President's Day holiday means we shall have to bite our nails for a little longer

Dow Jones and S&P both showed a small spike in volume on Friday. These spikes often precede a change in direction. They indicate that traders are suddenly showing more interest and are either picking up shares ready for a rise or dumping shares in anticipation of a fall. The pattern of trade during the day may show which way the market is going to jump. A push upwards late in the day may indicate an upswing as buyers take advantage of lower prices. A push down suggests the opposite, traders taking advantage of higher prices to dump shares.

The fact that Friday's volume spike came after several days of flat prices makes it exceptionally hard to guess which way the market will jump. Looking at the intra-day graph shows that there was a significant rally at the very end of the day. A promising sign.

The S&P shows a similar pattern though the final push was not so marked.

We have to watch and wait. Tomorrow the US market is closed for President's Day so the wait will be a little longer. Perhaps the European markets will offer clues as to what will happen on Tuesday.

The proximity of 14000 and the all time high in the US indices are the big bugbears. They will be worrying traders and bulls will have to be very determined to push the markets onward and upward.

At least the weather is looking a better. The farmer who keeps cattle in the field behind our house says that in all his 40 years of working the land he has never known it so wet. Each morning we watch him struggle, working his way across a mire that looks like a first world war battle field. His cows need to be fed and one way or another his tractor has to navigate the mud to reach his animals. Close to the feeders they have dropped hay and silage and have created a platform to stand on. They eagerly watch the tractor approach with their feed. Further away from the feeder they wallow, thigh deep. Let's hope there are several dry days, if not weeks, to dry out the land.