11:25am  (10:25 UK time)  ~  We didn’t get in from our night out until 3am this morning so it’s a late start for me today.  And not much trading either for the rest of the day for me though, we are off to Barcelona for a long weekend later this afternoon plus I’ll be assisting the builders as much as possible as it is a nice distraction from my normal ‘job’ of sitting in front of a laptop.

The main news in the markets today is the 2-day Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming for the world’s Central Bankers that kicked off yesterday – and today the star of the show is no doubt Janet Yellen’s speech at 5pm (4pm UK time). Traders will be keen to hear her version of Mark Carney’s ‘Forward-Guidance’ as rumours abound regarding a U.S. interest rate hike sooner than next year and although these meetings are all closed to the press, there are always strategic ‘leaks’ throughout the day – her thoughts on the job market seem to be the main driver as to where the Fed’s interest rate should be.

Last night the S&P500 posted another record finish at 1992.37 – it got very close to the significant 2000 level during intra-day trading – with the Dow Jones 30 index following closely behind but not quite at a recent high. These bullish movements show that investors still do not believe that any sort of interest rate rise is looming on the horizon but tonight’s close will give us a better clue. Across at the commodities market, Gold traders are more bearish as equity markets rise and the value of the U.S. Dollar drops meaning the precious metal will be less popular as and investment. After a long move down, the WTI Crude had a volatile day as it dropped in early trading on weak Chinese manufacturing numbers but then recovered on optimistic U.S. data – it finished at just over $93 just ahead of the new support at $92:60.

Market Close Thursday 21st Aug. 2014:  Dow Jones 30  +60.36 @ 17,039.49  S&P 500  +22.18 @ 1,992.37  FTSE 100  -23.83 @ 6,777.66  

Daily Target +20 pips

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