08:10am  ~  We did not get back here until 11pm last night so there was no chart watching again for me yesterday – and later this morning we’re off horse-riding on Bodmin Moor and then the beach at Trevone Bay but first a quick cycle ride and some emailing.

The markets yesterday made up for losses on Monday and finished in positive territory although I can see that the main U.S. indices failed to significantly climb above recent highs, the S&P 500 touched 1986.70 before sellers came on the scene and drove the price down again after a bad reaction to latest earnings from Apple and Microsoft – is this level now unsustainable ?  Meanwhile, over here in Europe where the EU failed to agree on any concrete action towards the Russia regarding the downed Malaysian Airlines plane at yesterday’s meeting the German Dax 30 has been hovering around the 9730 resistance level now for a few sessions, if it does break clear there should be some good trading opportunities up towards 9870.  Not much happening today on the economic announcement front, there’s the Bank Of England interest rate level at 9:30am but no real surprise as to where that’s going to stay although there is reports of growing dissent among members of the Monetary Policy Committee as to the timing of an increase and then the Governor is speaking at lunchtime where no doubt he will give London traders some more of his forward guidance advice. For those Oil traders among you,  there is the weekly WTI Crude Inventories number from Cushing Oklahoma at 15:30pm UK time – last week’s number came in a lot lower than expectations and it is rumoured that some of that has been made up and levels are returning to ‘normal’.

Gold had a fairly neutral session yesterday with low volume trading during the start of the European session and then a surge as soon as the U.S. session got going, although a marked reluctance for buyers to remain in command saw prolonged profit taking take hold into the evening. The yellow metal does seem to be starting another bearish phase with some oversold readings on oscillators on the weekly chart, so watch out for trade opportunities down towards the $1240 level.

Market Close Tuesday 22nd July 2014:  Dow Jones 30  +68.81 @ 17,113.54  S&P 500  +9.90 @ 1,983.53  FTSE 100  +66.90 @ 6,795.34  DAX 30  +122.28  @ 9734.33