08:55am   No trading for me as I am helping the builders with house renovations today and Monday so will be back in front of my screens next Tuesday.

Market Update:

As mentioned in some comments yesterday, I thought that U.S. equity markets were due some correction and had perhaps reached their weekly high already and this sentiment seemed to play out during Thursday’s session. The Dow Jones 30 index oscillated between bullish and bearish moves for most of the day but eventually closed down just over 97 points at 26,017.18 and the wider S&P-500 was also down but not a much in percentage terms.  The main driver for this pessimism was prospect of a government shutdown later today as traditionally this will trigger a short-term bearish pullback in equity markets.

The overnight Asian trading session was not as downbeat and most markets closed up despite traders concerns over possible fall-out over a U.S.government shutdown. The two main Chinese indices both finished 0.41% ahead at the close with the Shanghai Composite trading at 2-year highs following encouraging Chinese growth numbers that were released yesterday.  Oil markets traded lower again on news of higher U.S. production figures although traders report that price is fairly well supported at the moment as inventories are still below the record high levels we witnessed at the end of last year. Brent Crude fell 39 cents during Thursday’s session to close at $69.10 and is further down this morning although there is good support around the $68.25 level.

Gold reversed a 2-day decline yesterday when it reversed at the $1323 level and ended the session broadly neutral with some traders pointing out that it could benefit from the current fall in crypto-currency values. The weaker U.S. Dollar will also help the value rise and we could see a return to the $1344 level.