 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this weekly webinar on Monday, the 12th of May, and a look ahead to some of the events that I think will be of particular importance to markets this week. Let's, first and foremost, have a quick look at the major indices because we're broadly higher this morning. The FTSE 100 is higher. The DAX is significantly higher and the CAC Caron is significantly higher. But one of the things I've noticed over the past couple of weeks is an increasing divergence between the more blue chip U.S. markets and the smaller cap U.S. markets. If we look at, say, for example, the Dow Jones, we can see that we are retesting the highs that we saw in April, around about 16,650. And it's a similar sort of story with respect to the S&P 500, which, you know, when you look at those two collectively, that really sort of does both fairly well for further gains. However, there's significant divergence between those two big blue chip indexes and the U.S. small caps and the U.S. NASDAQ, and we can see that borne out in this chart here. Small caps have pretty much gone one way over the past two to three months. Since the beginning of March, they've sunk significantly lower and look to be approaching some very key support around about the November lows. So you can see from this particular chart that even on the face of it, U.S. investors appear to be increasingly confident about the economic growth that we're seeing out of the U.S. And I don't know why, given the fact that Q1 for the U.S. could well actually be revised into contraction. I'm guessing they're thinking that we're going to see a significant bounce back in U.S. economic activity in April and will certainly get early indications of what that might look like in data out, U.S. data out later this week. But there seems to be some certain degree of confidence that we're going to get a significant bounce back in U.S. economic activity. So it's certainly worth keeping an eye on the U.S. small caps, the Russell 2000, and the NASDAQ, where we've seen very sharp sell-offs in that particular market as well. And again, we're way below the march highs, unlike obviously the S&P and the Dow. And what's that telling me? Well, that's really telling me, I think, that investors are feeling less confident about putting their money in the more riskier parts of the market. They're putting them into blue chips, and that's not really too much of a surprise. But there has to come a point where this divergence between the two various sectors of U.S. markets starts to correct itself. Now it can correct one of two ways. You can either get a significant bounce back in the NASDAQ. That seems unlikely, given that earnings expectations for an awful lot of these NASDAQ companies are still very much on the high side, or we get a bit of a sell-off in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones. Now, the 1900 level is the key level in the S&P 500, and there's certainly one area to keep an eye on. And I think also the uncertainty with respect to where investors want to put their money is reflected in the increased amounts of M&A that's going on. You've got the Pfizer, AstraZeneca takeover bid that's going on, or the bid speculation that Pfizer's going to bid for AstraZeneca. Certainly I think that any political, that's turning into a very political story. Personally, I have mixed views on that. I certainly think that politicians should keep their noses out of it. Politicians are pretty rubbish at running an economy, let alone telling companies what to do with respect to their business models. But having said that, there is a wider concern that Pfizer doesn't really have a good track record when it comes to acquiring companies and deriving value from them. If you actually look at what Pfizer have done over the last 10 years with respect to acquisitions, they've spent $250 billion on acquisitions and yet the current market cap of the company is $185 billion. So that's pretty much of $250 billion of lost value that Pfizer hasn't really been able to make any use of. So essentially the company is coming at it for the wrong reasons. I think it really needs to come from the reasons in terms of growing its pipeline and creating new drugs and unfortunately AstraZeneca has the better pipeline. So I'm going to have to see how that plays out, but I certainly think AstraZeneca shareholders are right in rejecting the offer. I think Pfizer needs AstraZeneca more than Pfizer needs it. We've also got obviously the General Electric All-Stom deal. We have B Sky B this morning as well as 21st Century Fox looks to divest itself of its Sky Deutschland and its Sky Italia businesses and get them to be run out of Europe by B Sky B. So again it's all about growth by acquisition as opposed to growth organically because of concerns about what's going on in China. There's concerns about slowing growth there and I think when you actually look at the DAX, this worries me as well. Since the highs at the beginning of this year, the DAX every time we've gone down, every subsequent rebound has actually been lower than the previous one and I think we're at a very, very key level on the DAX at the moment on the upside around about 9,700. We've got this trendline resistance coming in from the highs earlier this year. I think that's a significantly key level to keep an eye on and you've also got the fact that the oscillator is starting to look a little bit overbought even though it is starting to indicate that maybe we could get a little bit of a revisit back to the April highs. So 9,700 or just above that I think is going to be a very, very key level for the DAX going forward. Now the CAC Caron has actually done slightly better when you look at it over the course of the last few months. It's actually made significantly new highs but it still remains below the April highs last month around about 4,500 and 4,510. So what we really need to see there on the CAC Caron is a significant move higher with respect to that particular market. Now some of the key things to keep an eye on is we've got a whole host of European data due out this week and I think certainly European indices in particular are taking the cues from what Mr. Draghi said last week with respect to a potential action by the ECB in June. But before we get to ahead of ourselves on that, I think what we also need to look at is the fact that whatever the ECB do in June, it's going to be minimal at best. Having said that, given what we've seen in Eurodollar and the reaction of Eurodollar over the course of the last two or three days, I think there is maybe a good chance we could well see some Euro weakness over the course of the next few trading sessions because even though Eurodollar is not breaking down significantly against the US dollar, and this can be seen from this chart here, it's finding a little bit of support around about the 100-day moving average, around about these lows here at 138.40, 137.40 rather. 137.40 we have the 100-day moving average, but the key support level still remains at the April lows around about here, around about 136.65. So the direction of travel does point to a weaker Euro most definitely, but if we actually zoom this chart out, we are still in the uptrend that we've been in since 2012. And anyone I think looking for a significant amount of Euro weakness over the course of the next few trading sessions is probably going to be disappointed. So we could well get a bit of a rebound in Euro dollar back to around about 138.50, but overall the ECB really does have to deliver on its guidance, if you like, that they will do something at the June meeting. But QE, forget about it, not going to happen, the political barriers are still significantly too high. However, we may not see significant weakness in Euro dollar, but we are certainly seeing significant weakness in the Euro crosses. If we look at Euro sterling, for example, we've broken below the lows 2014, the lows this year, and we look as if we could actually head towards the lows of 2013, which are the beginning of 2013, around about the 1870 level. And I talk about them a little bit in my morning blog earlier this morning, which I posted on the website. So we've broken below 81.50, the direction of travel does seem to suggest that we could well look at retesting the lows that we saw at the beginning of 2013. We're below that now. Yes, we are looking a little bit oversold. There's certainly potential for us to rebound back to around about 81.90, 81.95, but certainly I think the direction of travel with respect to Euro sterling remains in sterling's favor. I think we're going to see further sterling strength there, given that we've seen a breakdown below that 81.5560 level. But as with all things Euro sterling, it's likely to be extremely tortuous process, which brings me on to Euro yen, another Euro cross, which appears to have broken down. We broke below that trend line support that we've been in since November, broken below that. We're currently finding support around, or currently finding cloud support around about the 140 area around about these lows here on the Ichimoku cloud resistance, the Kumo support rather, around about 140. So what we need to see is really a break below 140, which is the lows that we saw on the 28th of March and has been the lows for about the past four to five weeks. So certainly keep an eye on 140, this cloud support here. We could get a rebound back to this green line here, which is around about 141, 141.80 on the top side. If we're not able to break below the 140 level on the cloud support there. So we are starting to get a little bit of Euro weakness on the crosses. It's not really being borne out against the US dollar. And one of those reasons could be because of speculation about M&A in Europe. You've obviously got the general electric oustom deal and that still hasn't gone through yet. So there could be a little bit of underpinning there. But going back to what I was saying earlier, the expectations for the European data this week, German ZEW investor sentiment for May is expected a week in further from 43.2 to 41. That's due out tomorrow. And then we've got a whole host of CPI data. And I think that's really going to be a key indicator as to whether or not we get further Euro weakness this week or whether or not we get a bit of a rebound. Because at the end of the day, it's all about inflation represses in the Euro area. And there is a certain amount of inbuilt deflation within the Euro area because of the complete divergence between European countries when it comes to unit labor costs. Essentially, the costs of labor in France and Italy and Spain are that much higher. So in comparative to Germany, therefore, unless when you take measures to deal with that, you're going to have to drive prices lower. So that isn't that is essentially going to push downward press put downward pressure on prices. If you're going to do your fiscal readjustment solely through single exchange rate simply because Italy, Spain, France cannot devalue in any other way apart from cutting unit labor costs. And that's really the big issue that they're wrestling with. So CPI data, I think is going to be very, very key with respect to expectations of what the ECB may or may not do in June. Now, tomorrow, Tuesday, we've got Italian CPI for April, and that's expected to rise from 0.3% to 0.6. So that suggests to me that even though the Italians are worried about deflation, price pressures are starting to go up. German CPI is on Wednesday. Again, certainly keep an eye on that because that more than anything else is going to be sensitive to what the ECB may or may not do. That's expected to rise from 0.9% to 1.1. So if the flash data that comes out at the end of this month continues that direction of travel, is the ECB going to shave a tenth of a percent off its headline rate when inflation is starting to wedge back up, when it didn't do it a month ago, when inflation was below where it currently is now. And I think that's the key question. Markets are assuming too much. ECB may cut, but is it an even better chance that they may not? Certainly, if the inflation data, the CPI data starts to wedge back towards the 1% level and above that. French CPI is also expected to wedge higher tomorrow, not tomorrow, Wednesday. That's expected to rise from 0.7% to 0.9% in April, year on year. And then obviously the big number, which is the EU, broader EU measure of CPI, that's expected to rise from 0.5% on Thursday to 0.7% with core prices staying at 1%. Any of you who were listening to what Mr. Draghi said on Thursday at his press conference said that he was paying much more attention to core price pressures than the broader price pressures, simply because he considered that energy prices were introducing too much noise into the broader numbers. So core price pressures, 1% unchanged from the previous number that we saw at the beginning of last week. More broadly, we've also got a whole host of GDP data out of the Euro area. On Thursday, we've got the latest French Q1 GDP, we've got the latest German Q1 GDP, Italian Q1 GDP, and EU Q1 GDP. So France is expected to actually slip back to stagnation from the 0.3% growth that we saw in Q4 of last year. That's expected to come in round about flat to 0.1%. German GDP is expected to jump from 0.4% to 0.7%. So again, that's the key driver of the Euro area economy. If Germany is growing and inflation is starting to edge back up, is the ECB really going to shave 10 basis points off its headline rate? And even if it does, what difference will it make? Italian Q1 GDP is expected to increase from 0.1% in Q4 to 0.2%. And the EU number, the broader measure, which is out on Thursday, is expected to rise from 0.2% to 0.4%. So really, the growth in the Euro area is going in the right direction. Inflation could actually start to push higher. And it's inflation that really is going to dictate the next move in ECB monetary policy. At the moment, markets are pricing in June. There could be potential for disappointment if they don't act at the June meeting. We'll have to wait and see with respect to that. So certainly worth keeping an eye on that. It's also a very big week for sterling, particularly on Wednesday, where we have the latest unemployment data for the three months to March. And that is expected to slip further below the 7% knockout that the Bank of England got rid of once they thought that they were going to hit it. And it's going to come down from 6.9% to 6.8%. So again, pointing in the right direction, weekly job, weekly jobless claims, UK jobless claims for April are expected to decline again in April. And they've been declining steadily for the past six months at around about 30,000 a month. And they're expected to decline another 30,000 in April, which again, bodes very well for the unemployment data for the three months to April, which will come out in a month's time. More importantly than that, we've been talking about an earning squeeze. That's been the one thing the cost of living crisis that politicians have really been honing in on. And I think once again, we're going to see that average earnings for the three months to March are going to rise again above 2% on this occasion from 1.7%, 2.1% is expected in March. And that's really going to raise, I think, difficult questions at the Bank of England inflation report, which is due at 10.30 on Wednesday. Now if we look at my cable chart here, we can see that we've got a significant area of support coming in from this trend line from the March lows. We're finding a little bit of support and we're getting a bit of a bounce back. So I certainly think there's a lot of broad optimism about the UK economic recovery. Now, you know, you can you can argue until you blew in the faces to whether or not it's being juiced by help to buy higher house prices or what have you. But that is undoubtedly true. It is certainly being juiced by that. But one of the more encouraging signs I've seen has been the improvement in manufacturing data and construction data. So there I think there is a slightly better balance to it. Still a hell of a long way to go when it comes to, you know, being a very sustainable recovery over the longer term. And let's not also forget that we are now one year away from a new government. And it's going to be a general election in a year's time. And no one really knows I think who is likely to get in now. The perception is that at the moment, labor is likely to gain an overall majority. Now the markets aren't pricing that in yet. And there is a likelihood that they may not. Particularly if the polls start to move in line with the economic data in the incumbent government's favor. But as we get nearer to that day, and if we see a significant slowdown in economic growth and economic activity, I think there is a worry that maybe some of this optimism that we're seeing right now could start to seep away as we get into the back end of this year. And I certainly think that's one thing we do need to bear in mind. Cable does look very over ball. It's there is significant amount of resistance between 170 and 17045. We couldn't get through that level. I think if we do break this support level coming in from the low through here around about 168, 20, 30, that's really the key level for me. You can certainly see it in this horizontal support and resistance line here. Got a significant area of support there. If we do break below that, then I certainly think this potential for further losses back to the 50 day moving average on this particular chart. And that comes in around about 167, 20. But overall, we're still in a broader uptrend, despite the fact that the Fed remains committed to its tapering program. Markets are not really pricing in pricing that in that much, simply because Janet Yellen has committed to keeping interest rates low into 2016. That is going to be an awful lot more difficult for the Bank of England to do, given the fact that the UK economy is continuing to outperform its G7 peers and the OECD last week upgraded its growth forecast for the UK economy. So the Bank of England inflation report on Wednesday will be key. Will the Bank of England upgrade its growth forecasts? Will it downgrade its inflation forecasts? And if it does do that, will the Financial Policy Committee look at taking measures to rein in bank lending when it comes to mortgages? Because they now have the tools to be able to do that, impose loan to value ratios. Will they also tell the Chancellor to scrap or curtail his help to buy scheme? Because there's certainly political considerations to come into play over the course of the next few months, particularly if the housing market continues to go in the direction that it has been. We did see a bit of a slowdown in some of the housing data in April. What we want to see is that it will stabilize, but we certainly don't want to see housing become any more unaffordable than it already is. So I think the prognosis for the pound remains fairly positive, even if we do break below the support line, simply because I think it's very likely that the Bank of England will raise interest rates well before the US Federal Reserve. One other thing to keep an eye out for is tomorrow morning we've got British retail consortium retail sales for April. That will give us a good indication of how well the services sector in April has done with respect to the consumer. We saw a little bit of a slowdown in March and the retail sector in March was a little bit of a drag on the GDP numbers, but the GDP numbers still posted a number of 0.8%. So again, despite the fact that retail sales for Q1 were fairly flat, we still posted a fairly healthy 0.8% GDP for Q1. We've got a good start, we've got off to a good start in Q2, and the hope is that that will continue into May and into June. And that should, I think, really limit the downside with respect to the pound against the dollar. So let's look at the pound also against the YEN to see if that gives us a similar sort of indication. And we're right on support there from February lows on that. I need to redraw that trend line slightly, so let's go and do that. Redraw that, draw it from that low there. There we go. And we're right there. But we're also quite near some significant peaks from March and May. And it's actually quite interesting that those peaks are virtually identical around about 173.60. So looking at sterling YEN, we're around about or near some key support from February lows, but we're also quite near broader highs around about 173. And I think what's really going to take us through those highs in sterling YEN is if dollar YEN manages to get through that 105.50 that we've been looking at for quite some weeks now, and which is actually limited the downside, limited the upside rather in dollar YEN. So if we look at dollar YEN, we can see where the key levels are there. And to be quite honest, that's been fairly dull, but it does look as if we could actually be finding a bit of a base in there. So dollar YEN, good support as we can see here between 101.20 and 101.40. If we break back through 102, then we've got significant resistance around 102.80. Obviously we've got this little spike here which was the non-farm payrolls spike higher that we saw just after the U.S. employment dates earlier this month. But if we get back through 102.80, then we're looking at this longer term trend line resistance level around about 103.80 and then above that obviously the 105.50 level. But certainly anywhere near 101.20, 101.40, there seems to be a steady stream of people looking to pick up dollars against the YEN. And you've also got the 200-day moving average coming in down there as well. So I think for us to really push lower in dollar YEN, we're going to need to see a significant move higher in U.S. Treasury prices. And at the moment U.S. Treasury yields are sticking around that 2.5, 2.6 percent level. And that's really the correlation that we're looking at with respect to dollar YEN. Looking at the yield prices here, or the actual prices here, got the 200-day moving average keeping your cap on prices. If prices go higher and push yields lower, that will push dollar YEN lower. So what we don't want to see, if we want to see a high dollar YEN, is for U.S. Treasury prices to go higher. So a move above the 200-day moving average in the U.S. 10-year note would be a very bad sign for a further rise in dollar YEN. So certainly keep an eye on that. It is looking as if it's starting to roll over. So as long as that continues to roll over, we should see dollar YEN rebound. There's a very good correlation between those two particular asset classes. So certainly keep an eye on those two. Also if you're looking at dollar YEN, keep an eye on the Nikkei 225 as well. And the key support level around about 13,880. If it drops below there, if the Nikkei continues to fall, that will also drag dollar YEN down. So strong YEN is not good for the Nikkei. Dollar drops, YEN strengthens, not good. So keep an eye on the Japanese GDP numbers that are due out later this week, the latest Q1 GDP numbers. I think they're going to be particularly important when it comes to the next direction for dollar YEN. And I can tell you that those numbers are coming out later this week on Thursday morning. Thursday morning Japanese GDP numbers. The expectation is for preliminary GDP numbers, easy for me to say. And the quarter on quarter number is expected to rise from 0.2% in Q4 to 1% in Q1. The annualized number is expected to jump from 0.7 to 4.2. So any disappointment on any of those GDP numbers could actually weaken the YEN. Why? Because it's going to put pressure on the Bank of Japan to add stimulus. So certainly worth keeping in on the Japanese GDP numbers on Thursday morning Japanese time. Okay, so now that we've finished with that, let's look at gold prices because gold prices continue to be fairly well supported around about 1270, 1280. Look at this area of support through here. We've had some nasty little spikes lower and certainly they've made for a little bit of restlessness when the gold comes crashing off. It certainly makes me twitch when the gold comes crashing off. But at the moment it's finding a certainly a decent area of support around that 121270 area. And I think there's a reason for that. Essentially, gold becomes uneconomic to mine once it drops below $1,200, $1,100 an ounce. And if you get any further declines in gold that is certainly going to limit the downside because miners will just stop pulling it out of the ground. But what we want to see on gold prices and it's very, very difficult to make a case for gold prices rallying when the feds basically continue to pair back its asset purchase program. It's very difficult to make a case for the gold gains. But we still got geopolitical risk on the table. And that is what is also helping to underpin gold prices. So that's certainly worth bearing in mind over the course of the next few trading sessions. The Ukraine problem is not going to go away. And it's likely to keep investors a little bit risk a verse on any dips in the gold price. But what I would really want to see in that is a move below, I'm sorry, a move above $1,320. And at the moment we're not really any close to seeing that. So certainly worth keeping an eye on around about 1265, 1270. Okay, ladies and gents, before I sign off, just thought I'd let you know about a new event that I'm going to be running this week with my colleague Colin in Canada. We're going to be hosting jointly a presentation or an analyst debates webinar, which you can sign up for on the education section of the website. So three o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday. And essentially what we're going to be doing is we're just going to be shooting the breeze if you like, talking about the markets, talking about set ups, looking at where we see the markets going, looking for trading opportunities. It's half an hour, you're more than welcome to join it will be recorded, but it will only be recorded for half an hour. Once the half an hour is up, we will take it offline or stop recording. And then we'll do Q&A between you guys and us about, you know, what markets you're looking at, sentiment of the market, any particular technical analysis set ups that you want us to look at, pattern recognition, whatever you want. So it's called Analyst Debates. It's on the 15th of May this week. It starts at three o'clock. Please feel free to sign up. Love to see you there. We're going to have it once a month. And we're hoping that if we can get some debate going in some, you know, sort of to and fro going between us and you guys, it will hopefully make you come to, you know, hopefully better trading decisions or improve your trading decision progress. As I say, I've been doing this for over 20 years. Colin's been pretty much the same. So we've got 40 plus years of doing this, not always getting it right, very occasionally or quite occasionally getting it wrong. But the good thing is we can talk about our mistakes and talk about where we went wrong and hopefully not do it again. OK, so on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for attending this webinar and I hope to see you on Thursday. Unless anyone has any questions.