07:30am  ~  Up early this morning as I have a a couple of Skype calls with new traders in Australia in the next hour.  There’s no more trading for me for the rest of the year – I am at an end-of-year clay pigeon shoot today but I shall be replying to emails for a while this morning.

Markets were generally bullish yesterday with U.S. equities back around record levels with the largest index, the S&P 500 resting once again around the established resistance level at 2080.  Economic news out today in the form of U.S. Durable Goods and GDP is expected to be optimistic so we may see further equity gains and maybe a rise in Crude Oil values as good economic numbers indicates that industry will need more oil for production.  Yesterday’s Oil market enjoyed a volatile session after Saudi Arabia’s influential Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi has reiterated his country’s stance and confirmed they will no be cutting production and will allow prices to rise and fall naturally even if the price falls to $20 per barrel.  U.S. WTI Crude is currently sitting at $55.64 and looks to be edging closer to the near-term support at $53.60 with UK Brent Crude also heading in the same direction.

The Russian Rouble rallied slightly yesterday after record falls in the past few weeks as their Central Bank have been trying to prop up the banking system with rate hike and also selling foreign currency held by the bank. Large exporters have also been ordered by the Russian government to sell any foreign currency they’ve accumulated and convert it back to the Rouble in a desperate attempt keep the level up. Gold had been in a steady decline for the past few weeks and yesterday lost just over $18 to finish last night at $1170.60 during a volatile session due mainly to rising equity values – the next support area is around $1146 which seems an achievable goal by the end of the year.

Market Close Monday 22nd December 2014:   Dow Jones 30  +154.64 @ 17,959.44  S&P 500  +7.89 @ 2,078.54  NASDAQ  +11.89 @ 4,293.67  FTSE 100  +31.47 @ 6,576.74  UK AIM  +4.52 @ 696.54  DAX 30  +78.80 @ 9,856.76  CAC 40  +12.78 @ 4,254.43  IBEX  +7.40 @ 10,371.00   Nikkei 225 (Today)  Closed @ 17,635.14  Hang Seng (currently)  -48.02 @ 23,360.55