08:15am     My chart watching today is going to be fairly fragmented as I am out at meetings around midday but I will be in front of my charts for the next few hours and later this afternoon. Any trades I take will be detailed in my Trading Diary below.

Market Update:

U.S. markets experienced another volatile session after two days of declines, the Dow Jones 30 index was at various stages of the day down by 567 points and up by 601 points and it eventually closed 567.02 points ahead at 24,912.77.  It failed to stay over the significant 25,000 level by the close and in futures markets this morning it is sliding down and is at 24, 584 at the moment with the 4hr chart suggesting further bearish moves over the next few hours although most traders I have spoken to believe we have seen the bottom of the market as bargain hunters are emerging.  The S&P-500 index closed 1.7% higher at 2,695.14 and the Nasdaq was up by 2.1% at 7,115.88.

The overnight Asian session was mixed with most indices initially rallying on the back of the U.S. close although most then gave up their gains to end in negative territory. The Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng Index and South Korean Kospi all closed down on the day although the Japanese Nikkei-225 and Australian ASX-200 finished just ahead with technology and automakers contributing to the gains.  Wednesday’s European trading session is just getting going and so far it seems there is some optimism although volatility is still the watchword so anything could happen.

Gold also experienced a volatile session yesterday and traded in a near $26 range and eventually closed down by $5.40 at $1323.90 which was right on its 50-day moving average. Investors have taken this to be a minor support level and started buying into the safe-haven metal this morning and this has driven the price upto $1329.70. Oil price rose on Wednesday on a rising equity market and reports that U.S. crude stocks are going to decline this week, confirmation of this situation will come later today with the weekly Crude Oil Inventories report.

Trading Diary:

09:25am  I have just taken a ‘long’ position on my German DAX-30 15-min chart using the Master-The-Reversal  UTB set-up.  My stop loss is 33 pips which is higher than usual but ‘normal’ for this week !

10:25am   Just closed off my DAX-30 position at +41 pips. Two reasons – firstly my analysis this morning on my daily Trading-Guidance sheet showed a mainly ‘bearish’ trend for the DAX and secondly I am off out soon so I took a reasonable profit rather than leaving the position open during these volatile times.

10:45am   Screens off and away now until mid-afternoon.

14:35pm    Back home now and I have just taken a ‘long’ position on my UK FTSE-100 chart – details to follow.

14:50pm   The above trade is a Master-The-Reversal Strategy-B set-up on the 15min FTSE chart and the stop loss is 26 pips.  There was also a ‘long’ trade opportunity on the s&P-500 chart but due to the higher volatility the stop loss on that position would have round 80 pips so I have passed on that one.

16:20pm    The FTSE price seems to be getting slightly stuck at the 7300 level so I have closed my position, it’s achieved a 75 pip profit.  That’s all for today folks !