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

Hmmmm.

From Dominic Picarda of IC:
"Eighty-six per cent of clients at IG Index are short of the FTSE 100 right now, according to its Insight facility. (My thanks to reader Neil Schofield for bringing this reading to my attention.) I can understand the logic of being short at these levels, depending on one’s timeframe. After all, the FTSE is more overbought than it has been at any time since early 2011. And, I think people have become so used to seeing the index struggle that they may not fully believe in the impressive breakout that we’ve seen.

Overboughtness is never a reason in itself to go short, however. It is an amber light, rather than a red one. As such, I would be allowing for the index to squeeze a bit higher still right now. Sentiment among IG clients is somewhat less bearish (67% short) for the DAX, which is logical given that it is not nearly as overextended as the FTSE. I continue to look for longs in the FTSE for now, and in EURGBP."

i am surprised to hear those numbers, as i know their chart analyst chap remains very bullish of both ftse and dow

for myself, i have just pocketed a very nice profit which has accrued from my dow long ..... a correction must surely be (over)due, though i cannot bring myself to short it.

AAPL
is clearly going to be hammered at the opening bell, and for the brave and nimble fingered, there ought to be an opportunity to buy (profitably!) after the initial knee-jerk reaction

Vodafone, miners push FTSE to new 4-1/2 year high

LONDON | Thu Jan 24, 2013 12:49pm GMT

(Reuters) - The FTSE 100 rose on Thursday as heavyweight Vodafone rallied on fresh speculation about a U.S. asset sale and strong data from China boosted basic resources shares.

Shares in mobile operator Vodafone rose 2.8 percent in volume 67 percent its full-day average for the last 90 days, with traders citing renewed talk about a possible disposal of the group's 45 percent stake in U.S. group Verizon Wireless.

The speculation was triggered by a comment by widely followed hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who also added to his Vodafone position.

Adding 7.7 index points, Vodafone was the single biggest contributor to the FTSE 100's 19.94 points rise. The index was up 0.3 percent to a fresh four and a half year high of 6,207.57 at 1225 GMT.

USD Unemployment Claims 330K consensus 359K previous 335K

Are we there yet?

"she canna take much more of this"!

AAPL
fingers x-ed ..... have had a modest dabble at 458.5

Short @6268.

Madness. Which caught me out :(

Iain,good to see you posting again mate,how you keeping ???

Mega

Fine thanks. Not so much in the last half hour :-) still. Lurking etc

Should have stuck with my WOSY long from 2901. But! Being a genius I dabbled a FTSE short. Far too early . Lol

Its all getting a bit silly!

Iain - you are still well up on WOS - a nice share BTW.

If any of you children want to go short, I'll be happy to take the other side and save you some costs. :)

Cheers Duck

Hilary, even you must be wondering when the correction is coming? Surely any long positions are now made with tight stops?
I have started to take profits on stock I hold so that I have cash available ready for the dip.

This reminds me of when I put a rubber glove on an Industrial air hose. In my wild youthful days. It groaned and creaked. Inflated grossly . Then finally .....
Zeppelinesque

... and once I'm satisfied it's turned, Harry, I'll start trading it the other way. But, until then, I'm not going to worry about a load of ifs, whats, whens and maybes.