08:35am  ~  I’ve been up here in London for a long-weekend break but will be returning back home later today, so there will not be much trading for me I would think – I’ll get going properly on the markets tomorrow.

European equities are set to start slightly higher this morning after better than expected Chinese export numbers have been released over the weekend – their November figures  jumped sharply, up by 12.7%, helped by a strong performance to the EU and US markets. This together with the U.S. employment numbers on Friday will give a positive slant to the beginning of the trading week, although there’s not much else to get the markets excited about this week, more focus will be given to next week’s FOMC meeting as we should get more hints regarding Fed tapering into the new year.

Last week the S&P500 had mainly negative week, although Friday’s surge resulted in a climb back to Monday’s level, and the daily chart looks as though bulls may have the upper hand at the moment. Buoyed by a positive U.S. economic outlook WTI Crude rose slightly (up 40cents) and Gold is just sticking on the $1210 support level so we may see some bullish moves there with the right candle pattern on the daily chart.