09:35am   A slightly later start to my trading day as I have already been out on an 8-mile cycle ride. The plan today is to do some chart watching from time to time while catching up on emails and Skype calls. Any trades I take will be detailed below in my Trading Diary.

Market Update:

U.S. markets closed positively once again, the S&P-500 reached an all time record high of 2714.50 during Wednesday’s session and closed above 2700 for the first time after some positive economic data was released early in the day. There was some profit taking late into the session but this morning’s futures market has driven the price back upto yesterday’s high and is now sitting at 2714.65 helped by bullish oil prices and an optimistic energy and tech sector. The overnight Asian trading session was also bullish on the back of the U.S. close and the Nikkei-225 index had a good first session in 2018 after a 3-day new year holiday, it hit a level which has not been seen for 26 years. All other regions in the area closed ahead as well although none could match the Nikkei’s +2.55% advance.

Oil had another good session on Wednesday with UK Brent Crude finishing the day up by $1.41 at $67.92 on the general optimism for 2018 production restraints together with political troubles in Iran which could restrict OPEC output further. We are seeing some profit taking in the past few hours though as traders adjust positions ahead of the next drive upwards towards the historic support/resistance level at $69.00 (chart already sent to subscribers early this morning)

Gold is bucking it’s normal behaviour in correlation to equity markets, you would normally see opposite movements but the safe haven metal has been advancing since mid-December at almost the same pace as most indices. There was some sporadic profit taking late in yesterday’s session after reaching a high of $1321.30 and after some volatile trading during the overnight Asian session it is on its way up now and currently at $1313.45.

Trading Diary:

10:40am   Just taken a ‘short’ position on my Brent Crude Oil 15-min chart, more details to follow.

10:55am   The details of the above trade are as follows: Master-The-Trend Strategy-B    Stop loss 15 pips

11:55am  Now in a ‘long’ position on my DAX-30 15-min chart, another Master-The-Trend set-up but a Strategy-A pattern this time.  Stop loss is 13 pips.

12:45pm   Just got back indoors and seen that my Brent Crude position has been stopped out at -15 pips.

13:55pm    I am now also out of my 2nd trade of the day – the DAX position has given me a profit of +55 pips so my overall score for the day is +40 pips.  I am more than happy with the day’s outcome so I am switching off my charts and getting back outside where we re experiencing some very ‘adverse’ weather.

Tomorrow is Non Farm Payrolls Day so no trading for me so my total for the week stands at +170 pips and I will be in front of my screens on Monday or Tuesday, largely depending on how the weekend goes !