Hello traders!

US stock gains mounted in the final hour of trading Monday, as a diplomatic push in the Middle East, a flurry of merger-and- acquisition activity and strong results from Merck and Schering-Plough boosted sentiment.

The Dow was just off highs for the session, up 171 points at 11,038. The Nasdaq Composite rallied 37 points to 2,058 while the S&P500 climbed 20 points to 1,260.

See you in the morning with the latest........

G.

Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Hang Seng ended the morning up 168.94 points at 16,649.53, while the Nikkei was recently up 234.5 points at 15,029.00.

New York's main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, was up 10 cents at $75.15 per barrel, compared with $75.05 in late US trades Monday.

Early broker notes:

BA UPGRADED TO 'EQUAL-WEIGHT' VS 'UNDERWEIGHT' AT MORGAN STANLEY
GCAP UPGRADED TO 'NEUTRAL' VS 'SELL' AT MERRILL LYNCH

Happy trading!

G.

Good morning

Not been by for a long time - doing rather well spreadbetting both Long and Short, but all my posts have been over in the traders room.

Given up on the AIM shares - watched them slowly devalue more and more
- wish I'd had the sense to cut my losses a while back. Look like I should just bite the bullet and move on.

Ftse100 shares all doing very well, and paying out really good dividends and keeping me going.

Never mind about the tiddlers LW (most of us have been stuck with some of those) they can be used for capital gain losses in future years.

Important to keep focused on what we do well i reckon, welcome back anyway.

Thanks stan, but I'm not interested in Capital Gains losses. Its too much hassle putting the claims in etc.

Midday Market Summary

I am a lazy bugger so cannot be bothered to check ..... However, my memory is that 11150 on Dow has been a resistance for some time and is now growing in strength ....... Yet again, Dow is refusing to get through that level and indeed looks to be struggling to hold 11000 ..... Wish I was smart enough to play long/short correctly, but if I held long positions in either Dow or NASDAQ 100, I would be taking profits.

End-of-day Market Summary