08:00am CET (7:00 am UK)  ~  Another bright sunny day and there is talk of a fishing trip at lunchtime – but before then I shall be here in the study catching up on emails and doing some chart watching.

All eyes and ears will be on ECB President Mario Draghi at 2:30pm (UK 13:30) when he is expected to outline the exact details of his bond-buying programme that was announced in general at the beginning of the year although many EU members are now questioning the need for any money printing exercise as the drop in the oil price has acted as a better stimulus as the Germans pointed out last week. On the subject of Europe, the Greek problem has been quiet for a few days although there are now rumours that the new government is trying to get into bed with the Russians which can only be an advantage considering how much money they need at the moment – the Greeks already process a large amount of petrol for the Russians so there is already an established relationship that can only grow now as Putin seeks to annoy the EU in Brussels.

Equities in the U.S. were slightly down on the day following good numbers for Payrolls and PMI which then hints at a rise in interest rates sooner than expected, which is then bad for equities – bad news is good news again. Here in Europe the trend was slightly different where early losses were wiped and most equity markets ended positively. The Crude oil market both here and the U.S. is still rangebound with WTI having a positive day even though there was another rise in U.S. Crude stocks.

Market Close Wednesday 4th March 2015:   Dow Jones 30  -106.47 @ 18,096.90  S&P 500  -9.25 @ 2,09.53  NASDAQ  -13.42 @ 4,445.36  FTSE 100  +30.11 @ 6,919.24  UK AIM  +3.05 @ 712.20  DAX 30  +110.02 @ 11,390.38  CAC 40  +48.10 @ 4,917.35  IBEX  +36.60 @ 11,051.30   Nikkei 225 (Today)  +48.24 @ 18,715.84  Hang Seng (currently)  -279.17 @ 24,186.21

All time below are CET (UK + 1hr)

10:10am  ~  Going off for a cycle ride, nothing to see on my charts at the moment.

12:55pm  ~  There’s a possible ‘short’ UTB pattern setting up on my Brent Crude chart.

13:10pm  ~  I am now in the above mentioned trade, the stop loss is 19 pips.

13:55pm  ~  Just on time my trade has finished – I am off now for my fishing trip and I have also been stopped out of my Brent trade, the price has just moved up quite quickly in the last few minutes.