The equity bears are back in town and they most certainly have their claws out. Markets had briefly recovered and were looking upbeat for the most part, however there has been a change today in that the bears have come back into the market – especially as Central Banks continue to comment on the need to lift rates higher; the Bank of England was a classic case today. So for the markets it’s looking like the good times in equities may be starting to wear off in the near term and the volatility is piling back in after a quick reprieve.

The S&P 500 while looking somewhat bullish after the recent fight back has taken another hammering today pushing below the 100 day moving average. A very strong bearish sign for traders in the market and looking even more ominous as it starts to move towards the 200 day moving average. If we saw a breakthrough of the 200 day moving average I would be surprised to see the bulls come back into the market in a hurry. The key support level to also watch tomorrow will of course be 2564 as the market looks to drift lower, followed shortly after by dynamic support at the 200 day moving average. Closing below this level would be a very strong bearish sign to say the least. If however the bulls do come back into the market then look for resistance at 2628 and of course the 100 day moving average. Above this level additional levels of resistance can be found at 2666 and 2698.

Across in the UK it has been a case of the bears taking a huge swipe again after the comments from Mark Carney about pushing rates up faster than analysts expected. It’s going to be a hard sell for bulls to come back into the UK market anytime soon with that sort of bold talk and as a result the FTSE has fallen sharply.

The key level of 7100 has been pierced through by traders in the close of trading today and there is a very real possibility it may sink lower going into tomorrow’s final day of trading for the week. Expectations around support levels can be found at 6974 and 6914. Obviously this is quite a distance away, but the volatility in this case warrants such major levels in order to ascertain where market direction may inevitably end up. Resistance levels can also be found at 7205 and 7278, with the old bullish trend line likely to act as dynamic resistance in the event the bulls do take control in these turbulent times.