Patchy service this week

Missed opportunity on the Hang Seng

This week and into next we have house guests so the service is likely to be patchy. I will endeavour to ensure that any crucial developments will be covered promptly but there may be gaps.

I am writing this post on Tuesday morning, a day after the markets did very little. The Dow was modestly up. These days 83 points counts as a modest move! And the FTSE was modestly down. So the FTSE may play catch up when it opens, though its move may be subdued because the futures market is currently pointing to a 60 odd point fall in the Dow at the open. We continue to sit on the 200 day moving average. See Friday's chart.

Gold and silver look more interesting and, from a trading point of view, worrying. Gold had a good run yesterday and overnight has risen sharply to touch its next resistance level at 1793. So big decision: do I take profits or will it power through. My inclination is to take part profits as soon as London opens and then repurchase if the price moves on upward. On the other hand there are no volume signals to suggest that a reversal is about to take place, so I may just hold on. There is no good news on the Euro Zone crisis and gold is the only protection against an ugly end to that political saga. Silver has cleared the downward diagonal that I pointed out on Thursday's chart, and so it looks set to move on to the next resistance at 3570 2.5% up from here.

Today's chart is the Hong Kong index - the Hang Seng. I put it up to show how I missed an opportunity by watching the world with blinkers on. I was sitting fiddling about with gold and silver and fretting about movements on the Dow and the FTSE while the Hong Kong market moved up 25% in a month. I am set up to pick shares in Hong Kong and to buy and sell them easily. I have a stock of HK$ sitting idle in my brokerage account and I take my eye off the ball. This blog is doing its job in reminding me how stupid I can be. My guess is that the opportunity has passed since we have hit resistance. But I will keep my eye on this from now on. There remains a gap to be filled so another run up is possible. And there is a potential support line around 19050 which could provide a sensible entry point.