07:15am    At home here with Max all day doing some final work on the new ‘Long-Term-Trading’ manual so not sure whether I’ll be doing any chart watching as well – keep an eye on this diary for any updates.

On the whole last week was a good one for most world markets with record highs in the U.S. and in Asia the Nikkei 225 index reach a new 15 year high, although European indices were less buoyant but broadly positive after the previous week’s volatility. Most traders seem to be in a positive mood at the start of this week as they wait for central bank news from both the U.S. and Japan on Wednesday/Thursday. Disappointing economic data out last week in the States gives market participants hope that the Fed will be in no hurry for an early interest rate rise so the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq should all be fairly positive for the next few days, so we may see the leading DJ 30 up again at the 18,200 level that we last witnessed during the latter part of March.

European equities had a more subdued ride last week as the spectre of a Greek exit from the Eurozone continues to haunt the markets and they failed to reach the near-time highs of their counterparts across the Atlantic and here in the UK the FTSE 100 is currently sitting in the middle of a narrow trading band that it’s been in for the past week or so after hitting an all-time intraday high of 7132 two weeks ago.

Over on the oil market, prices are continuing to be supported by lower production in the U.S. together with unrest in the Middle East region as reports come in of increased attacks from Saudi Arabia and its allies against Yemen. This unrest has not yet disrupted OPEC member’s output but it is perceived to be a problem in the near future so has the effect of rallying futures contracts in the region.

Market Close Friday 24th April 2015:   Dow Jones 30  +21.45 @ 18,080.14  S&P 500  +4.76 @ 2,117.699  NASDAQ  +59.71 @ 4,536.78  FTSE 100  +17.03 @ 7,070.70  UK AIM  +2.45 @ 753.43  DAX 30  +87.27 @ 11,810.85  CAC 40  +22.54 @ 5,201.45  IBEX   +79.60 @ 11,505.40   Nikkei 225 (Today)  -69.42 @ 19,950.62  Hang Seng (currently)  +408.84 @ 28,469.82