09:25am   Back to ‘work’ today after my fairly complicated house move although I will not be trading as the U.S. Non Farm Payrolls are out later so the markets will be drifting sideways for the next 5-hours and then be quite volatile following the announcement. Back in front of my charts on Monday but catching on emails and Skype calls for the rest of the day.

Market Update:

U.S. markets closed last night mainly flat ahead of today’s monthly job’s report as traders adjust their positions ahead of the uncertainty that always follows the Non Farm Payrolls announcement. The expectation is for a rise of 170,000, ahead of last month’s figure of +156,000 but watch a sharp reaction at 14:30pm European time.

The overnight Asian trading session was dominated by the People’s Bank of China’s surprise decision to rise short term interest rates by 0.10% to 2.35% and together with the earlier Caixin Manufacturing PMI survey for Chinese purchasing managers showing a decline from 51.9 to 51.0 meant that their equity markets suffered and both the main Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng indices closed down earlier this morning.

European markets started today’s session with an unusual amount of bullish sentiment and whilst the London FTSE-100 has carried on in this vein so far, French and German stocks have retreated backwards after a good start. Crude oil markets have been trading up this week although the last few sessions have seen prices heading sideways and the U.S. benchmark WTI Crude has now been in the $52.50 > $54.00 range for the past 10 days as it waits further news from the Trump administration regarding his energy policies.  The wider agreement on production restrictions between OPEC and other major producers (notably Russia) still seems to be holding and oil traders I have spoken to this morning seem to think we may have found the bottom of the market at around the $50 level.