08:55am (7:55 UK Time)  ~  Bit of a late start for me this morning  after a delayed journey out here to Majorca yesterday afternoon/evening.  Not much planned for the rest of the day apart from some emailing and chart watching this morning and a supermarket trip later for provisions.

Traders will no doubt be concentrating on Europe today after news yesterday that Italy has fallen into recession and the Eurozone’s strongest economy (Germany) had factory orders drop by the greatest amount since 2011 and exports to other Eurozone countries falling heavily, stirring up concerns that the EU is slipping into economic problems.  News from Russia that President Putin is retaliating to economic sanctions by banning certain imports from the Eurozone is not going to help the situation.  Rate announcements today by the Bank Of England and European Central Bank will concentrate traders minds on their charts this morning although no real surprises are expected but interest will fall on the voting on interest rates rather than the outcome.

The main U.S. markets dropped to their lowest levels during intraday trading yesterday since May but did rebound later in the day and the S&P500 has formed a reversal candle on the daily chart so any move above 1930 today may trigger a bullish move upwards to the 1950 level which has acted as support previously.  The Dow Jones hit a significant support early in yesterday’s session at 16,340.

Gold eventually succumbed to safe haven buying pressure due to mounting problems in Ukraine and Gaza/Israel and advanced over $13 by the end of trading yesterday to $1305.20.  This move up does seem to have confirmed the support at $1280, so watch out for that level in the next week or so.

Market Close Wednesday 6th Aug. 2014:  Dow Jones 30  +13.87 @ 16,443.34  S&P 500  +0.03 @ 1,920.24  FTSE 100  -46.32 @ 6,636.13  DAX 30  -59.30 @ 9,130.04  CAC 40  -25.74 @ 4,207.14

11:35am  ~  Not much happening on my charts so I’m out now for a few hours to do some errands and have some lunch.

15:10pm  ~  Back now so going to watch my charts for a while – nothing yet but it is the U.S. session open so I’ll wait for it to settle down first.

16:30pm  ~  I am now in a ‘short’ S&P 500 position using my UTB pattern – the stop loss is 44 pips.

17:55pm  ~  Just had some friends arrived so I’m out of my S&P trade. It has come ahead by 109 pips.