07:40am    Back after a short break so will be in front of my charts this morning before a quick trip to London this afternoon. If I have any trades, details will be below.

Market Update:

Markets are beginning to quiet down ahead of tomorrow’s U.S. interest rate decision – the Federal Reserve are widely expected to start raising their minimum lending rate by 0.25% to begin with, signaling that the days of ultra-low rates are at an end.  The overnight Asian trading session was mixed overall although Chinese equities managed to close positively after favourable economic numbers were released showing a better than expected  retail sales which were up 10.8% year-on-year plus encouraging factory output and steel exports.

The other main news is the spike in crude oil prices which has been caused by a number of non-OPEC countries now agreeing to a production cut to fall in line with OPEC member’s resolution on limiting output. This has caused WTI Crude to jump to $52.65 currently from last week’s average of around $50 although it was as high as $54.49 early yesterday morning and the European benchmark Brent Crude is currently at $55.53.

Gold is still in the doldrums, having fallen through the significant $1200 level towards the end of November – it’s currently trading around the $1160 mark although an adverse reaction to the Fed’s rate decision tomorrow could see a jump back towards the $1180-$1200 range.

Trading Diary:

08:20am     Just entered a couple of positions, firstly a ‘long’ trade using strategy-B from the new Master-The-Trend manual, it’s on the S&P-500 15 minute chart and my stop loss is 27 pips and also a ‘short’ trade on my Gold 15 minute trade (same strategy) with a 25 pip stop loss.

09:25am   I am now also in another Master-The-Trend position, this time it is a ‘long’ trade on my German DAX-30 chart with a 21 pip stop loss (this one also strategy-B)

11:05am   Just come out of the S&P-500 trade with a +28 pip profit.

11:15am   I am now out of my DAX-30 position as well now, it has come out at +42 pips.

12.00pm    I am now out of my last position of the morning, the strategy-B trade on my Gold chart. It has just got to +25 pips (again) so I thought it best to close it as I am off out soon and all in all my efforts today have given me +95 pips.

I will be back home around 7pm hopefully and I will send out full details then of the new Master-The-Trend system so you can see how today’s trades all came out profitably.  There will also be chart screenshots of all three trades in my daily  ‘Nick’s Trades’  email.