08:05am  ~  Just off for a cycle ride along the Camel Estuary to Wadebridge and back and then I’ll sit down to do some emailing – nothing planned for a trip out today yet.

As you can see from the ‘Market Close’ figures below (a sea of red) the markets had a generally bearish day yesterday with events in Ukraine weighing heavily on trader’s minds, although Asian markets have picked up slightly earlier today so we may see some optimism returning to equities. It would seem that Pro-Russian rebels are co-operating at last in a small way with crash investigators so tensions are abating slightly although focus is now turning to the EU Foreign Ministers meeting today where do doubt talk of economic sanctions for Russia will be top of the agenda and give some direction for European equities this morning. Although U.S. indices seem to be in a generally bullish mood after bouncing off support levels late last week, the German Dax 30 looks as though it is going to test the 9600 level once again today or tomorrow so watch out for ‘short’ trade opportunities that are heading down towards that area. The S&P 500 experienced a sell-off as yesterday’s session opened but interestingly traders then started buying around 1965 which has been a previous support a few times last week – watch out for ‘long’ opportunities here again today if there are suitable triggers.

With the troubles in Gaza continuing plus the initial equity sell-off in Europe there was an inevitable move over to Gold yesterday and the price surged ahead in early trading although profit taking later in the day largely cancelled out any gains. The price ended up just over $1 at $1310.30.  Crude oil stocks at Cushing are still below normal levels and together with strong demand from refineries held the WTI Crude price up, it finished the day at $102.83, up $1.01.

Market Close Monday 21st July 2014:   Dow Jones 30  -48.45 @ 17,051.73  S&P 500  -4.59 @ 1,973.63  FTSE 100  -21.01 @ 6,728.44  DAX 30  -107.97  @ 9612.05