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

banked a decent profit from HG+HC long which at least ameliorates the nasty bruising incurred with my dow/ftse shorts ...... am now short dow again and keeping my fingers x-ed

So you went short, got burnt, took the loss and have decided to go short again.. Why crystalise a loss if you intended going short again in the same market?

Merkel: Need Common Understanding on Where Growth Comes From

because my brain's soggy!

Shortie,

I personally feel this photo of Angie Baby does her more justice...

Hilary lol... that picture is rather scary though..

Yuk!

CAD NHPI m/m 0.2% 0.1% 0.1%

USD Unemployment Claims 346K 362K 385K

USD Import Prices m/m -0.5% -0.4% 1.1%

exited HG+HC early .... should have just left it with stop in place, but hey ho

FTSE keeps rising shorts must be well and truly dirty by now!

At this rate the DOW will hit 15000 next week..

I used to be undecided, but now I'm not so sure :-

G8 ministers fail to agree on Syria; no plan on North Korea

(Reuters) - Foreign ministers from the G8 group of rich countries failed to patch up deep divisions over Syria or come up with a concrete plan on North Korea during a meeting in London on Thursday.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, speaking after talks with his counterparts, admitted the world had done too little to try to resolve Syria's two-year-old conflict, in which an estimated 70,000 people have been killed.

Dow closes at all time high, money flooding in from Europeans scared by what happened in Cyprus, lets be honest does the market care if Syrians are killing each other, even the Chinese call Kim blah blah...sai fei fei (little fatty)!

Is this the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" moment?

Pentagon report says North Korea likely has nuclear tipped missiles

SEOUL/WASHINGTON | Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:15am BST

(Reuters) - A Pentagon spy agency has concluded with "moderate confidence" that North Korea has developed a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile, an assessment swiftly dismissed by several U.S. officials and South Korea.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said such a weapon would probably be unreliable. Its assessment, made public by a U.S. lawmaker in Washington, comes amid threats of war by North Korea and just hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Seoul on a visit to the region that will include stops in China and Japan.

German WPI m/m -0.2% 0.3% 0.1%

having rather "lost the rhythm" this week, i am more than a little chary of sticking my neck out but shall merely venture the old adage of nothing goes up (or down) in a straight line

15min GBP/JPY :-)

EUR Industrial Production m/m 0.4% 0.3% -0.4%

GBP CB Leading Index m/m 0.4% 0.4%

Construction output falls annual 7 percent in February

LONDON | Fri Apr 12, 2013 10:34am BST

(Reuters) - Construction output was 7.0 percent lower in February than a year ago but 5.5 percent higher than in January, according to non-seasonally adjusted data that provides a glimmer of hope that activity in the sector may be recovering.

The Office for National Statistics said nearly all sectors recorded increases during the month with the exception of 'private commercial other new work' which showed a fall of 0.5 percent.

Despite making up less than 7 percent of Britain's economy, weak construction output was the main drag on growth during the first half of last year, helping push the country into recession.

4Hr FTSE for the shorters