09:15am  ~  A relaxed start for me today as we were up very late last night/early this morning playing cards.  A group of us are having a cycle ride over to the coast at Bradwell-On-Sea shortly, a round trip of 52 miles so I shall not be around this morning but should be back after lunchtime.

If you were in the markets yesterday you could not have failed to see that equities took a bashing – the U.S. Dow Jones 30 ended down 167 pips at 16447 and the S&P500 had similiar fall although there was some limited buying late in the session. In London the FTSE100 hit an all time high close to 6900 in early trading but bearish sentiment in the U.S. dragged it back down by lunchtime.  Disappointing earnings from Walmart and mixed data are being held responsible for the fall in U.S. equities but there is also technical reasons as we saw a spinning top reversal candle on the daily chart earlier in the week right at a major resistance level.

Stronger initial jobless claims in America caused Gold to adopt a bearish pose in early trading yesterday – fewer claim applicants for the prior week hurt its value by removing the ‘safe haven’ appeal. Poor data later on in the day failed to reverse the trend and Gold closed down $9 at $1,296.  Looking at the daily chart it would seem that the price is now firmly heading towards the $1275 support level over the next week or so.

15:35pm  ~  Just got back from the ride, one of the group had a breakdown, so it’s taken longer than it should have.  Time for lunch and I’ll have a quick look at the S&P500 chart at 5pm for a short while to see if there’s any set-ups to take advantage of before we’re off for a long weekend break.

18:10pm  ~  Been watching the S&P500 chart for an hour now but nothing to report, so switching it off and we’re going now, be back on Tuesday around midday.  Another profitable week on the markets – my score has come in at +87 pips.