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

Hilary - Looks like your still at the GJ party..! 151.53 at the moment and gathering speed... Are they looking to become the worlds carry trade again????

Still adding to the long side, Shortie. I won't close until that lower indi on the chart I pasted turns down on the hourlies. Maybe later today or tomorrow morning possibly, but I'm chilled with it.

I bet you are, that's some movement over the last week.. A new set of diamond slippers anyway... All the best to you..

Well, to be fair, it had only been giving scraps for daytrading over the last month or so. It's nice to have something to sit on for a bit longer than 24 hours for a change.

European government bond yields fell to record lows Monday as last week's Bank of Japan action to stimulate its economy continued to weaken the yen and boost asset prices more generally. Portuguese bond yields were the outlier, rising on concerns about a court ruling that blocked planned austerity measures. Ten-year government bond yields in France, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands hit record lows and the yen fell to multiyear lows against both the euro and the dollar. Portuguese 10-year government bond yields climbed to 6.49% before easing back to 6.42%. "The move higher in the U.S. dollar/Japanese yen on Friday and overnight, despite the disappointing U.S. labor market report and the subsequent drop in U.S. yields, underlines that the yen-depreciation trend is very strong," Danske Bank said in a note. The Japanese currency neared the JPY100 per dollar mark and Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose to its highest level since Aug. 18, 2008. Fears for Portugal and Greece resulted in a slump for their respective stock markets early Monday. In Portugal, a Constitutional Court ruled last week that planned cuts in wages and pensions for public employees were discriminatory. The Portuguese government will now have to seek alternative ways to cut spending to keep the country's EUR78 billion ($101 billion) bailout program on track. Greece's ASE Composite dropped 1.6% and Eurobank Ergasias and National Bank of Greece slumped after Greece suspended their merger following objections from international lenders, who said the combined entity could become too big and pose a systemic risk to the country. Elsewhere, European stock markets were largely higher, bouncing from the two-month lows seen last week after the disappointing U.S. nonfarm payrolls report. The focus will now shift to the start of the first-quarter U.S. earnings season. In line with tradition, aluminum giant Alcoa Inc. is the first to kick off proceedings later Monday. German industrial production data are expected at 1000 GMT.

German Industrial Production m/m 0.5% 0.4% 0.0%

It's a sayonara to the GBP/JPY longs this last hour. It's been fun, but all good things must come to an end.

strange ..... dow continues south but even cash ftse has not followed it - yet

Reckon the DOW has some catching up to do Cynic: the FTSE and other European Indices tanked on Friday, whereas the DOW recovered much of what it had lost - that's my theory anyway.

"

Thanks for that Skinny :)

GBP BRC Retail Sales Monitor y/y 1.9% previous 2.7%

GBP RICS House Price Balance -1% -5% -7%

Cold weather slows UK retail sales growth in March - BRC

LONDON | Tue Apr 9, 2013 12:18am BST

(Reuters) - Growth in British retail sales slowed last month despite a boost from an early Easter, as unseasonably cold weather hurt demand for summer clothes and shoes, industry data showed on Tuesday.

The British Retail Consortium said retail sales values rose 1.9 percent from a year earlier on a like-for-like measure, which strips out changes in stores' floor space and is favoured by equity analysts. That compared with a 2.7 percent increase in February.

EUR German Trade Balance 17.1B 16.2B 15.6B

JPY Prelim Machine Tool Orders y/y -21.6% previous -21.5%

EUR French Gov Budget Balance -27.1B previous -12.8B

EUR French Trade Balance -6.0B -5.3B -5.7B

What a surge on the DOW last night - seems to have started going up just after I went out late afternoon... Ah well, my shorts are still there, having not been stopped out, so I shall have to think what to do next.

I got filled last night (short) @6,316, which I'm going to leave for now.

I'm just staying put, too.

Apparently volume in the US was light yesterday - so that surge we saw (because of Alcoa's results) may not last;

"A lot of the momentum we had in the first quarter was based on improving economic news, and the jobs report really took the wind out of our sails," said Dunigan, who helps oversee $116 billion in assets. "We're still trying to sift through what that means for our prospects going forward." Volume was light, with about 5.11 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, well below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares."

CHF CPI m/m 0.2% 0.3% 0.3%

CHF Retail Sales y/y 2.4% 2.9% 2.0%

GBP Manufacturing Production m/m 0.8% 0.4% -1.5%

GBP Trade Balance -9.4B -8.7B -8.2B

GBP Industrial Production m/m 1.0% 0.4% -1.2%

GBP 10-y Bond Auction 1.73|1.7 previous 2.15|2.3

I seem to have lost a post from yesterday - never mind

Still long on my gold from 1550. Lost some of my profit yesterdaY - but staying long for time being

Also maintaining my long on FTSE (since 6260) but have moved my stop up to 6290 as momentum seems to be waining