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

bhunt - your head is almost certainly right, at least for now ...... keep watching dow which is only 100 pts away from its key target of 14,545 and/or ftse 6550

out of 50% of dow long at 14435 ...... there's prob a bit more puff left, but not so much that i want to chance it all

GBP Manufacturing Production m/m -1.5% consensus 0.0% previous 1.6%

GBP Trade Balance -8.2B consensus -8.8B previous -8.9B

GBP Industrial Production m/m -1.2% consensus 0.1% previous 1.1%

And still the FTSE rises.
It's a fickle market but with the £ falling vs the Euro that makes exports cheaper again.

.

US and China are in good shape, so no problem with companies. They improve earning very fast and continue to have more room to grow.

I'm not trading this, seriously thinking of catching a bus or hailing a Taxi some serious opinions needed here :O)

Dow up, Footsie up, Gold up, What's the Dollar doing?

Wow - my gold has just gone from £5k loss to £2k profit - moved the sl up to guarantee some profit - but my FTSE short still underwater - but looking more promising

I'm still short from yesterday pm, I also got filled last night @6,511, which I closed this morning @6,498.

Plenty of my long(er) term holdings at highs (hardly surprising) and I've put a few limit orders in to sell 50% of these.

Silver money going into Gold perhaps?

Silver looking good also I think

Pound falls on weak manufacturing data

The pound has fallen against the dollar and the euro after official figures showed UK manufacturing output fell by 1.5% in January from the month before.

The drop came after a 0.9% rise in output in December, and has added to fears of a third recession since 2008.

The pound hit a new two-and-a-half-year low of $1.4832 against the US dollar. The euro also rose to a two week high versus the pound of 87.77 pence.

Construction and Building worth keeping an eye, especially if the government decide to invest in the sector to spur growth.....

Gold rising nicely now on that news

All I need now is for FTSE to drop some

A cheap pound will only rally the FTSE as equities become cheaper to foreign investors...

Not that anyones interested but 15 minute FTSE chart below, maybe worth printing and hanging on your dart board or worthy of a match!!