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

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.

I ran a little Long FTSE first thing but closed it far too soon and reversed it to go short! Well done indeed Bhunt!

Have removed my target of 6350 and moved my stop up to 6345 - starting to look heady

It's getting high on that China data!

Italian IP @9am.

Thats me out

still in gold though

A bit late.

Italian Industrial Production m/m -0.8% -0.4% 1.0%

Still short EUR/GBP and Wall St, also now short on GBP/JPY

I'm waiting patiently on my hands, shortie, before I fillmemanolos with yen cross longs.

The hourly indis of all the yen crosses have been unwinding over the last couple of days, but the price action hasn't matched the indis. That generally means the price is on the verge of exploding much higher.

Edit - duplicate post. Soz.

One post for each hand ? :-)

Router keeps dropping off, skinners, sorry. My son must be streaming porn again. :o)

Good lad!

Hi Hilary, indeed there is the risk that GJ could well go higher but I think deflationary pressures will persist and all this extreme QE isn't enough to turn Japan around. At the end of the day the transmission mechanism through which monetary policy acts on the real market is broken. If you flood an already flooded banking sector with reserves when the lending rate is already pinned to zero your not going to generate growth. This is where the charts differ from the economics.

I agree, it's not a long-term solution to the problem, but I think the BoJ are only interested atm in weakening the yen to boost exports and stimulate some growth that way. They know damn well that all their QE is heading out of Japan as the financial institutions chase a higher return through the carry.

I'd have to say that, right now, Shinzo is winning the currency war. The problem imo is that Japan is a net energy importer. I think Shinzo will probably get away with his printing press trick until winter comes and Japanese households start getting their 'leccy bills in. I'm not so sure they'll be too chuffed about winning a currency war then...

Well Abes managed to weaken the Yen and flatten bond curves with the move and I suppose at least Japan is doing something to try and inflate their public sector debt away. Unlike Europe with the ECBs OMT/ESM super-bluff (they'd have used it buy now if it weren't) OMT also unworkable in practice anyway IMO.

Gold Daily - Nothing to suggest this is going to breakout, quite the opposite, expecting the trend to be maintained lower.


Wall St Hourly - Maybe add to my existing short.

US government bonds have gotten the short end of the stick so far when it comes to the BoJ's aggressive liquidity plan. While that has meant plenty of money to go around, sending yields from France to Mexico to historic lows, the simultaneous risk-on mood has taken away from Treasurys. BoJ Governor Kuroda says not to expect an "avalanche" of Japanese money to pour out of the country, but this afternoon's 10-year US auction will be telling as to whether at least some conservative Japanese investors are shifting from JGBs to Treasurys. 10s are off 5/32 to yield 1.766%.