Today’s shortened trading day has seen a little movement in the stock indexes, gold and silver and the crude oil contract. All in all with so few traders participating, its hard to get too enthused about any movement.
We are all waiting for next Friday’s Unemployment figure. The first Friday of every month gives us the data, that for better or worse, the whole trading world seems to look to at this point. I can remember back in 1982, 1983 when the number everyone was in love with was M1, or money supply. Today, however, its unemployment. And Next friday, Jan 8th, we will get that figure.

So far today, the stock indexes are slightly lower, along with the Dollar Index. So there isn’t necessarily a simple inverse relationship to be found there for a no-brainer trade. Currently we have the Dollar sitting roughly at the 78 level. I am sure next week, we will get some better indication of what the dollar will be doing once everyone is back and actually trading.

SPH opened at 112350, posted a high at 112380 and moved to a low at 111780, a 6 handle range. Hardly anything to get too excited about. Currently SPH is at 111780, -430 so far today.

DJH opened at 10490, posted a high at 10493 and a low at 10436, which is where we are currently. DJH is down 53 ticks sitting at its low at 10437. A 60 tick trading range. Again, not a lot of opportunity, and my guess is either we snap back in a late day short covering rally, or we extend another 40 ticks or so, to pull out at least a 100 pt trading range.

In the metals, we are higher across the board with the slightly lower dollar index.
March silver is at 1692, up 118, Feb gold is at 10993, on its high for the day, up 68. Again, I wouldn’t put too much significance into any move on this last day of the year.

Crude oil is bouncing up against the 80 dollar resistance once again, with a high right at that tic. Crude has a low at 7916 today. I’d watch for a push above the 80 dollar level by the bulls, just to dress up the charts for the long weekend. Sunday night’s trade should be interesting, however, if there are any fireworks geo-politically over this holiday weekend.

Good Luck , Happy New Year and here’s to a better 2010.