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'm still looking for 6,400 sooner rather than later.

Bernanke Seen Buying $1.14 Trillion in Assets in 2014

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s latest round of bond buying will reach $1.14 trillion before he ends the program in the first quarter of 2014, according to median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

A few hours old...

Japan govt approves $1.02 trillion budget for 2013/14 amid fiscal worries

TOKYO | Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:54am GMT
(Reuters) - Japan's government approved on Tuesday a $1.02 trillion (649.22 billion pounds) draft budget for the next fiscal year that aims to nudge tax revenues above new bond sales for the first time in four years, but still relies on borrowing to cover 46.3 percent of its spending.

The first full-year draft budget compiled under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who led his Liberal Democratic Party back to power last month with promises of economic revival, marks symbolic improvement after years of deterioration.

FTSE approaching resistance, but in the words of 7 of 9....

Cant sit on my hands any more - in with a modest short on the FTSE at 6330,SL at 6350

Take a breath FFS!

FFS.....Is that the ticker for a particular banana supplier? ;o)

What is driving this ?

Well just as well my FTSE short didn't go through as I never expected such a surge!
The market must believe that things are getting rosy or maybe they bought a lorry load of rose tinted specs!
With today's movement I can honestly say I haven't a clue in working out whether the FTSE will continue up or crash down. I think I'll stay clear for now.
TT

From what I can gather, 'there is nowhere else for the funds to go' when compared with alternatives like bonds:

From Marketwatch.com:
'For many investing pros and their clients, the current environment—a seemingly improving economy and an unusually risky bond market—has forced them to rethink what has long been an Investing 101 strategy. Because bond yields remain at historic lows—the 10-year Treasury pays 1.84%, which is less than inflation’s current 2% rate—many worry any pickup in interest rates could send bond prices plummeting (bond prices and interest rates move in opposite directions). As a result, they are keeping their stockholdings at an elevated allocation.'

watch the volume.

But it still feels massively overbought too quickly - any way I survived that surge to 3350(just) - lets hope it drops now (being entirely selfish)

Another little snippet, this one from Reuters:
'Fund managers said that while there was the possibility that equities would level off after such hefty gains, they deemed a significant near-term sell-off as unlikely.

"You will get to the point where that squeeze higher will have absorbed all of the cash that was destined to go into equities and it’s at that point markets will be vulnerable – but I don’t think we’re there yet," said Andrew Cole, a fund manager at Baring Asset Management, which has 32.4 billion pounds ($50.9 billion) of assets under management.'

common sense suggests this is traders trying to "create" volatility how much collusion is involved remains to be investigated.

I shall await the results of that Halifax :) - I doubt we'll ever get to the bottom of it!

But I did read somewhere that the markets could be encouraged upwards in order to create a nice shorting position - which surely can't be too far away??

Market totally ignoring fundamentals, data from the EU and USA is poor, UK in recession. Analysts lowering expectations to ridiculous levels so results can at least mee,t but even so, some very big recent misses, the latest of which is Amazon tonight.

Even if the US data mises tomorrow I expect the markets to continue their rise. This won't stop until the main players are ready for it to stop and we won't see it coming. There will be an inflexion point which won't be caused by corporation misses or data so therefore it will be unexpected. By us mere mortals anyway.

The result of all this money printing will be inflation and then hyper-inflation, then we can all look forward to the vicious cycle of rising costs, rising interest rates, rising poverty etc, etc.

Not a comforting thought.

.

Sounds incestuous - Exclusive - JPMorgan bet against itself in "Whale" trade

NEW YORK | Wed Jan 30, 2013 2:01am GMT

(Reuters) - There is a new twist in the London Whale trading scandal that cost JPMorgan Chase $6.2 billion (3.9 billion pounds) in trading losses last year. Some of the firm's own traders bet against the very derivatives positions placed by its chief investment officer, said three people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, which launched an inquiry into the trading loss last fall, is looking into the how different divisions of the bank wound up on opposite sides of the same trade, said one of the people familiar with the matter.

Should we be surprised by that Skinny?? Time was when we would have been... it's a disgrace. I must be getting old!

There are two catalysts in the next couple of sessions that could impact the market:

1. The update from the Fed. FOMC Statement due to start at 19:15 UK time. “The Fed will maintain a steady foot on the gas pedal,” said Julia Coronado, chief economist for North America at BNP Paribas.

2. US jobs data on Friday. Non-Farm Employment Change due at 13:30 UK time (forecast 168K vs 155K previous month – NB: I have also seen a forecast of 156K).

Hmm, looks this rally will keep on running

Right,having been stopped out at 6350, we will try 1 more short at 6345 with a sl of 6355