rather than pick out individual stocks to trade, it can often be worthwhile to trade the indices themselves, especially in times of high volatility.

for those so inclined, i attach below charts for FTSE and FTSE 250, though one might equally be tempted to trade Dow or S&P, which is significantly broader in its coverage, or even NASDAQ

for ease of reading, i have attached 1 year and 3 month charts in each instance

I see you've been busy Skinny - lol!

It'll be one cliff after another now - with the Debt Ceiling the biggest of them all!

Dreamcatcher: thanks for that chart!

Spanish Manufacturing PMI 44.6 consensus 44.9 previous 45.3

I thought they had just delayed the whole thing for two months? Kicking the can down the road again...........

Italian Manufacturing PMI 46.7 consensus 45.4 previous 45.1

Harry - they have :-)

They have kicked the can Harrycat, but we will no doubt see continuing wrangling now over the next 2 months. I can't see them coming to some agreement way ahead of that deadline somehow... maybe you have more faith in politicians :)

GBP Manufacturing PMI 51.4 consensus 49.2 previous 49.1

uk politicians - some ...... american politicians - none whatsoever! ..... they're as bad as the self-serving union leaders of old

Just had a small short at this level - just sitting on 6000.

I'm also short FTSE @ 6002.5.

COR!!!!
That took me totally by surprise.
Cash Dow suddenly jumped 150+, but apparently it is/was because the futures market does not open until 11:00

Rubs hands together gleefully - like Shylock some would say :-)

Hmmm - that was a rather expensive jar of coffee and marmalade!

Stopped @6015 Filled @6030.

New highs on the FTSE250.

Cynic nice to see someone on the right side of the DOW jump, that cost me 150 points, and am now out of the DOW.... FTSE however I have extended my short positions to now average 6019.9. If the house of cards continues the ralley I'll extend further... As the below hourly chart shows, FTSE is massively overbought at the moment.

I had an early profit on a short-Short first thing, from 5990, but am jolly glad I took my profit. Then re-set to 6040 - if it doesn't hit that, then I shall revise it down a bit

i banked 50% of my Dow at 12258 - yummy yummy - and have a trailing stop on the balance

Well done Cynic, I got caught this morning so my wedge lost a little weight, no play on the DOW currently but I'm heavily exposed to the FTSE now.

well you made plenty previously and you can't always call them right - it would be too easy!