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

Skinny 30-Minute chart as requested

AAPL has my attention at the moment.

Cheers - low (so far) 6,086.21. (Not traded!!!)

An 'Eiger' of a chart.

i shorted this yesterday (very belatedly!) and am idly contemplating extending that

I think its done so will close out position for the moment.

On the heels of yesterday's demand-related decline, AAPL was slapped with a price-target cut to $530 from $660 at Nomura this morning. The equity has surrendered nearly 6% year-to-date, yet the sentiment scales among the brokerage bunch remain bullishly tipped. AAPL sports 32 "strong buys" and four "buy" recommendations, compared to just two "holds," and not a single "sell" rating. Also, despite today's price-target reduction, the security's average 12-month price target still stands at $731.96, reflecting expected upside of nearly 46% to Monday's closing price of $501.75.

Now looking oversold and might correct, wait and see approach taken...

Eye on the chart in post 10513 later.

i also took my profit later on ...... however, with wall street currently stalled, upward movement for AAPL may be limited

USD Core CPI m/m 0.1% consensus 0.2% previous 0.1%

USD CPI m/m 0.0% consensus 0.0% previous -0.3%

U.S. Stocks Pare Losses But Remain Lower as Apple Soars

By Jonathan Cheng U.S. stocks pared early losses, but remained lower after a five-session run, amid new woes at Boeing and a gloomy growth outlook from the World Bank. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 37 points, or 0.3%, to 13497 in recent Wednesday morning trading, after being down as many as 66 points. The blue-chip Dow is coming off a week-long winning streak that pushed the index to within 1% of its highs last October. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index lost two points, or 0.1%, to 1471, while the Nasdaq Composite edged up five points, or 0.2%, to 3115. Leading the declines were materials, industrial and telecommunications stocks, on a day when all but one of the 10 S&P 500 sectors pulled back. Boeing weighed most heavily on the Dow, dropping 3.4% after Japan's All Nippon Airways grounded its fleet of 787-model Dreamliners following an emergency landing in Japan by one of its Dreamliners. The latest emergency came just days after a series of similar technical woes, including a fire on a plane in Boston, underscoring concerns about the aerospace giant's new generation of aircraft. Technology stocks bucked the trend, as Apple bounced back 3.5% after a two-day shellacking that shaved 6.6% off the consumer-technology giant's market value and sent shares below $500 for the first time in about a year. Apple, the largest stock in the U.S. and a heavyweight on major large-cap indexes, lifted the Nasdaq and S&P 500 tech sector. Also weighing on the broader markets was a cut in economic expectations by the World Bank, which now expects the global economy to expand by just 2.4% this year, down from its June projection for global growth of 3% in 2013. The World Bank also said that U.S. budget battles are restraining economic growth globally and pose a greater risk to the global economy than even a renewed euro-zone crisis. "This will be the third day we've opened with equity markets down, but what we've seen is that traders and investors come in during the mid-morning and afternoon," said Fred Dickson, chief investment strategist at Davidson Cos. "It seems more like day-trading and posturing rather than investors making long-term commitments." Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs Group led a spate of bank earnings. J.P. Morgan shares slipped 0.4% after the largest U.S. bank by assets made public an internal report outlining mistakes and oversights by executives who played a role in its multibillion-dollar trading loss linked to outsized, complex trades on credit default swaps tied to corporate bonds and cut its chief executive's pay. Fourth-quarter earnings at the bank surged 53% on strong revenue and strengthening credit. Goldman Sachs climbed 2.5% after fourth-quarter profit at the banking giant exceeded expectations, powered by a 64% surge in investment-banking revenue and a 53% jump in net revenue. Northern Trust fell 4.3% after earnings and revenue at the trust bank fell short of expectations amid higher expenses and a 14% drop in net interest income from a year earlier. Comerica rose 2.5% after profits topped expectations, as the commercial lender saw net charge-offs, or loans the company no longer expects are collectible, fall from the prior quarter. Bank of New York Mellon shed 2.6% after earnings and revenue matched expectations, but expenses came in higher than expected. "Traders and investors have been waiting to see how the first wave of companies reporting earnings would do, and the numbers from big banks this morning looked good," Mr. Dickson said. "We got a decent start on the financials this earnings season, though we're going to have to process a pretty big headwind as political headlines in Washington heat up." In economic news, a report showed consumer prices remained unchanged in December, as economists expected. Consumer prices minus food and energy rose 0.1%, slightly less than expected. Industrial production in December rose 0.3%, in line with expectations, while capacity utilization came in at 78.8%, higher than an expected rise of 78.5%. An index of sentiment among homebuilders was unchanged at 47 in January, below expectations for an uptick to 48. At 2 p.m., the Federal Reserve's Beige Book, a anecdotal report of nationwide economic activity, will give clues to the state of the economy. Asian stocks finished broadly lower. Japanese stocks fell 2.6% amid a rising yen after Japan's economy minister, Akira Amari, said a substantially weaker yen wasn't good for the economy. China's Shanghai Composite was off 0.7%. In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 eased 0.2% while France's CAC-40 edged up 0.1%, following the World Bank report. Crude-oil futures gained 0.6% to around $93.80 a barrel, following an unexpected decline in U.S. crude-oil inventories. Gold futures, meantime, slipped 0.4% to around $1,675 per troy ounce. The dollar edged higher against the euro after Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker said the currency was "dangerously" high, and the dollar fell against the yen. Demand for Treasurys rose, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year note down to 1.82%. Among stock movers, Genworth Financial rose 11% to top the list of S&P 500 gainers after it said it would create a new parent company and contribute at least $100 million to its money-losing mortgage-insurance unit, in an effort to placate regulators and ratings companies that have threatened to downgrade the company to junk status. Chipotle Mexican Grill shares led S&P 500 laggards, tumbling 5.4% after the restaurant chain said higher food costs would damp its fourth-quarter earnings despite stronger-than-expected revenue. Wendy's shares rose 0.5% after the fast-food chain reported strong fourth-quarter earnings and forecast 2013 profits above analysts' previous estimates. Computer maker Dell pulled back 4.6%, after a two-day surge of 21% following reports that the iconic maker of personal computers was in talks to be acquired by private-equity buyers. Printed-circuit-board manufacturer TTM Technologies gained 3% after it said it expects to report fourth-quarter results at or somewhat above the high-end of previous guidance.

Apple profits nicely tucked away, glad I closed out my shorts yesterday rather than rolling over...

Well done Shortie - I should have more courage yesterday!!

Look at those crosses on the 5 minute chart, still one to watch,

Shares of Apple (AAPL) are bouncing back from yesterday’s 3% sell-off, currently up $17.08, or 3.5%, at $503. A somewhat surprising development given the decidedly mixed coverage from the Street today. The shares were cut by Pacific Crest’s Andy Hargreaves to Sector Perform from Outperform, on worries about smartphone saturation limiting growth starting next year. And Merrll Lynch’s Scott Craig cut his price target to $630 from $720, while Stifel Nicolaus Aaron Rakers cut his price target to $725 from $825, both warning investors are conflicted and demand seems uncertain.

There were also some positive words, though. Katy Huberty with Morgan Stanley reiterated her Overweight rating on the shares, writing that the risk-reward balance seems favorable going into the January 23rd fiscal Q1 earnings report. And Cowen & Co.’s Matthew Hoffman this morning reiterates an Outperform rating, writing that despite fears of slack demand for the iPhone, “Our checks run counter to that sentiment; Apple’s smartphone share has risen sharply q/q, from 16.4% to ~23.5% overall (based on our 208MM C4Q12 forecast) while C4Q12 U.S. smartphone share likely increased to >35% from

Speaking of Apple, Bloomberg’s Edmond Lococo this morning writes that the company has begun to offer payment plans in China for purchasers of iPhones and MacBooks, as a means to more effectively compete with low-priced goods in that country.

And an article by DigiTimes’s Jessie Shen says that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) is likely to secure orders to produce Apple’s custom chips, and may already be working on engineering samples of the processors, with production happening some time after 2013, citing DigiTimes’s own research analyst, Nobunaga Chai.

Upside momentum is flattening out now, for a continued rally the FTSE needs to push through Mondays intra-session peak of 6134, last weeks low of 6053 is the first key support area I think.

Thanks for the chart Shortie.

Looks like the 1:30 figures may be reasonable!

CAD Foreign Securities Purchases 5.62B consensus 9.45B previous 13.26B

USD Building Permits 0.9 M consensus 0.91M previous 0.90M

USD Unemployment Claims 335K consensus 369K previous 371K

USD Housing Starts 0.95 M consensus 0.89M previous 0.86M

Number of people filing for first-time jobless claims drops 37,000 to 335,000 in latest week, U.S. government says.

BoA numbers good but CITI horrid

================

dow going like a train now