07:55am   ~   The builders have gone so it’s going to be a nice quiet day at home for me, except for a cycle ride this morning. I will report back later if I manage to do any trading.

The markets in Europe yesterday proved resilient and reached towards new highs and the Dow Jones 30 index kicked off well but could not sustain the new levels it had reached in early trading, although it did end 20 pips up at 16715.  Although the Ukrainian situation together with weak data from China should have put a dampener on the markets it seems that the bulls are just waiting for a bit of slightly good news and buying spree will ensue – or are we seeing a ‘sucker’s rally’ similiar to previous occasions this year ?  Although the S&P500 did move up slightly overall yesterday, reaching a new high, it was stuck in a very tight range that I attempted to trade last night, giving the impression that there was no real enthusiasm for a sustained bull trend (I did manage a very small profit)    The U.S. WTI Crude Oil price rose for the third straight day yesterday on the back of a report which that showed supplies shrank at the US’s largest storage hub. There was also no real troubling geopolitical news to affect the price so overall the WTI price gained just over a dollar to finish at $101.70 a barrel and UK Brent Oil also had a good day with traders very active in the market.  Gold was down $3 to $1294 in trading yesterday which strengthens the theory that investors are pulling out of this safe-haven metal to perhaps get back into equities.

09:50pm  ~  Back from a cycle ride over to Halesworth so I’m in the study now to do some chart watching, emails and a few Skype calls.

11:10am  ~  It’s been quite quiet on the charts I’ve been watching but it looks like a possible ‘long’ on my Gold chart.

11:25am  ~  The Gold price has risen sufficiently to put me into a trendFX trade. The stop loss is a heady 11 pips.

12:00 Midday  ~  It’s all kicking off –  I am now also in a ‘short’ position on my Brent Oil chart with a stop loss of 23 pips.

12:30pm  ~  My Brent trade has just been stopped out at -23 pips but my other position is still going along nicely.

13:30pm  ~  I am off for a lunch at the Lord Nelson so I have closed off my Gold trade at +75 pips.  The U.S. trading session is just getting going so there maybe some volatility, so I would rather close the trade rather than set an order to close later.  I have just taken a screenshot of my chart at the closing level which I’ll send over to students this afternoon.

16:05pm  ~  I’m back home after a rather long lunch-hour and I shall sit down at 5pm to see if there are any trade set-ups to take advantage of.

19:45pm  ~  Not much happening on my S&P500 chart and as there’s some people coming round for supper soon so this laptop is being turned off and I’m going to get the barbeque going.

Daily Target Reached ?  YES (+52 pips)