07:45am   This will be the last ‘Market Update’ from me for a short while, I am off on holiday tomorrow for 10 days so I will be back here on Tuesday 16th August.  I am not trading today either as it’s the monthly Non Farm Payrolls this afternoon so if you are watching your charts, do tread carefully but have a good day on the markets.

Market Update:

Equity markets around the world have traded mostly flat following the Bank Of England’s interest rate cut yesterday with the overnight Asian markets ending mixed, the Hang Seng Index was a notable winner though (+288 points) with other indices either slightly up or marginally down . Last night’s U.S. trading session close saw the S&P-500 and Dow Jones 30 end almost flat but this morning’s European session looks quite positive ahead of the U.S. jobs report that is due out at 14:30pm European time.

As well as cutitng the base lending rate to 0.25%, the Bank Of England also announced a stimulus package to include an increased bond purchasing programme and a new funding scheme for banks to ease money flow to companies. These measures acted positively on the FTSE-100 index yesterday, helping it to end the day  at 6740 up 105 points and this morning it is up slightly further at 6781 currently. The Gold price has struggled to advance this week after a good run up, it has failed to get through the $1367 level a few times in the past 4 days but there could be a reaction after this afternoon’s U.S. Non Farm Payrolls.