07:20am    Another early start for me as I am back helping my neighbour again this morning but may be finished in time to do some trading later today.

Market Update:

The value of Crude Oil is dominating the news once again – it hit a new low earlier this morning and is now heading towards the levels we last encountered back in 2009 after the global recession had taken hold and destroyed demand.  The U.S. WTI Crude is currently sitting at $37:85 and has dropped below its near term support at $37:75 a few times in the last 12 hours but there does now seem to be some bargain hunters out now which is giving a boost to the price and we could see a rise to $38 today.  This drop in the price of oil is causing global equities to suffer as well with shares in energy and commodity suppliers feeling the pinch and a general pessimism in most commodity values does not bode well for shares across the world.

Chinese economic numbers are also in focus again with their Trade Balance numbers coming on overnight much less than expected and this has put a dampener on Asian stocks together with a lower open for European indices and U.S. stock futures. After a brief rebound last week caused mainly by bargain hunters, Gold had another negative day’s trading yesterday, it fell $14:50 by the close last night and is heading once again to the near term support at $1046 on slowing Asian demand.

Trading Diary:

10:35am   All done next door after a successful test drive through the Suffolk countryside and I’m back home now. Got some emails to catch up on plus I’ll have a glance at my charts soon as well.

11:15am   I am now in a ‘short’ trendFX strategy-1 position on my S&P500 chart with a 21 pip stop loss. There is the same opportunity on the FTSE100 as well but there is generally more movement on the U.S. index even though the stop loss is double.

13:40pm  It’s time for a quick lunch out at the Lord Nelson so I’ve brought my stop upto +50 pips to protect some of my profit as we get into a period of high volatility during the U.S. trading session open.  Back in an hour or so.

15:55pm   Came out of my S&P position a short while ago as the price seems to have hit a small support level at 2052 where buyers are coming in, my trade has managed +186 pips. I thinks that’s probably ok for a daily score so I’m finished with the markets until tomorrow.