08:25am  ~  Back in Chelmsford this morning to watch the Tour De France coming through just after lunchtime but before then I shall be here in front of the laptop catching up on emails and doing some chart watching.

The markets ended last week with one of the lowest recorded volume levels of the year on Friday, obviously due to the extended Independence Day holiday in the U.S. and with no real news over the weekend there will be a subdued open today. Despite the lacklustre ending, the London FTSE 100 index had a largely bullish week and it’s now back up near the 6870 level that it has been banging against since may 2013 and the German Dax 30 is also at record levels again that were first seen this time last month – will resistance become support soon ?  In contrast to this apparent ceiling for European indices, markets in the U.S. are forging ahead with the Dow Jones 30 hitting an all time high of 17,069 with no real hindrance for further advances. The wider S&P500 is also on a march upwards after a bullish week and is only a couple of good news announcements away from the historic 2000 level.

With all this good news in the equity markets in is inevitable that alternative ‘safe-haven’ assets are suffering and there’s a reversal candle just formed on my weekly Gold chart around the $1330 level, indicating that we may see more profit-taking this coming week after a small run-up from $1240 at the beginning of June.  High Oil prices are also a dampener on equities but traders believe that any disruption caused by Middle Eastern tensions has now largely been put to bed and as a result WTI Crude eased back once again, ending Friday’s session down 30 cents at $103.77 – and as the prices eases further we should see the effect transferring across to equities giving investors another reason to keep a bullish outlook.

Market Close Friday July 4th 2014:   Dow Jones 30  Closed     S&P 500  Closed     FTSE 100  +1 @ 6866

09:55am  ~  Some fellow cyclists have just arrived to get me out of the house so I’m turning the charts off and going out.  Nothing has really occurred on the charts so far, fairly typical of a Monday morning, the European indices will wait until the U.S. gets going this afternoon before they decide on a definite direction.  I shall be out until mid-afternoon.

23:40pm  ~  I did manage to watch the S&P500 earlier this evening but unfortunately I could not update this diary due to a problem with the software.  I switched the chart on at 5pm and took a ‘long’ trade using a “Trade With A Day Job” Manual 2 set-up  just before 6pm.  The trade ended with a quick 25 pip profit and I took a chart screenshot to send to students.