09:05am  ~   A late start and a nice easy day at home today ahead of a trip back to Majorca tomorrow. I will report back during the day if I have any trades.

London’s FTSE 100 index has opened slightly down this morning despite the stock markets all over the world surging ahead on Friday following the agreement on Friday for the EU and other lenders to extend Greece’s loans for 4 months. Obviously the problem has not gone away, it’s merely been shifted to the summer and the details that were thrashed out now have to be agreed with the various parliaments and while both sides are claiming victory we are nowhere near a proper resolution of the underlying problem – Greece’s unemployment is too high, they don’t produce enough to have a decent GDP figure and there’s still too many people working in the public sector which is a burden on the few Greeks that actually pay tax.  The Syriza party were elected on a promise that they just cannot keep but the Greek people liked the sound of their manifesto so there’s only more problems ahead as everyone slowly realises that they have a near impossible chance of completing on their promises to the people who voted for them.

The Dow Jones 30 and S&P 500 rose up to new highs at the end of the week and the S&P is now well above the previous support at 1975 and there now looks to be new support around 2085 but this week will confirm this.  WTI Crude has established a bullish trend now with support around $49 and recent resistance at $54 and this week we will see if there’s a move above or below these levels after news of the large stockpiles of U.S. Crude currently – it is sitting at $50:33 as I write this.

Market Close Friday 20th February 2015:   Dow Jones 30  +154.57 @ 18,140.44  S&P 500  +12.85 @ 2,110.30  NASDAQ  +31.19 @ 4,443.05  FTSE 100  +26.30 @ 6,915.20  UK AIM  +1.71 @ 711.20  DAX 30  +48.70 @ 11,050.64  CAC 40  -2.38 @ 4,830.90  IBEX  -31.10 @ 10,879.30   Nikkei 225 (Today)  +134.62 @ 18,466.92  Hang Seng (currently)  +7.50 @ 24,839.58

09:40am  ~  I was getting ready for a cycle ride but I’ve just spotted a possible ‘short’ trade setting up on my Brent Crude chart.

09:55am  ~  Postponing my ride for a short while just to see how this trade progresses, I am in a ‘short’ position now using strategy 1 from my trendFX system with a 19 pip stop loss.

10:30am  ~  Friend has now arrived for cycle ride so I have brought my stop loss upto break even and going to leave the trade to run for the hour I’ll be out (12 mile ride) — it’s currently sitting at +18 pips.

12:15pm  ~  Trade is still trundling along, it’s at +78 pips so far.

14:05pm  ~  Just come out of the trade as it’s time for a quick lunch at the Harbour Inn – it has come in at +139 pips

16:00pm  ~  Back home now after an extended lunch, I’ve got a few jobs to do around the house but I will be watching my S&P 500 chart a bit later during the ‘Trade With A Day Job’ session.

19:10pm  ~  Out now for the evening and no trades to report since 5pm.