The markets fickle behaviour is becoming ever more annoying. One down day is replaced with an up and traders are being pulled one way and then the other on a stream of contradictory news.

Banking sector valuations continue to be hit and governments across the globe should be worried. Banks have strict rules over capital versus lending which is why they have been so keen on packaging up debt and selling it on. If share capital value falls then this has an impact on the amount they can lend. Damaged banks can easily lead to damaged economies. Whilst it is easy to sit on the sidelines and crow about bankers in trouble in reality you are laughing at yourself.

The FTSE having traded as low as 6410 yesterday is now up at 6500 but not exactly making much further progress in early action. 6500 although obviously a psychological level has proved in the past to be better support than resistance so if we clear above here there is not much in the way of initial resistance to prevent a move higher. That said there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm amongst our punters for further buying as too many have been burnt by getting enthusiastic above this level.

This may be the biggest barrier to further progress in the various western indices as investors

Want to read more? Try our ‘Spread Trading‘ column. Comment updated ‘almost’ every weekday. What can we say? We say ‘almost’…we too try to make some money out of the markets and some days we trade and work before we have time for sweet poetic prose.

Enjoy the new column…Spread Trading on Clean Financial.

DB