 Okay, welcome to this week's charting analysis webinar. My name's Jasper Lawler. We've got the risk warning on the screen. We'll just shoot through that and then get into discussing some of the kind of key price levels and events this week. Any questions at all? Feel free to use the Q&A or chat box and I'm happy to offer my opinion. So the huge theme that was just dominating every asset class last week was the strength of the US dollar. So without further ado, let's just shoot it straight away and have a look at how significant moving the dollar has been and how significant it can be price-wise. So here's Dolly Yen. Now this was the peak that we formed back in December at 122. The cause for this previous rally, culmination of things to some extent the quantitative easing introduced in Japan and also to a large extent the sort of reverse policy from the Federal Reserve in the US ending their quantitative easing program. And now what we've got to is the possibility of a rate hike being imminent sometime this year. So back down to this daily chart here, but you can see the scope of where we're at here without this huge rally. Now understandable pullback. It didn't happen at 120, but it did happen at 122 just above. We pulled all the way back down to 115-ish. We've been in this sideways range, but leading into this Wednesday's meeting of the FOMC, the Federal Reserve, we're right back up at this 122 level. Now as of right now, we're still in a trading range. And based on this candlestick, still probably the high probability trade at this point is selling back into the range rather than the breakout. But whether this range holds or whether the breakout maintains is largely going to be as a result of what happens on Wednesday. And you can see this very tight trading action. It could go either way. This is just a reverse of this big round number. But since then, it's essentially been inside days all the way. And so when you get to kind of build up a tight trading action like this, it generally precedes quite a strong volatile breakout. So it should be good for trading. The thing is calling which way the breakout is going to go is the tricky bit. Now there are various strategies you can employ to try and take advantage of. Now obviously number one is just kind of calling the top of the range. A breakout much beyond here and you know you're wrong. Going short back into the range ahead of Wednesday, trying to get the best price possible in this consolidation. Equally, you can see that these peaks here, this kind of general trading zone has been support a couple of times. Now you could be expecting the breakout, which would not be unreasonable because we've had such a strong dollar in anticipation that the Fed are going to remove their forward guidance language, guiding us as to how long they're going to keep rates close to zero. You know, they've said that they're going to be patient. But there is a reason for this strong rally in the dollar that we saw last week. And you know that reason for the strong dollar is because there's an expectation that it's going to lead to a higher interest rate and that was what caused a drop off in US stocks. So the US 30 and US SPX 500, US NDAQ 100 all fell last week for the same reason the dollar rallied. And there's a suspicion that the Fed is basically going to take out this language and then within the next two meetings later they could hike interest rates. That's what they've said the removal of the forward guidance means. In two meetings time they could hike rates depending on economic data. So that's pretty huge because we've had 20 plus central banks this year cut interest rates. And the Fed are looking to hike interest rates. So you know that's why the dollar's so strong because it's just not only is it a hiking interest rate, everyone else is cutting. So you could look for opportunities to buy around this kind of support area. I don't see it going too much lower than that. Of course it could be wrong but going into the meeting I think we're going to stay pretty tight. So any dips down into there are sort of value areas to buy for the breakout. Or you could take the approach of actually buying on or selling a move out of this range. You could make use of buy stop orders, sell stoppers beneath or enter the market. Obviously you're getting a worse price and it will be volatile at that point. Just keep in mind especially when you're using market orders or stop orders, stop orders get filled at the next available market price. So you could end up entering the market up here somewhere when you wanted to enter down here. That's just the nature of a sort of breakout type trade in high volatile markets. So there are some of the options there and then if we just flip out of currencies for a second, we're looking at sort of the oldest currency out there, gold. Because it's basically the opposite, not quite. But we are pushing into this multi-year low looking on a weekly basis. You know obviously dollar a yen has been surging up in a straight line but gold has been gradually trending down and this weakness in this last leg since we hit 1300 has been largely dollar strength in anticipation of the Fed and its monetary policy is really diverging from the rest of the world. We're in a similar position here where either 1150 to 1130 is going to hold and we're going to get a sort of temporarily double bottom type situation where we've made a low, not been able to make a new low and then it holds up. Or it's a breakout and gold is renewing its downtrend and then we could see substantially lower prices in gold. The fact that both of these are at these multi-year levels is not uncoincidental. It is leading into this Wednesday meeting and that's what's going to determine the strength of the dollar. Now in terms of specific other economic announcements relating to the US dollar, today we have industrial production. I think that could push markets a bit because we have seen generally actually slightly weaker US data. Last week it was notable the dollar strength in the face of fairly weak economic data notably retail sales slipping for another month just showing that the consumer is not really biting into this low oil price at the moment. A lot of the jobs that have been created are more like low wage jobs in the US and so people don't actually have, even though they're in work which is certainly better than not being in work, they don't have the spending power to go out and push up the amount of retail sales out there so that's a worry for the US economy and so industrial production will be another factor to play into the general state of the US economy. It's looking a bit like at the moment that the US is producing a lot of jobs but the economy still looks a bit precarious in other areas. So that would be a consideration for the Fed and that certainly will have a bearing on how they phrase things and how they change their statement and whether they in fact do remove this language. You fall on one side of the fence here, it's either that they are cautious because of all the other data or they're hawkish in ready to hike rates because of the labor market data but otherwise not too much going on in terms of the US apart from that big one on Wednesday and industrial production today. If we're looking at the British pound, this is actually a pretty big week for the UK. Pretty much all takes place on Wednesday where we have average earnings data, the vote count from the Monetary Policy Committee and the budget. Now it's under the budget that I would argue perhaps is probably going to be fairly business friendly. I would think there is some talk of it perhaps including a cut to business rates. So I think overall for the state of the UK economy it's probably going to come across quite well which would be positive for the pound but I think actually the bigger driver of the pound is aside from the other side of the coin which is the US dollar I think it is going to be this average earnings data and the voting from the MPC. Consensus is that it's going to remain 9-0. It's in 9 members voting to keep rates on hold and I think that's probably going to stay as is because inflation data has not really been overwhelming although wages have picked up according to the last data. So what we're looking through is the key data for the pound will be the average earnings data because we saw a pickup last month so if we see that again, now that's a real strong sign that the UK does not suffer from the same issues that the US does where it's creating jobs but they're low paid and wages aren't going up alongside their numbers of extra jobs. So if wages are picking up, retail sales should pick up and the consumption of that economy that should be good and we have seen retail sales perform a lot better in the UK vis-à-vis the US. But it is this dollar-related story again and the pound is at multi-year lows. It's not faring as badly as the euro but it is definitely getting punished and it's below 150 which is key. We obviously dipped below 150 for the first time in January but it held up pretty well and I don't think we might have been there open below it or on it and then we rallied all the way up to 155 but take note that there's that round number. If you look back trading can be so simple buy at 150, sell at 155. It's time there was a break, you wouldn't want to have bought at that time but still, even if you add you'd be up twice. So pay attention to these big round numbers, they do matter and the fact that we've broken through at this time is significant. So this is a fairly distinct downtrend in the short term but you've got to pay attention to the fact that, yeah, boom, got that nice little rally but back in this consolidation area where we broke down from that low on the weekly chart, touched that which was also 155, now we're below these multi-year lows. So this line that you can see here on the weekly chart, you could also draw it there, slightly above based on that low, you can see, I'm sure you've all looked at this chart, it goes all the way back to 2010 so we're at the lowest we've been in since 2010 on the pound. Now arguably at the time to buy if you've got deep pockets, it may turn around before we get down to this low at 142 but I'd advise just waiting for a more solid sign of a rebound. That's certainly what the moment we're not seeing now, with prices are just dive bombing at the moment. So we could get a slight lift off and then if we did get back up to this 14950 type area, to me that would be a logical, you know, it's typically what you see, right, is, you know, move down, there's the high, low, you know, there's the high, up, down, test that high, up, test that high, you know, that's what we're looking for on a larger scale. So look down, test that low, move lower again. You know, that general idea of support turns to resistance after the break, resistance turns to support after the break if we test it. So it could push up to this next level, this one to me is not so significant now. Although that is the kind of last peak that we've seen, it could jump up to there. But again, dependent on the FOMC and Bank of England and wage data, that's going to determine whether we can actually pull back more significantly within this downtrend, but this is slightly different. So the dolly end scenario where we have broken down now. We closed a week below and a few days below, so it's definitely downtrend for the pound at the moment. Now, if we do look at the euro, you know, it's been in the press a lot more than it normally is. This is just a long-term chart to keep in mind. This is a monthly chart, not something you need to look at on a particularly regular basis, but at the moment, you do notice we've been in a phase consistent channel, and we're at the bottom of that channel now. So again, without much confirmation that this is a low, it's a risky proposition to be buying euros right now. But nonetheless, that pattern's there. So if we do start seeing some turnaround on the short term, keep in mind the context of why that might be taking place. Should we push lower? I think this peak from back in 2002 could be of some interest. This whole consolidation area here going as low as 96. Of course, we've got parity just beneath that as well. In the middle of that range, there's a parity, which is a lot of people are calling for now in euro to the dollar. So here's the daily chart, and obviously looking a lot like here's the equivalent low that we saw in that we were discussing the pound, but we've been trading way below it for several, you know, a couple of weeks even. So pretty shallow pullbacks, if any, in the euro late. But keep in mind this long-term potential support. But nonetheless, you know, should the Fed remove the afford guidance in the context of the quantitative easing, which is heading into its second week now from the European Central Bank, you know, definitely the path of these resistances is lower. Okay, let's just switch gears now to the, Alexander, just a kind of question here about why would that peak back then be significant? I would imagine you're talking about that euro chart I just had up, right? Just, well, number one thing to keep in mind is that the technical indicators and the support and resistance that you see on the longer time frame charts are always more significant than the ones that you see on the shorter term. So this is a monthly chart. So, you know, this was a peak that the market ran into, and stayed, you know, we've got a strong rally up, and then stayed below there for one, one, two, three, four, five, and then broke through in the six months. So something, you know, a price level that could hold prices down for near half a year, even though it was a long time ago, you know, it's significant. Equally, you can see that this low, not worth at all, completely blasted through that. But you can see, so we had that peak there, that was a multi-year, like we broke through it, we came back, we tested. And then even what's off the cuff, I mean, you could even say something along the lines of this peak here, you know, you tend to get at least some kind of reaction from these peaks, I'm not finding the ultimate examples here. This has obviously been a massive plunge in the euro, but the general concept being that, you know, these old levels come back into play and just, you know, it's the nature of trading support and resistance is that there's peaks and there's troughs, so you're kind of choosing one or the two to trade off. And when it's on a monthly chart, it just takes on that much longer significance. Basically, examples I give here are sort of, you know, these lows, these lows, these lows probably wouldn't hold up too much, I hope. But I guess when you're looking for a confluence of indicators, you know, the fact that it hovers around that parity level as well adds a little bit of extra weight to it. Yes, switching over to directories, since when I'm calling from the UK, we'll just start with the UK and since it is quite a big month from the UK, I would say the effects of the budget probably are going to be a bit more concentrated within the stock market than currencies, given the other data that's taken place for the pound. Now here's the situation. This is the weekly chart that we've looked at many, many times. Here's that 6,900 level that we broke through and substantially fell below a couple of weeks later. So, you know, we're in an uptrend here over the sort of longer haul, just about. But, you know, we didn't make much of a new high, but we did. And so what we're sort of theoretically looking for, given that that was a higher high, we're looking for a higher low to end somewhere before this low. There's a way I think about it. That to me was the last significant low. If we're in an uptrend, the next low formed needs to be before that at the very worst case scenario at that. Obviously, in terms of buying, that's the best place to be buying because it's the lowest risk theoretically because if it does drop below there, we're not really in an uptrend anymore. So you probably don't necessarily want to be buying there. So then you can get up fairly quickly. The higher you're buying, you know, the more theoretical risk because it could still drop to here and pull higher again. Technically, it would still sort of fall within the characteristics of an uptrend, even if it sort of met its previous low. As long as it didn't drop below it, still okay. But I've got this box on the chart here just kind of symbolizing, you know, we had these couple of strong reversals to ask the bottom and then just where it actually did accelerate and close higher started in this kind of vicinity. Just under 6,600. So that to me is a big one. But if we drop down to the daily chart, we can see that here. This was a low here that we were kind of looking to hold. We didn't, which to me is a symbol of weakness. We did shoot back above it again fairly quickly, so didn't get any immediate follow-through. But we had just fallen quite significantly to get to that. So to me, my bias is even though sort of longer term, well medium term, I think we're probably looking at higher biases in the FTSE because UK stocks are going to be supported by QE from the ECB, albeit indirectly, not as much so as, for example, the Germany 30 indirectly, I think we will. And the UK 100 will. But we could slide further before we get to medium term to end taking over again based on the fact that we dropped below that low there. Now it could happen as quickly as just this previous peak, but it could again happen just above the 6600 level would be the next one to be looking at. Below there, I think we could be slipping right back down to the low. For those trading any individual shares today, based on the news on Sunday that the Chancellor may be essentially indicated he will be lifting the restriction on annuities for all pensioners. So any pensioner with an annuity right now can cash it out. After this budget, we'll be able to cash it out and invest it however they please. So that's not been too good for the insurance companies that make up a large part of the annuities market, but it has been better news for asset managers. There's only a few publicly listed ones. Aberdeen asset management, for example, they've been doing better because some of that money could flow to them. That's what we've seen moving around so far, but who knows what else is going to be in there. In that, it's probably going to affect individual stocks and individual sectors more than the wider market. We had touched on Dolly Yen already, mentioning that there is the Bank of Japan Press Conference rate-setting meeting, which is on the early hours of tomorrow. Tomorrow is also worth considering for the euro, although I don't think it's going to push the market around too much. Maybe a cause for a further pullback in the euro is we've got the German ZDW data. And on Thursday, for those who dare trade the Swiss rank, we do have the Swiss National Bank rate-setting meeting. So it may be a bit of extra information from Jordan, the head of the SMB, on where their policy goes forward following the removal of the Paglia against the euro. Let's jump over to commodities. We've already looked at gold, but just to reiterate again, we're pretty much giving going sideways, and we're at that multi-year low. Very sideways, very minimal action, and I don't expect that probably to change. So on the short term, looking at opportunities of buying and selling at the top of this tiny range, and you can see it better on the, say, look, a one-hour chart, arguably more of a sort of triangle perhaps taking place there that does seem to have broken out and dropped again, generally a range, I would say. For those inclined to do so, opportunities in these tight ranges. Similar things happening in silver. Yep, I mean silver, also again, pushing into these multi-year lows. We've got quite a decent reaction, not the strongest hammer pattern ever, quite still a large bearish body, but nonetheless quite a pushback. But given the weaker reaction following that, not all that's buzzing, not the strongest pattern. I think we could slip down perhaps to 15. And then this was the big reversal that catalyzed this move push-up above 18. So that would be the next level obviously beneath, to keep in mind. But I think if we dip below 15, I tend to think this is probably going to get taken out eventually. Copper's just one I've been looking at a bit recently just because we've been holding onto this trendline, almost dip below it. Shot back up and now we in copper are in this kind of sideways range. Waringly, Chinese markets, Chinese shares just a five and a half year highs today on the hoops, the hints that there might be a further government central bank stimulus in China. But copper, which has a lot of its demand from China, didn't really follow through on that. You can see we're actually lower in copper, so that's a bit of a worry. We're looking at this rising RSI trendline. Sometimes you get some nice trendlines in RSI which can precede the breakout in price. So if this is anything to go by, we're going to head low in prices. As for now, we're in this 262 to 271 range. And last but not least, we're looking at WTI. The spread in Brent WTI is a spread out to about $10 because we've seen particular weakness in WTI versus Brent because of all the data to watch in all markets. It's always the inventories, but it's taken on particular significance given the declines in all prices that we've seen. And every week it's just been a huge build. And they're actually literally getting to the stage where they're running out of storage capacity for all this oil that they're not using in the US. So that alongside the fact that it's dominated in US dollars and the dollar's strengthening is why we're seeing all prices push right down into these sub-44 dollar lows. But again, words again partly, although we've got this stockpile situation in the US, it's largely known. It's quite well priced into the market. For me, there could be the aspect that China have been buying a little oil at these lower prices for their strategic reserves. If they stop doing that, then this support could give way. But again, it's a dollar situation. So I think whether this low breaks could largely again be as a result of what happens on Wednesday. So I think that pretty neatly takes us into the end of the session here. I was not seeing any other questions here. So good luck with the trading this week. I hope that was helpful. And please tune in again at the same time next week. But for this week, all eyes on the FMC and if you're trading the pounds of the FTSE, also the budget and the average earnings data and the Bank of England. Thanks all to us below the signing out.