07:35am UK time.    After a few days away from the markets it’s back to normal today – I shall be here at home for most of the day catching up on emails and doing some chart watching.

European traders this week will be concentrating on the UK elections on Thursday (and results before markets open on Friday) with prospects of another hung parliament facing us. The markets never enjoy indecision so there may well be a few days of sideways movement on the FTSE 100 before a day of increased trading volume on the last day of the week. Main news after the overnight Asian session is that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has cut its minimum lending rate for the second time this year, it is now sitting at 2.25% down by 0.25%.

Worries over a slowing of the Chinese economy has prompted many other Asian countries to also loosen their monetary policy so Canada, South Korea and India have also followed China’ lead in dropping their central bank minimum lending rate. Poor economic outlook and rising property prices was cited as the main reason for the RBA’s decision together with a strong Australian Dollar and as expected the currency did fall against the U.S. Dollar in the past few hours.

In the U.S. there are now renewed worries over the strength of their economy after disappointing ISM Manufacturing numbers for last month and traders fears maybe confirmed at the end of the week as the major Non Farm Payroll announcement is out a week late due to public holidays. There are now a growing number of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members that are retreating to the December rate rise camp with the Chicago Fed Chairman Charles Evans suggesting on Friday that even early 2016 may now be too early.

Market Close Monday 4th May 2015:   Dow Jones 30  -74.61 @ 18,035.53  S&P  500  -7.91 @ 2,106.85  NASDAQ  -27.11 @ 4,488.15  FTSE 100  -84.25 @ 6,946.28  UK AIM  -1.45 @ 752.40  DAX 30  -378.94 @ 11,432.72  CAC 40  -133.99 @ 5,039.39  IBEX   -228.80 @ 11,378.90   Nikkei 225 (Today)  -482.89 @ 19,576.06  Hang Seng (currently)  -264.05 @ 28,136.29

10:45am   Just back from a long cycle ride up the coastal path and I am now in a ‘long’ position on my WTI Crude chart using a trendFX strategy – the stop loss is 21 pips.

15:00pm   Not much happening on my charts during the few times I’ve glanced at them today but I am now in a ‘short’ on the German Dax 30 chart using the same trendFX strategy as my WTI trade. Stop loss is quite high at 69 pips but there is quite a high movement on this index so far today.  I did miss a ‘long’ Gold trade at lunchtime while I was at the Lord Nelson having lunch…

17:35pm  I am off out in a minute so I have just come out of both my positions — the WTI Crude trade has come in at +130 pips and the Dax one is +104 pips.