08:25am CET (07:25 UK time)  ~  Our weekend guests departed for the UK last night so it’s back to normal here today, I shall be here in the study this morning catching up on emails and also doing some chart watching from time to time – plus a cycle ride at some stage, I’ve not been out on my bike since last Wednesday.

With U.S. markets closed yesterday for Martin Luther King Day all focus was on Europe and the impending stimulus package that is expected to be announced in a few days time. It is thought that the ECB is going to provide around €500 Billion and the Euro did stage a mini rally on the back of this news although it was down during the overnight Asian session. Equities today are expected to be fairly bullish after the International Monetary Fund downgraded their global expansion forecast for the rest of this year and also 2016, urging the world’s central bank to continue with their various loose monetary policies  -  Turkey maybe first off the blocks with an expected rate cut later today. Overnight, China announced a fairly optimistic annual GDP figure, not quite at the 7.5% that the government had wanted, but still good when all is taken into account.

The Crude Oil market did not react positively to the Chinese GDP numbers but instead was under pressure once again after the Saudis yet again underlined just how influential they are in the global oil market – they reiterated their stance again yesterday by saying that they can afford to let the price drop well below $30 per barrel and to prepare for any eventuality they are preparing for a severe cut in government spending.  The U.S. Crude Oil benchmark WTI Crude dropped $1.29 yesterday to $47.91 and after the Asian session is now trading around $47.65 with UK Brent Crude also down to $48.59 after trading as high as $50.58 over the past 3 days.

As I mentioned yesterday, the $1280 resistance level did provide some shorting opportunities and so far has failed to get over this hurdle, it finished $3.40 down yesterday at $1276.80 but may test the level again as equity markets may remain bullish for the rest of the week.

Market Close Monday 19th January 2015:   Dow Jones 30  Closed @ 17,511.57  S&P 500  Closed @ 2,019.42  NASDAQ  Closed @ 4,142.14  FTSE 100  +35.26 @ 6,585.53  UK AIM  +1.44 @ 697.55  DAX 30  +74.58 @ 10,242.35  CAC 40  +15.31 @ 4,394.93  IBEX  +118.60 @ 10,157.60   Nikkei 225 (Today)  +352.01 @ 17,366.30  Hang Seng (currently)  +213.399 @ 23,951.88

All times below are CET (GMT +1hr)

09:40am  ~ Not much happening on my charts so I am off for a cycle ride shortly with a neighbour.

11:10am  ~  I don’t often trade the UK FTSE 100 but I’ve just spotted a ‘long’ trade on it using an established trendFX set-up (strategy 1) so I am in the market with a whopping 9 pips stop loss.  The general movement of the FTSE 100 index on a daily basis is never usually as good as the S&P 500, Gold or Crude Oil but if the stop loss is fairly low there is the chance that you could achieve at least 20 pips out of a trade and as you probably know, 20 pips profit every few days amounts to a big potential earning at the end of the month.

13:35pm  ~  We are off out for lunch now and as my FTSE trade has far surpassed the 9 pip stop loss I’m happy to close it ahead of the U.S. open, I have managed +33 pips. I will send out a chart screenshot of the trade as soon as I am back this afternoon.

16:40pm  ~  Back home from a typically long Spanish lunch and not much occurring at the moment on my charts.

18:50pm  ~  If the S&P 500 drops down below 2011.20 it will trigger a ‘Trade With A Day Job‘ trade – more soon.

18:55pm ~ I am in ‘short’ on the S&P 500 with 20 pip stop loss.

19:15pm  ~  Quick trade and out with a +20 pip profit.