I need to change my breakfast time. I tend to spend from 7 till just gone 8 at the desk; it’s useful partly to catch up on the overnight news and views, but also to avoid the pre-school maelstrom. By quarter past eight it’s usually safe to snatch a few Weetabix, but today it was a costly breakfast.

An early glance at the markets had confirmed that equities had the horn, gold and oil were still pondering their recent sell-offs and traders had little appetite for the Euro. I’ve mentioned in yesterday’s article ( Reasons To Be Cheerful One, Two, Three -NOT) that I’ve turned bearish of the Euro. But I reckon the recent collapse was too much in a short space of time. I don’t fancy selling it down here, yet.

Avoiding Euro trades left little to get excited about so some Weetabix and a quick glance at The Sun seemed a good call. It didn’t take long to polish off 5 Weetabix and an anti-wotzit yoghurt, but those few minutes was all it took for GBPUSD to break resistance and put on a quick half-century.

I fancied a bit of the action and used Fibonacci’s bonking bunnies as a way in. The GBPUSD pullback stopped at the 23.6% retracement of the day’s high/low, so after waiting for the 10-minute candle to confirm a rally from that point I placed a bet to buy £10 at $1.9841.

The morning before US payrolls is no time for heroics, especially as I’m going to be AWOL from 12.30 onwards. I placed a tight stop at $1.9815, just below the recent lows, and when a rally allowed me to close off £6 at $1.9853 I jumped my stop up to the breakeven level pretty sharpish.

Yep, I paid the price for not giving the trade space to breath and was stopped out almost immediately; after testing the interest at the $1.9830 level the price rallied to the mid-70s. Me? I’m not too bothered. I’ve got £72 to stick in my back pocket when I go to cheer on Bath tomorrow. And apart from some scrappy shorts in Barclays and Alliance & Leicester I’m not exposed to the US payrolls roulette.

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Looking at the economic background I think equities stink up here; I know we live in a drug-dependent culture, but always assume it’s recreational not an investment tool. But I have to admit the charts are lending good support to the City’s Pete Dohertys.

The uptrend line is doing a good job of heading off any decent sell-offs, and the invaders look to have broken the first line of resistance at 6115-20. The up move isn’t looking over-cooked yet, and gains credibility from the upward pointing 21-day moving average. The 200-day moving average has either just been broken, or provides key resistance, depending on which methodology is used (if that all sounds a bit jargony, go into ’settings’ on the daily chart, set up a 200 moving average, then click the ‘exponential’ box to see it move).

But a word of warning; once I start to talk, or even think, about equity rallies it’s probably time to sell.

Finally, if you’re really getting excited about the payrolls number, check out GG’s foreplay page (April’s Non-Farm Payrolls). And if you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, check out the beginner’s guide Roll Up, Roll Up, For The Payroll’s Roulette.

Happy Trading