07:20am  After a very busy day yesterday I am having a relaxing time at home today so if I have any trades they will be reported here as they occur.

Market Update:

The main news in the markets today is the fact that trading has been halted for the second time this week on the Chinese stock market. The ‘Circuit-Breaker’ comes into effect when the market drop 5% or more and when it happened on Monday, Chinese government officials said it was a ‘rare occurrence’ but there’s no comment after today’s halt in trading. The government has also spent around £13billion in an attempt to prop up the currency and bond markets and also extended the ban on large companies selling large tranches of shares but to avail so far.  Overnight U.S. equity futures have fallen further and the European markets opened a few minutes ago with large gaps down with the FTSE 100 currently sitting at 5955, a level last seen in the middle of December.

Oil markets are still very bearish with news that global stocks are still at unmanageable levels and no sign that the larger OPEC members are going to curb production. Saudi Arabia are hoping that new sanctions on Iran will give then a chance to steal more market share although in the end they may simply buy that share by heavy discounting – not good news for oil producing nations in the next few months. Gold however is benefiting from all this market volatility and and had another positive session yesterday – it closed up $21.30 at $1093.50 and is currently up over $3 this morning after the Asian session.

Trading Diary:

09:05am   Not much happening on my charts signal-wise so I am off for a cycle ride.

11:15am    Just got into a ‘short’ position on the German Dax-30 index. It’s a trendFX strategy-1 set-up with a 35 pip stop loss.

15:40pm  Got back from lunch a short while ago and noticed my Dax trade was stopped out at -35 pips. Have some jobs around the house so no more trading for me today.