As I mentioned yesterday, myself and a few friends are having a private track-day outing near Bedford today, so no trading for me.

As my comments are all too brief today (as I am having a day away from the markets) I thought you maybe interested in some ramblings of the MD of Capital Spreads, which were contained in an email he sent out earlier this morning.  Here is just part of it:

“Morning Commentary, Tuesday 14th December, 9:35am ~ A little sell off in US markets towards the close of their session has left Europe starting the day just slightly on the back foot.  The indices have had a decent run higher and in the cast of the FTSE it is just struggling slightly at the resistance around 5850, even though yesterday’s close above this level was a positive sign that the bulls are still in control.

The focus is building on the EU whose leaders are due to meet on Thursday to discuss how to protect the euro against any future crisis and ultimately prevent the eurozone from breaking up altogether.  The discussions will not be easy, but you get the feeling that since no radical decisions have been taken thus far, the required outcome is most unlikely to be achieved.  Germany and France’s failure to commit to more than what the ECB is doing with its government bond purchases doesn’t fill you with confidence.  At the very least, if the political will is there to save the eurozone from destruction, the bailout fund should be increased.

But going forward this is not the answer to the problems.  Germany and France’s opposition to various proposals is understandable as bailing out bank after bank and then country after country does not encourage financial prudence.  The peripheral EU countries have got a long hard slog ahead of them and years of near negative, if not recessional, growth before their economies recover properly”