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

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!

Still long on my FTSE - now with a target of 6350 and stop of 6330.

Still running my gold long - a little bit surprised at how strong this has been with the FTSE rising

I closed +8 now sitting on my hands - well done Bhunt.

POG foray seems to have been well timed.