07:20am  ~  Another session here in the study for me this morning, getting through more ‘Name-A-Trading-System’ competition entries plus some chart watching before some clay pigeon shooting in Walberswick around midday which will probably go on for the rest of the afternoon.

As I hinted yesterday morning, U.S. equities had a sharp reversal with the Dow Jones 30 down 87 points by the end of the session at 16,864. The main driver for yesterday’s sell off in US equities was a report released by the World Bank which cut its forecast for global growth, in contrast with latest economic data. In addition, some surprise results in the US elections fuelled concerns of further gridlock in Washington which always causes uncertainty in the markets.  The wider S&P500 also had a negative day, although not as bad as the DJ30 but there was no real sign of bargain hunters on the way down so there may well be further selling going into the weekend.

Contrary to usual occurrences when there is a sell-off in equities, Gold did not end much higher by the close last night.  There was a brief buying at the start of the London session, but once the U.S. session got underway prices drifted lower and settled at $1260.5 and any move down past $1255 will probably see the price going for the $1240 support level. The US Department of Energy released its weekly Crude Oil stockpiles report, showing a bigger that expected draw on inventories, exactly double the initial estimates of 1.3m barrels. That pushed the WTI Crude prices up 18 cents to $104.49 a barrel whilst the OPEC agreed to maintain its production target at 30 million barrels a day.

09:10am  ~  Not much happening on my charts so I’m off for a quick cycle ride – to Halesworth then back via Brampton, around 20 miles round-trip I should think.

11:30am  ~  Back home now, but out again in 30 minutes until late afternoon. Just had a quick look at my favourite charts and I’ve not missed much.

17:00pm  ~  I’m now home and getting ready to do a barbeque for friends, but while I am sorting that out I shall also watch the S&P500 chart for any “Trade With A Day Job” set-ups.

17:35pm  ~  Well, that didn’t take long — I’m in a ‘short’ position on the S&P with a 13 pip stop-loss.

19:05pm  ~  People will be here soon so I’ve closed my S&P trade off – it has managed +93 pips.