The FTSE closed on Friday down 41 points at 4,127, a fall of nearly 300 points for the week. A rally in the morning session stalled around lunchtime as the New York markets opened forming a high-test bar on the daily chart. High test bars on any chart (stock, currency, sector or indices) are bearish signals. This means that a fall down to 4,000 may not be as quick as initially thought. The Dow opened the day with early strength and tested short-term resistance at 8,300. The index failed to push higher and dropped back before rallying into the Close, eventually ending the day with a gain of 69 points. If the Dow remains above 8,000, we could see another move back up within the range toward the 8,500 to 8,600 level, if not higher. Watch 8,350 for early strength. Today is a relatively quiet day on the Forex news. It’s a Bank Holiday in the US today so there are no major news releases to be aware of to affect the USD. At 08:15 GMT the Swiss year-on-year retail sales will be released, and at 13.30 the Canadian Foreign Securities Purchases will be released. Both of these have a medium weighting so should not cause major moves on either currency, but with the US markets closed today may cause more of an effect than normal. Those of you planning on trading into the evening may be interested in the New Zealand quarterly CPI at 21.45. The forecast is for a 0.4% reduction, and if the actual is greater than the forecast then this is good for the currency.

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