Well the market rarely does what you think it’ll do and today was another example of that. My bullish bias to the day was put into question fairly early on this morning as the FTSE 100 index failed to hold the 6137 support level. That was the first sign that the market was not quite ready to move on up as quickly as I had first anticipated.

I traded that particular level again and was immediately in the red for about 30 minutes, and just lucky not to have been stopped out. The FTSE recovered and I managed to bag a few points as the FTSE dipped back below the 20EMA and looking rather bearish at the time.

I was out for lunch and by the time I returned the FTSE had broken through the 6137 level despite sitting on it for about an hour. The US session saw further downside with the FTSE retesting the 6100 level several times. I managed to get in and out off the 6100 support level for a few more points and called it a day.

As anticipated it turned out to be a fairly bullish day for the FTSE despite the dip towards the end of the day. I scaled out of my long position gradually, closing out half once I had 20 points in the bag, and the rest another 10 points to the good as the market pulled back following another MACD divergence.

The market seemed to hold around the 6062 level and I managed to get long again with further support from the 20 period moving average. The second trade was closed out for 15 points. After lunch it was a different story as the US markets dragged the FTSE down with the anticipated interest rate rise weighing in heavily.

A difficult days trading with the FTSE sitting in a fairly tight range for most of the day and finally breaking out in the late afternoon as the US markets opened. I was stopped out of my first trade for 10 points as I tightened up my stops once price had come back down and momentarily dropped below the 5964 level. Took one other short just before lunch off the 5982 intraday support and resistance level and managed to scalp a few points.

The FSTE bounced within a consolidation range for most of the day, and eventually proceeded to decline further towards the close. Only one more trade taken today which was a short off a pullback to a previous intraday support level at 5965, which was automatically closed out as the FTSE recovered a little prior to the US market session. I’ve just noticed that there was divergence between price and the MACD histogram at the time.