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

Nice one Iain.

Well done, I'm rather amazed that the QE exit debate hasn't had a negative effect on Wall St.... The rally must be due to all the Yen finding its way into stocks!!

Wall St 1hr chart, looking rather overbought

I'm short @6,401.

I'm abit wary of the FTSE at the moment as its possible it could push up 100+ pips again.

1 HR FTSE

Shortie - you may well be right - my position is based on nothing :-)

FTSE still to regain it's 12 month high.

or perhaps the dai feh jai (big fat boy) may intervene!

To be honest, that's been at the back of my mind for a while and hence my previous post about wanting to be short overnight - so far proving costly :-)

I know costly, sometimes though you just have to bite the bullett and they come good..

Looks like I closed my FTSE long a tad too early, never mind - a good run nevertheless and my Gold got stopped out - also with a healthy profit.

Where now !!

just goes to show that markets don't always act as they are meant to! ...... took a bit of nasty bashing on the shorts i was running and now closed, but at least partially offset by my current long in HG+HC

I've just gone short on the DOW @ 14818. Had been long for a couple of brief trips on the FTSE and am leaving that alone for now.

Have gone short on FTSE at 6385 and long on gold at 1560

Bhunt - you do realise you are now betting the same way as me!

Do you want to reconsider? :-))

USD Federal Budget Balance -106.5B -110.3B -203.5B

Obama budget aims to kickstart deficit-reduction talks

WASHINGTON | Wed Apr 10, 2013 8:51pm BST

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama proposed a $3.77 trillion (2.46 trillion pounds) budget on Wednesday that combines controversial cuts to social safety net programs with tax increases on the wealthy.

The package is meant to lure Republicans to negotiate a broad deficit-reduction plan, but the details mirror a proposal Obama laid out last year that was rejected by Republican leaders.

maybe not my cleverest decision in the light of the cypress decision to sell gold - I had not seen that news before I placede my bet

Bhunt - it looks like limited damage so far!


Gold losses seen limited on Cyprus bullion sale plan

NEW YORK/LONDON | Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:25am BST

(Reuters) - Gold posted its biggest one-day drop in nearly 2 months on Wednesday after Cyprus was forced to sell most of its gold reserves, but analysts said strong bullion buying by other central banks should underpin the price of the metal.

Investor fears over more gold sales by other debt-stricken euro zone members such as Portugal and Greece sent spot bullion prices down 1.7 percent on Wednesday, within striking distance of a 10-month low.

German Final CPI m/m 0.5% 0.5% 0.5%

Nikkei closed at the days high.