08:45am CET (07:45 UK time)  ~  Another day away from my charts – the builders are finishing off this morning at last so I will get in their way for an hour or so and I am also going to spend time quietly here in the study finishing off my Binary Trading book.  We are flying back to the UK for a week later this evening.

The markets were in the doldrums yesterday but then Fed Chief Janet Yellen had a quick look at her charts and decided they needed a slight boost so at a Senate Democrats meeting last night she reiterated her stance on interest rates and confirmed they were not going to be raised any time soon. This gave the Dow Jones and S&P indices a nice shove and they both ended the day up around 1%, no doubt helped also by positive employment numbers as well.  European equity markets also had a positive day with the German Dax 30 sitting almost at all time highs again having forgotten about the Greek tragedy that’s playing out just south of them.

Oil markets are still suffering from over production and the U.S. WTI Crude hit an all time low intraday of $43.65 before bargain hunters stepped in yesterday evening and pushed the price up to finish the session at $44.60 and is still rattling around that level this morning after the overnight Asian session. The strong U.S. Dollar weighed on Gold values yesterday, it closed over $25 to $1258.20 and at one stage hit the October support/resistance line at $1250 – some more pessimistic news from Greece over the weekend should keep that support level intact.

Market Close Thursday 29th January 2015:   Dow Jones 30  +225.48 @ 17,416.85  S&P 500  +19.09 @ 2,021.25  NASDAQ  +40.98 @ 4,140.38  FTSE 100  +14.33 @ 6,825.94  UK AIM  +1.45 @ 690.46  DAX 30  +82.39 @ 10,710.97  CAC 40  -13.27 @ 4,610.94  IBEX  -142.00 @ 10,456.90   Nikkei 225 (Today)  -189.51 @ 17,606.22  Hang Seng (currently)  -290.72 @ 24,571.09