08:55am CET (07:55 UK time)  ~  A nice lazy start to the week and that theme is going to continue as I shall be her at home for most of the day catching up on emails and doing a bit of chart watching.

The markets today are going to be dominated by news overnight of the Japanese Nikkei index’s biggest one day fall for 3 months, it fell over 500 points to end just under 17,000. This was prompted by profit-taking after Japan’s unexpected fall into recession following 3rd quarter numbers that show an annualised 1.6% fall in their economy and recent gains were cashed in by traders overnight. This surprise fall in GDP figures has encourage the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to call a snap-election and also postpone the mooted retail sales rise. Here in Europe, David Cameron has warned that the UK economy may suffer in the near future from the growing EU problems together with other worldwide problems – Ebola, Ukraine, Asian slowdown etc. although some say he’s getting his excuses in early ahead of the upcoming Autumn Statement and next year’s general election.

The Gold fall that’s been in progress since September 2011 looks to be slowing slightly and the low from a week ago  at $1130 looks to be a support level now but the next 5 days will confirm this theory. Not such a happy outlook for the price of Crude Oil with production still at relatively high levels amid slowing demand worldwide, U.S WTI Crude hit a 4-year low on Friday of $73.25 but quickly bounced back to $75.89 at the close although the price is under pressure again this morning as traders look towards the OPEC meeting next week.

Market Close Friday 14th November 2014:   Dow Jones 30  -18:05 @ 17,634.74  S&P 500  +0.49 @ 2,039.82  NASDAQ  +11.50 @ 4,224.99  FTSE 100  +18.92 @ 6,654.37  UK AIM  -2.12 @ 716.45  DAX 30  +4.43 @ 9,252.94  CAC 40  +14.51 @4,202.46  IBEX  +7.60 @ 10,148.80  Nikkei 225 (Today)  -507.03 @ 16,973.80  Hang Seng (currently)  -245.86  @ 23,841.52

All times below are Central European Time (CET)

13:45pm  ~  Been having problems with my internet this morning – absolutely no broadband coverage here so no trading/emailing etc.  It seems ok now so I shall start looking at my charts to see what I’ve been missing.

14:35pm  ~  Not much occurring so far today although there does look like a possible UTB setting up on the German Dax 30 chart.

15:10pm  ~  Just entered a ‘short’ position on my Dax chart, the stop loss is 17 pips. Just a quick trade as Mario Draghi is speaking at the moment so the market could take off one way or the other as anytime.

15:45pm ~  I am now out with a quick +20 pips profit.  There was also a UTB opportunity on the French CAC40 chart at exactly the same time but as I’ve mentioned before, the movement on this index is not as good as the German index so if there’s a choice of the two, try to take the Dax.

17:50pm  ~  Going to watch my S&P500 chart to see if there are any “Trade With A Day Job” opportunities, the strategy kicks off soon.

18:10pm  ~  In a ‘short’ position with a 24 pip stop loss.

23:05pm  ~  More problems with our internet here so not been able to update this diary – but I can now tell you that my earlier S&P 500 trade was stopped out at -24 pips.