Will FTSE 100 finish year with a flourish?

FTSE FOR FRIDAY (ish) (FTSE:UKX)

Past experience has taught, doing a "FTSE for..." when the day is effectively Xmas eve (the London Stock Exchange always shuts at lunchtime the last working day before Christmas) will be an exercise in futility. Normally, the holiday morning spends the session doing nothing until the final few minutes, then the FTSE will make a movement. Usually the one it should make the previous day!

We're not terribly fond of the current scenario as everything indicated the FTSE was going to continue upward. Until - that is - our esteemed PM was broadcast live talking about Brexit. At this point, everything seemed go wrong with the index and laughably, our outdoors Xmas tree fell over, blocked the satellite dish, and interrupted Bloomberg. Perhaps, this was a real "strong & stable" Christmas miracle.

The situation now exists of weakness below 7,510 points driving the FTSE down to a fairly safe sounding 7,494 points. We'd favour some sort of bounce at this point. Secondary though, if 7,494 breaks, calculates as 7,452 points. Or perhaps 7,434 points, thanks to a tiny little manipulation gap on the UK index at the open on Monday 18th.

If the above doom triggers, stop can be placed at just above 7,548 points which is fairly reasonable.

Our surprise comes from the UK market previously showing every intention of scraping the 7,600 level prior to the end of year. If the index does indeed experience some recovery above 7,548, we're looking for some continued growth toward 7,565 points initially. Secondary, if bettered, comes along at 7,590 points - reasonably close to our 7,600 ambition. If triggered, stop can probably be 7,510 points.

And that's it! We're treating Thursday as "Friday" as "Friday" we're treating as a day off as it will be a waste of time. As Noddy once said, "It's Christmas". Thanks for reading this, enjoy a good break.

Alistair Strang has led high-profile and "top secret" software projects since the late 1970s and won the original John Logie Baird Award for inventors and innovators. After the financial crash, he wanted to know "how it worked" with a view to mimicking existing trading formulas and predicting what was coming next. His results speak for themselves as he continually refines the methodology.

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