07:30am  ~  I have 4 Skype calls this morning (the first one in a minute) plus a meeting here at home with the architect regarding a project I’m doing up the road, so there will be some chart watching on and off for most of the day.

The markets as a whole yesterday caught onto the fact that there was not much good news around to keep buyers interested, indices from all over the world recorded falls with the U.S. Dow Jones 30 losing 238 pips (-1.40%) and European indices losing around 1% on average. News that kept markets in check included the first Ebola case reported in the U.S. together with demonstrations by pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong plus economic factors such as UK PMI falling to its lowest figure in 17 months and continuing gloom in the Eurozone area regarding inflation and a struggling manufacturing sector.  The S&P 500 is now around a previous support area from June/July (at 1948) so we may see some respite from the falls today as bargain hunters come into the market although the Dow Jones has still got a way to fall before it reaches its next support level at 16720.

The differing policies of U.S. and European Central banks showed up in the EUR/USD forex pair yesterday with an imminent rate rise at the Fed set against the ECB doing all it can to keep rates at record lows – so the pair fell over 5 pips down to 1.2623 at the end of Wednesday’s trading – more movement no doubt later with the ECB interest rate announcement at lunchtime today.

There is an interesting Gold chart at the moment, the price seems to have stopped falling well before reaching its significant $1180 support level, this was mainly due to equity markets dropping dramatically yesterday so investors wanted somewhere safer to place their cash as geo-political problems reared up once more – it ended at $1213, up over $4 on the day and is currently at $1217 as Asian trading comes to an end.

Market Close Wednesday 1st Oct. 2014:  Dow Jones 30  -238.19 @ 16,804.71  S&P 500  -26.13 @ 1,946.16  NASDAQ  -64.70 @3,984.74  FTSE 100  -65.20 @ 6,557.52  DAX 30  -92.27 @ 9,382.01  CAC 40  -50.97 @ 4,365.27

09:20am  ~  As I’ve finished all my Skype calls and nothing much is happening on the charts I am going to have a cycle ride for an hour or so before the meeting.

16:30pm  ~  Been out since lunchtime up at the building site but back now to watch my S&P  500 chart after 5pm to see if there’s any “Trade With A Day Job” set-ups this evening.

17:15pm  ~  Looks like a possible ‘short’ trade setting up.

17:20pm  ~  I’m in that ‘short’ position, my stop loss is 20 pips.

17:35pm  ~  My trade has been stopped out at -20 pips.

18:55pm  ~ Although the S&P 500 is still open for another 2 hours I am closing my chart down as we’re out now for the evening

Daily Target  +20 pips

Pips Achieved  -20 pips