07:10am  ~  An early start for me today, I have few hours here in the study catching up on emails and then we’re flying back to Majorca for the rest of the month just before lunchtime. No trading for me today as it’s Non Farm Payrolls day once again.

Due to the U.S. employment numbers being announced later today, we will probably see a temporary halt to the bullish trend that equities have enjoyed over the past few days, Greek election woes have been forgotten for the time being while traders concentrate on the combined good news of delayed interest rate hikes in the U.S. and impending monetary stimulus from ECB President, Mario Draghi. Both the Dow Jones and wider S&P 500 indices had a good session yesterday, both were up around 1.8% by the close last night and a move towards new highs look possible although European equities look susceptible to volatility that’s going to be caused by deflation worries and a Greek exit from the Euro. The Euro continued its slide downwards as traders expect the ECB to kick-off their money-printing programme soon, it is now at 1.1797, its lowest level for nearly ten years.

Crude Oil prices in the U.S. staged another slight rally yesterday on news that many shale oil producers will be halting production due to extraction now being unprofitable and this situation will result in a cut on production, just as the Saudis had wanted. It gained 12 cents by the close yesterday to $48.91 but in the UK Brent Crude traded sideways for most of the day and ended flat at just over $51.  Gold suffered again on rising equity values and lost nearly $3 during trading yesterday although it is still stuck in the $1150 – $1250 band that it’s been trading in since falling into it last September.

Market Close Thursday 8th January 2015:   Dow Jones 30  +323.35 @ 17,907.87  S&P 500  +36.24 @ 2,062.14  NASDAQ  +80.55 @ 4,240.55  FTSE 100  +150.13 @ 6,569.6  UK AIM  +6.09 @ 700.22  DAX 30  +319.43 @ 9,837.61  CAC 40  +147.46 @ 4,260.19  IBEX  +223.60 @ 10.115.00   Nikkei 225 (Today)  +30.63 @ 17,197.73  Hang Seng (currently)  +127.92 @ 23,963.45