08:40am  ~  Another day away from the screens – I am off to London in an hour to visit some old trading friends and spread betting companies in the city.  I may be back in time for some trading this evening but I will report back later

European equities are set to open lower after an overnight sell off in the US and Asia, in New York the Dow Jones posted a sharp plunge yesterday losing 172 points to 16,272 as investors are waking up from that disappointing employment report.  The New Year has not seen the usual buying frenzy often seen when traders come back from the Christmas holiday. Instead, the markets have stalled as no new catalysts have emerged to keep the bulls going and the double edged sword of good economic data being bad if it leads to further tapering by the Fed.   There are concerns stock markets could start rolling back – the US indices made a decisive move out of their ranges yesterday and Asian indices have been already trending lower since late December so the question is whether the European indices will follow suit today? Having said that, the S&P hit a significant support/resistance level at 1815 last night, so there may be a rebound from that level in the next few days – this was a resistance level in December but now seems to be support.

Doubts regarding the pace of the US economic recovery continued to allow gold prices to rebound slightly. The precious metal gained over $4 to $1253 also helped by ongoing strong physical demand in China in the run up to their new year celebrations.

23:25pm  ~  I got back from a very full day in London half an hour ago, so no trading at all for me today – I am planning a much more relaxed day at home tomorrow.