09:10am  ~  Nice late start for me today, I have a some ‘admin’ to catch-up on here in the study this morning and then we’re flying off to Majorca for a couple of weeks around midday.

Despite worse than expected U.S. jobseekers numbers both the S&P500 and Dow Jones indices managed to close up for the second day in a row. I was watching my S&P chart last night when it came up against a persistent resistance just shy of the 1900 level. Over here in Europe, traders will be cautious ahead of European and Ukrainian election results, so there’s not expected to be any fireworks in the market ahead of the bank holiday weekend.

The bullish run-up for US crude oil seems to have come to a halt for the time being. After hitting a one month high on Wednesday, traders realised the market may be priced a bit high. There was not a reason in particular to justify the drop; data has been fairly good, it was probably some short-term profit taking on contracts. The July contract was down 33 cents to $103.74. Gold initially spiked around $10 higher after poor initial U.S. jobless claims more than 10 dollars higher but then settled down after better Manufacturing and Housing data. It closed up $1 at $1,294.

11:15am  ~  All finished here in the study and nothing to report regarding the charts, so I am packing away and we’re off in half an hour to Biggin Hill Aerodrome.