08:15am CET (07:15 UK time)   Arrived here in Barcelona yesterday evening for a 5-day break with some trader friends although the timetable does not include much trading – but I will still be sending out my daily trading guidance emails for the rest of the week.  My next post here will be on Monday 29th.

Market Update:

All eyes will be on the Eurogroup meeting today to see if the new Greek proposals for debt repayment come up to the mark for Greece’s lenders.  The German Dax 30 index has been fairly bullish over the last week or so on hopes of a lasting agreement and the daily chart does look as though it is lining itself up for further up moves.  It would seem that the ECB and IMF have persuaded Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to change his stance on VAT, corporation tax and pensions and this may mean that talks can at last move forwards to a conclusion but there has now been large demonstrations back in Greece because it seems to the population that the anti-austerity Syriza party is now going back on the stance it was elected on. This may mean that a solution in Brussels to this problem is then scuppered in Athens so there’s still along way to go yet.

There was mixed news out of the U.S. yesterday – New Home Sales came in higher than expected but Durable Goods numbers disappointed so the main Dow Jones 30 index had a roller-coaster ride for most of the session but eventually ended 25 points up at 18,144 although the wider S&P 500 ended mainly flat at 2125, close to a local resistance area.  In the crude oil market, the weekly stock situation in the U.S. is expecting to show a drop due to a continued easing in production and this helped push up the price during yesterday’s session to $61:15, a rise of 95 cents.