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

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

Well done Hilary on your GBJ close.. Its begining to look like a shorters market, all that money in extreme QE, no discernable increase in lending to the non-banking sector! The Tankan survey shows industrial output contracting by 11% now year on year with industrial data showing falling factory gate prices and companies still laying off workers.

well I am sticking with my longs for the time being !!

I was limited out +16, now looking to go short again.

I would hold of a bit - momentum is in the ascendancy - BWDIK

CAD Housing Starts 184K 176K 178K

CAD Building Permits m/m 1.7% 3.7% 1.7%

Fitch has downgraded China to A+...... does anybody care? only those journos waiting to emphasise the UK being downgraded.

at least uk is nowhere near as corrupt as china!

Still Long on FTSE - upped stops to 6300 and still running my gold long with a stop of 1565

Still debating another short, but the DOW seems to like it above 14,700 atm.

I bought some TSX:ATP earlier @4.89.

Wow - what a Dow! Got stopped out of course... serve me right for not having taken a small profit when I could have done so before going out late afternoon. I still have one little short running, though currently at a loss, but I will leave it.

Well I've taken a blind short @6,328 - not much in the way of economic news due tomorrow and I prefer to be short atm - which will probably help Bhunt's long!

CNY Trade Balance -0.9B 15.2B 15.3B

Nikkei rises to highest close in nearly 5 years, banks in demand

French Industrial Production m/m 0.7% 0.6% -1.2%

Makes a change for the French to be doing well!

Thanks for the colours btw Skinny

Mistress - not used to seeing you on here so often .... hope that isn't a sign of marginal stress .... fyi "guru" still says stay short but he is watching that dow does not build a base above 14550

Yes thanks Cynic. I just didn't like the DOW running away above 14700 while I was short!