08:05am CET (07:05am UK time)    Back to ‘work’ after the long weekend Easter break for most today and I shall be here in the study catching up on emails that have come in over the last four to five days together with some chart watching and a cycle ride to Formentor later on. If I have any trades I will report details here later on.

While most of Europe’s traders have been away from their desks there’s been the monthly U.S. jobs data released in the form of the Non Farm Payrolls on Friday and disappointing figures showed that only 126,000 jobs were added to the economy in March, well down on the widely expected 246,000.  This announcement caused an immediate sell-off in American equities and both the Dow Jones 30 and S&P 500 finished down on the day although as you would expect, the buyers were back in the market yesterday as the prospect of a summer U.S. interest rate rise now looks to be less likely as the economy is not growing as strong as the Fed has been speculating. This rally yesterday put the S&P 500 back to the same level as last Monday so all of last week’s losses have been erased although the DJ 30 is lagging slightly and is still in a bearish trend that kicked off at the beginning of March.  As it’s the first day back for many European traders this morning, the main German, French and UK indices are expected to be fairly optimistic at the open following last night’s lead across the Atlantic.

News in the Oil market is fairly bullish at the moment as news has reached trading desks that Saudi Arabia has increased prices to to their Asian customers together with the fact that any increase in production from Iran following their landmark deal with the rest of the world over sanctions will not be seen on the worldwide oil market until well into 2016.  This should be tempered with news that Goldman Sachs has suggested to customers that crude prices need to remain low to achieve “a sufficient and sustainable slowdown in U.S. production growth” but bigger draw-downs from stock at Cushing, Wyoming and increased demand in the coming months should keep values from falling through the floor to early January levels.

Gold has had a good run up in the past few weeks on the back of general uncertainty in the equity markets but it is now (again) hit the resistance level at $1220 and started its retreat downwards so watch for bearish trade opportunities this week.

Market Close Monday 6th April 2015:   Dow Jones 30  +117.61 @ 17,880.85  S&P 500  +13.66 @ 2,080.62  NASDAQ  +34.97 @ 4,350.98  FTSE 100 6,833.46  UK AIM  715.25  DAX 30  11,967.39  CAC 40  5,074.14  IBEX  11,634.00   Nikkei 225 (Today)  +239.50 @ 19,637.48  Hang Seng (currently)  +192.89 @ 25,275.64

All times below are CET ( UK/GMT +1 hr)

08:55am   Nothing much happening on my charts so far this morning so I am off for a cycle ride for a couple of hours up towards Formentor.

12:35pm   Just had a possible ‘long’ trade on my Dax 30 chart show up (trendFX set-up) and I am now waiting for the price to rise above 12083 to trigger the position.

12:55pm    I am in the Dax trade with a 15 pip stop loss. It’s a strategy one set-up from the trendFX manual

13:30pm    A friend of mine has broken down in her car on the Ma-10 just outside Pollensa town so I am off to help – I’ve moved my stop loss on the trade to break even and placed the profit target at a cheeky +50 pips.

15:10pm    Just got back and I can see my Dax trade did get up as far as +43 pips but has retreated back down slightly now, I shall fix myself some lunch now and reassess the situation in a short while.

15:30pm     My trade is sitting at +18 pips so I shall wait to see if the price gets back up around the 12,130 level that we saw an hour ago.

16:35pm     The Dax price has risen quite well over the last 30 minutes so I am now out of my position with a +57 pip profit.

16:50pm    Just had a very quick glance at my charts before going off to sort out a problem in the bottom field and there’s a potential ‘long’ trade setting up very quickly on my U.S. Crude Oil chart – the price only needs to move up a few more pips and it will trigger another trendFX trade.

16:55pm    In the WTI Crude ‘long’ position, my stop loss is 40 pips – it’s going to be quite a quick trade for reasons I will explain to students in an email shortly.  This time it’s a strategy three pattern.

17:20pm    As expected, I am now out of the WTI Crude with a +45 pip profit so just over the 100 pip mark for the day…

17:50pm    Just had an invite I cannot turn down so I’m shutting down my charts fo rthe day.