07:20am  Early start for me as I am off for a 20-mile cycle ride with a group of friends – back later this morning for some chart watching and catching up on emails

Market Update:

There were many confused traders yesterday as record high oil stocks in the U.S. failed to halt the rise in crude oil prices although a weak U.S. Dollar did help slightly. Comments by New York Fed Chairman Bob Dudley suggested that the FOMC might be slightly over ambitious regarding their timetable for interest rate rises in 2016/17 and this sentiment helped a late rise in equities in the U.S. plus Chinese and Australian markets overnight although the Japanese Nikkei 225 index fell by 0.85% by early this morning.

Gold is still enjoying the flight to safety during the current equity volatility, it rose over $14 yesterday to end above it’s 200-day moving average at $1142:50 although there is bound to be some profit-taking today so watch for a move back down to the $1130/$1135 level.

Trading Diary:

10:35am   Back from our cycle ride so shower now and then some emails and chart watching.

11:40am   I am now in a ‘short’ position on my Brent Crude chart – it’s a trendFX strategy-3 set-up with a stop loss of 32 pips.

13:05pm     Off to the Lord Nelson for lunch – I’ve closed my trade off at +39 pips ahead of the potentially volatile U.S. trading session open.

17:00pm   Not been trading this afternoon, had some jobs around the house to finish.

17:45pm    Just sitting here doing my ‘Nick’s Trades’ email to subscribers and I’ve noticed that the profit on my Brent Crude trade earlier was actually +63 pips and not what I stated earlier – sorry for the typo, I did not realise at the time what I had typed, probably in too much of a rush to get to the pub !