07:25am UK  ~  Up early ahead of another day of meetings before I can fly back to Majorca later this evening so not much trading I would suspect again today.

The markets yesterday had a bit of an uneventful session as all eyes are on the U.S. Federal Reserves meeting on Wednesday evening where it is widely rumoured that the Fed Chairman Janet Yellen is going to announce the end of their third quantitative easing programme and there may also be some ‘guidance’ on when U.S. interest rates will finally start to rise. Traders remember the end of QE1 & QE2 was met with sharp market falls so there is a marked reluctance to enter any large positions before Wednesday’s decision hence the relatively low volumes during yesterday’s session and even a drop below $80 for WTI Crude did not excite anyone into any action – however the price did recover slightly and finished a few cents over the $80 support level.  Over here in the UK Brent Crude suffered similiar falls amid over supply and weak demand factors but did not quite reach the $82:50 low of a few weeks ago and is rallying slightly as I write this now with $86 in its sights.

Gold is still under pressure as relative calm in world events has kept investors interest in equity markets so far this week although a sharp fall tomorrow evening may encourage some buying to lift the precious metal up so it can continue its bullish momentum that kicked off at the beginning of this month. It ended yesterday down almost $5 at $1225.5 but Asian traders have stepped in overnight on a bargain-hunting spree and lifted the price up around $4, currently at $1229.0 and looking at my chart there seems to be more bullish movement in store today.

Market Close Monday 27th Oct. 2014:   Dow Jones 30  +12.53 @ 16,817.94  S&P 500  -2.95 @ 1,961.63  NASDAQ  +4.00 @ 4,046.02  FTSE 100  -55.69 @ 6,363.46  UK AIM -2.27 @ 706.76  DAX 30  -85.19 @ 8,902.61  CAC 40  -32.16 @ 4,096.74  IBEX  -144.10 @ 10,195.20