08:45am   A relaxing start to the day and the plan is to be at home for most of it catching up on emails and Skype calls after a short break away. I will also be watching my charts from time to time as well so any trades I have will be reported below.

Market Update:

U.S. markets closed slightly down last night although they are still around record levels despite disappointing Non Farm Payrolls numbers on Friday and increased geo-political tensions around the world.  The S&P-500 index closed down 0.12% after fairly low volumes with Apple causing most of the falls an broker downgrades hit the stock. The overnight Asian market ended the session mixed with Chinese stocks doing quite well but the rest of the region finishing down slightly on light trading due to traders waiting for big news on Thursday including UK elections, James Comey’s testimony in the U.S.and European Central Bank interest rate decision.

The oil markets are in decline once more due mainly to concerns over the Qatar situation as many believe that oil exports from the country will dry up quite quickly due to the current tensions surrounding the country giving the rest of OPEC the excuse to increase oil production which will have a negative impact on values in the next month or so. U.S. WTI Crude is once again down to the $47:00 support level so watch for trading opportunities at this level.

Gold is enjoying a bullish move away from the $1260 support level as equity markets slow and start to look as though they could retreat from the record highs they’ve reached in the last few weeks. The yellow metal should benefit from a flight to safety as tensions in the Middle East escalate and worries over further terrorist attacks are factored in. The price is approaching a small resistance level at $1295 so watch for a possible reaction (and trading opportunity)

Trading Diary:

11:55am    Nothing to report regarding trades for this morning, it has been fairly quiet on my collection of favourite charts. Off for an early lunch soon, back later this afternoon.

15:45pm    Just got into a short’ position on my DAX-30 15-min chart, it’s a Master-The-Trend Strategy-A set-up with an 18 pip stop loss.

18:50pm   I have left my position running unusually late but finally I am out of the DAX-30 trade with a +42 pip profit.  It has taken quite a while to get into a profit but eventually the price fell sufficiently.