07:25am   Early start for me after a 4-day break away, not sure how much trading I shall manage today though as I have meetings with builders through the day.

Market Update:

Equity markets are treading water at the moment ahead of tomorrow’s Federal Reserve interest rate announcement and Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting both the Dow Jones 30 and wider S&P500 indices ended Monday’s session very slightly down and overnight Asian markets finished mixed with only the Shanghai Composite in the black. It is fairly widely accepted that Janet Yellen is going to keep the minimum U.S. interest rate at the record low of 0.25% so  traders are really just positioning themselves at the moment to be ready for a move tomorrow evening (European time) although today’s earnings reports from Twitter, Alibaba and the world’s largest company (Apple) will move equity markets slightly.

Lower than expected U.S. home sales yesterday and a weaker Dollar assisted the Gold price yesterday, it finished up at $1,166.20 slightly below its 200 day moving average so investors are keen to see if it will move above this important level in the next few days. The Crude Oil market is now firmly bearish after reaching a high point at the beginning of October, the U.S. WTI Crude ended down at $43.70 with similiar moves from UK Brent Crude.

Trading Diary:

11:55am  It has been a quiet morning on the markets but I’ve just seen a possible ‘short’ trade setting up on my UK FTSE100 chart – more comments soon.

12:15am   Just entered a ‘short’ position on my FTSE100 chart, it’s a trendFX strategy-1 set-up and as movement on most indices has been stifled today, the stop loss is just 8 pips.

13:35pm   As expected, the opening of the U.S. trading session has made the FTSE100 slightly more volatile so I’ve just closed off my trade at +21 pips. Chart screenshot of the trade will be sent across to students in a minute.

14:10pm   Off for a cycle ride then more meetings here so no more trading for me today.