new week and a new trading month and there is a raft of important economic data out in the next 5-days plus more large company profit/loss reporting as well.  Today the economic news has kicked off overnight with the Caixin Manufacturing PMI which is basically a report on Chinese factory orders and this month has come in lower again for the 8th month in a row. This news has not really impacted much on the European trading session today as equities have largely rallied on the open due to encouraging PMI numbers across Germany, France, Italy and here in the UK – any PMI number above 50 denotes expansion and is generally perceived as good and all the countries mentioned have managed this in today’s numbers. This general optimism seems to be extending across the Atlantic this morning with U.S. equity futures ahead so the open will be up slightly for the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices despite falls on Friday.

Crude oil markets seem to be at a decision point at the moment with the WTI Crude daily chart unable to improve on the bullish sentiment that caused the market to rise so much last Wednesday after lower than expected stock levels were announced although the 200 day moving average is starting to provide a resistance level so this week may see some falls down to the $43:00 level from the current $45:79.

Trading Diary:

13:55pm    Just got into a ‘long’ position on my German Dax 30 chart – it’s a trendFX strategy-1 set-up with an 11 pip stop loss.

15:25pm   Came out of my Dax trade 5-minutes ago with a 21 pip profit  —  the position had been upto +40 pips a short while ago but the price now looks to be retreating back so happy to be out of the market. Off into the village for some errands soon so no more trades this afternoon.