09:10am  ~  Quick shopping trip to Bluewater in Kent this morning, then back home via a trader friend’s house (Steve) in Sevenoaks.

The markets on Friday were dominated by news in the U.S. that the gradual curtailing of the stimulus programme by the Federal reserve will start soon after all. It was suggested a week or so ago that there was no plans in the near future for the Fed to stop their tapering but the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard let slip on Thursday that an October taper was still on the cards. This has thrown the markets into a bit of confusion and on Friday we saw a second day of losses on the Dow Jones and S&P500 indexes.

It was a different story with Gold and oil prices though, as (fairly) good news helps their respective values to fall, and that’s what we witnessed with both commodities. Oil traders felt that increasing Libyan oil production coupled with the easing of tensions in Syria meant that the price was still too high and we had a drop of WTI down to the $104.75 level.  Gold also staged a decline to $1325 by the end of Friday’s session as investors at the moment do not need a safe-haven.

20:30pm  ~  Just arrived home so too late for any trading, I spent the afternoon clay-pigeon shooting in Steve’s paddock.