08:05am CET (07:05am UK)  ~  Off to Palma this morning to do some essential shopping but before then some emailing and Skype calls and chart watching.

U.S. equities hit another all time high yesterday on the back of rising consumer spending data which shows that the economy over there is still moving in the right direction – the Dow Jones index of the top 30 companies rose to a high of 18288 on the back of this news even though the ISM Manufacturing numbers came in worse than expected – the index finished up 155 points with the wider S&P 500 following closely behind. Here in Europe there was good manufacturing news for Spain and Ireland and new highs for the German Dax 30 and London’s FTSE 100 although more problems in Greece where the Greek government has found a problem with liquidity and are having problems paying some creditors – a dip into pension funds seems to be on the cards apparently.

Crude oil was again in the news with Saudi Arabia’s oil output reaching it’s highest level since late 2013 and rumours that OPEC’s exports may well exceed 3 million barrels for March which will put more pressure on crude values and Thursday’s U.S. crude oil stock position is expected to show another rise which all goes to contribute to more falls for oil charts.

Market Close Monday 2nd March 2015:   Dow Jones 30  +155.93 @ 18,288.63  S&P 500  +12.89 @ 2,179.39  NASDAQ  +42.38 @ 4,483.05  FTSE 100  -6.02 @ 6,940.64  UK AIM  -1.40 @ 713.10  DAX 30  +8.70 @ 11,410.36  CAC 40  -34.16 @ 4,917.32  IBEX  +0.20 @ 11,178.50   Nikkei 225 (Today)  -11.72 @ 18,815.16  Hang Seng (currently)  -217.17 @ 24,670.27

All time below are CET (UK + 1hr)

08:50am  ~  Just had a cursory glance at my favourite charts and there’s not much happening as the European session gets underway – so we’re off to Palma for the morning.

14:55pm  ~  Back home now after a nice lunch so I shall switch on my MT4 platform to see what’s happening on the markets.

15:15pm  ~  There’s a possible trendFX strategy 3 trade setting up on my S&P 500 but as the U.S. session is just kicking off anything could happen in the next half hour or so.

15:45pm  ~  I am now in a ‘short’ position on the S&P with a 35 pip stop loss.

16:05pm  ~  Well that was a quick trade – the price has been quite volatile so I have taken a quick profit out of the market, just +38 pips.

18:20pm  ~  I have looked at my charts twice since getting out of the S&P trade but nothing much happening so that’s it for the day as far as trading goes — we have friends arriving soon for supper.