07:50am CET (06:50 UK time)  ~  Nice relaxing day for me here at home, loads of emails to catch-up on plus some chart watching from time to time. Rumours of some sailing this afternoon abounded last night as well.

You cannot have failed to notice that the bearish trend that started at the middle of September seems to have come to an end for the time being, the bounce that the S&P 500 has encountered has come back by over 50% and yesterday saw another good day for the bulls. There were two main drivers for the markets during yesterday’s session, firstly encouraging Chinese industrial production plus GDP figures came in better than the market expected and there was also news that the European Central Bank has signalled they are to begin buying corporate bonds in the secondary market suggesting that they are unwilling to stand by and watch the EU fall into deflation and risk recession again. Overnight in Japan, the Nikkei 225 index rallied just over 2% on this news just slightly more than the main U.S. indices.

Crude oil values were buoyed on optimistic Chinese economic news with the hope of renewed demand coupled with bargain basement prices,  WTI Crude rising again after bouncing off the $80 level last Thursday and was up nearly 70 cents to $82:54. The UK Brent Crude is also rallying upwards from its bounce last week and is currently sitting at $86:25 as I write this. With the upcoming Hindu festival of Diwali and delayed interest rate rise in the U.S. the Gold price is steadily rising from its low of $1183 at the beginning of the month and gained nearly $3 during yesterday’s session to finish at $1249.30 – watch out for some bearish trading opportunities today though as there was a good reversal candle formed on the daily chart and there maybe some profit taking today.

Market Close Tuesday 21st Oct. 2014:   Dow Jones 30  +215.14 @ 16,614.81  S&P 500  +37.27 @ 1,941.28  NASDAQ  +101.31 @ 3,971.39  FTSE 100  +105.26 @ 6,372.33  DAX 30  +169.20 @ 8,886.96  CAC 40  +90.00 @ 4,081.24  IBEX  +236.90 @ 10,152.10

13:05pm (CET)  ~  There’s been a couple of close shaves with regard to UTB opportunities over the last few hours but I am finally in a ‘long’ position on my Gold chart – the stop loss is a whopping 11 pips….

17:30pm  ~  Having real trouble with my broadband here this afternoon, the signal is weak so I have been unable to update this page regularly, it’s even slower than it normally is. Anyway –  I closed off my Gold trade off just before the U.S. trading session open as the price was starting to get volatile and coming up against a resistance level. I managed to come away with +23 pips.

22:45pm  ~  Still having inconsistent internet connection hence a late update to this diary – I have one trade to report, a “Trade With A Day Job” short position on the S&P 500 that ended with a 20 pip profit. All over before 8:30pm

Daily Target  +20 pips

Pips Achieved  +43 pips