07:15am CET (06:15 UK)  ~  Early start for me today as we’re off to Palma soon for the day to see friends and go out in their new boat.  Temperatures should reach 75° so ideal weather for our trip.

Big news from the markets yesterday was the ending of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing Programme where the central bank has been propping up the world’s largest economy with bond buying. Chairman Janet Yellen is confident that the U.S. is strong enough now to stand on its own feet and unexpectedly she gave no concrete guidance regarding the timeline for an increase in interest rates apart from saying it will not occur for “..a considerable time..” U.S. equities rallied on the open but quickly adopted a bullish slant which carried on through until a further push upwards as Wednesday’s session closed at 4pm New York time, as you can see from the figures below, they ended slightly down on the day and European markets should open flat as a consequence while traders over here try to decide direction towards the end of the week.  Bear in mind that when the previous quantitative easing programmes (QE1/QE2) finished there was a tumbled in U.S. equities, so watch out for a similar reaction this time perhaps ?

Gold and Crude Oil markets all reacted negatively to the Fed’s news and the precious metal ended the day down over $16 at $1212 although WTI Crude ended the session slightly higher at $81.55 per barrel due to an earlier rally, although it has now formed a reversal candle on the daily chart for a possible move back down to its $80 support level.

Market Close Wednesday 29th Oct. 2014:   Dow Jones 30  -31.44 @ 16,974.31  S&P 500  -2.75 @ 1,982.30  NASDAQ  -16.07 @ 4,090.55  FTSE 100  +51.70 @ 6,453.87  UK AIM +2.87 @ 715.19  DAX 30  +14.62 @ 9,082.81  CAC 40  -2.03 @ 4,110.64  IBEX  -147.00 @ 10,247.80  Nikkei 225  +125.03 @ 15,678.94  Hang Seng  -154.81  @ 23,665.06