We are back with our weekly recap of the Forex markets heading into the weekend. We had a somewhat volatile week, however we ended up in pretty much the same place as where we started the week. We saw the Euro market consolidate over the course of the week after having recently broken a downward trendline to the upside.

This post was inspired by another blog entry. Specifically, the line that caught my attention the most in that post was:

"It is not possible to reduce trading decisions to a simple set of rules or patterns to be applied blindly."

EUROPEAN STOCKS: Major European bourses are initially seen trading narrowly mixed Friday. Spreadbetters Cantor Index are calling the FTSE flat, the DAX up 7 and the CAC up 1.

Below is the current daily chart for the March 2012 ES contract.

The target was derived as shown by the red trendlines; October's high to November's low multiplied by 1.272 and projected upwards. There are additional targets above, but reaching the 1.272 extension of such a large swing tells us that this swing is potentially overbought. It would take quite a breakdown to shift the pattern to short side on this timeframe, but starting here we certainly have a reason to be prepared for pullbacks and consolidation.

In today's pre-market prep, we take a look at the S&P and EUR/USD markets. In the S&P market, we saw an explosive start to the month as the market pushed upward before trading sideways for the majority of the day. An interesting start to the month as the market also helped to expand the trading range we have seen over the last week.

Today’s Daily Market Study with Dan Gramza reviews yesterday’s setups in each of the CME Group markets. Dan presents graphs in his easy to understand teaching style to provide insights, considerations and implications for trading futures and options on Stock Indexes, Forex, Grains, Precious Metals and more.

The Trader Kingdom Market Data Journal Sheets provided by PivotFarm combine major market metrics into a concise snapshot for nine markets including the S&P 500, Russell 2000, Crude Oil and Gold.

"A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank."

-Ron Paul

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