S&P Futures Nikkei +115 Hang Seng +73
7:30am Futures FTSE -8 Techmark -2 DAX -8 Dow -9 S&P -0.6 Nasdaq Unch
News Headlines: U.S. stock markets stayed in a tight trading range after swinging between positive and negative territory all day but just managed to close on the upside. BSkyB Finance Director Martin Stewart has thrown his hat into the ring for the top job against Rupert Murdoch's son James Rhodia sacks CEO, watch out for fallout on ICI!   United Kingdom Calendar (F)inals (I)nterim    United States  (GMT)   Europe & World (GMT) Fri 3rd October British Airways September Traffic Figures 09.30 September CIPS Services PMI 57.0 exp. 13.30 September Non-Farm Payrolls 25k exp. 15.00 September Non-Manufacturing ISM 63.7 exp. 09.00 September Services PMI 52.5 exp. 11.00 August OECD Leading Indicator Good Trading!      david@FTSEDOW.com     www.FTSEDOW.com Pivot Calculator

Basically if you draw the previous days trend lines through on to todays graph it can show you when the market is overbought or oversold.
You have to remember automated computer trading systems have no idea that the market was closed overnight and want to continue the new day as if there was no gap.
So if the start of day futures are -20 and the previous days trend was positive at the close the FTSE will normally bounce back very quickly to narrow the gap. This simply triggers computerised buying programs.
Just the opposite if you have positive futures.

Interesting

LITTLE WOMAN - sorry to interupt...I'm playing messenger here....but there's a question on the investors board a guy (assuming here..!)put up some days ago titled EX-DIVIDEND, anyway he would really like your input on buying for dividends. Wondered if you'd seen it as you usually respond really helpfully to any questions put your way. Have a great weekend people and hope its been a happy trading end of week for you!

I've been away from the internet a lot lately - will see if I can find the thread.

Ex Divi info
http://www.ftsedow.com/ta/ta.htm#divi