08:30am   Quiet day planned here at home and any trades I take will be detailed below.

Market Update:

Tuesday’s trading session saw U.S. and most European equities fall as geopolitical issues are coming to the forefront after traders have started to analyse the likely consequences.  Both the Dow Jones 30 and S&P-500 endured large falls although they did recover some losses by the close with IT and the financial sector experiencing the biggest drops.  The overnight Asian session followed on from the U.S. session and closed mainly down with only China’s Hang Seng Index showing signs of optimism.

As expected, Gold is benefiting from a flight to safety, it rose just over $23 yesterday to close at $1274.40 and is around the same level this morning although there could be some profit taking through the day.  Crude oil is on the move upwards again as rumours from Saudi Arabia emerge that they are asking OPEC to extend production limits through to the second half of 2017. U.S. WTI Crude Oil closed up 27 cents yesterday at $53.38 and is slightly higher this morning as the price is once again heading for the minor resistance level at $55.

Trading Diary:

11:05am    Nothing to report on the trading front yet this morning – off for a quick cycle ride now.

13:15pm    Back home now after lunch and I’ve got into a ‘short’ position on my S&P-500 15-min chart. It’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-B set-up with a 20 pip stop loss.

14:25pm   I am going out for an hour to help a neighbour and as the U.S. markets are understandably volatile at the moment I left my stop loss at -20 pips to give the trade some room to manoeuvre and set my target at +20 pips.

15:40pm    Just returned home and I can see my earlier trade reached its 20 pip target.  That will do me for the day, back here tomorrow for the last day of the trading week in the UK (due to the Easter Weekend)