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

Hi Skinny, I'll only sell VOD if I think the yield is going to drop. I bought these over EV25 bonds due to the yield being better but their not an equity I'm looking to hold over the long term.

Its a shame there doesn't seem to be much appetite for good yielding on this site outside of the FTSE250.

I keep trying to get Harry interested in some of the prefs and IVTs that have some excellent yields - not exciting enough for many I guess, although I think Dil bought some RECI.

I bought some Tullett Prebon recently, 6.6% yield with 2.2x cover. Although the likes of Beazley and Legal and General bought during the credit crunch are my best equity yielders and Segro bonds also bought during the crunch. Carlillion stands out at the moment some 6.2% yield with 2.3x cover and Aviva if your not already holding them..

I hold AV. & LGEN also RSL (7+%).

Here are some of my non mainstream yielders - although some have also had spectacular growth.

MGHI,MGHU,RECI,RECP,PEW,GACA,SMP1(retail bond 6.25%),GLIF,HICL,JLIF,SDV on my list are ILH & ECWO.

Thanks Skinny, I've never bought into trusts before but will have to have a look at these. I've toyed with Jupiter before but never bought in.

Changing the subject I got a call from a Lillian Mettey (male) at Gekko Markets this morning who introduced themselves as being my Account Manager. He quizzed me on experience and how long I'd been trading etc before emailing me a list of services they offer and numbers to contact them on. This is the first time I've ever been subjected to any questioning in all my years of trading, pretty good I thought to ensure customers are fully aware of risk before letting them have a live account.

I appreciate your suggestions skinny, but as you say, some of the high yielders are not very exciting. AV. & LGEN......hmmmmmm....soooooo dull! As for managed funds & trusts, I prefer to manage my own portfolio rather than let someone else do it, so trusting my money to fund managers is not on my radar. That's not to say there is anything wrong with that approach, but at least if I mess up I can't blame anyone else! I seem to remember there being some question as to whether AV. could maintain it's divi, though haven't kept up to speed on that issue.

Probably assessing your level of "fleeceability" :-)

BTW the above are a mix of IVTs & Prefs.

I also hold a few UTs :-

Aberdeen emerging markets accum.

First State Asia Pacific Leaders Class A Accumulation Units

Invesco Perpetual Monthly Income Plus Income Units

Invesco Perpetual Japan Accumulation Shares etc etc.

Harry AV have been a dog recently and I'm sorely tempted to roll them into RSl & CSN.

You should start a thread Skinny with picks in the title section.

AV might be a dog but a well covered dog at that, I suppose it depends at what price you bought at and what equity loss your sat on..

Yep, so if you get it wrong we know who to blame!!! Might conflict with gf's thread though, which could raise some interesting comments! ;o)

:-)

does anyone have any thoughts about buying into banks, perhaps (probably) through a sector index?

A sector index will expose you to further potential losses in BARC, RBS and LLOY. I'd only consider buying STAN, HSBC or Investec at the moment, at the right price, but would prefer to wait as I expect further deposit accounts will be handed out to new businesses. The Post Office has either or is on the verge of offering a current account which will no doubt steal market share from the big players.

what a very very strange day on the markets!

EUR Consumer Confidence -22 -24 -24

USD Existing Home Sales 4.92M 5.02M 4.98M

CNY HSBC Flash Manufacturing PMI 50.5 51.4 51.6

CHF Trade Balance 1.90B 1.73B 2.00B

China HSBC Flash PMI falls, points to tepid Q2 recovery

BEIJING | Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:36am BST

(Reuters) - Growth in China's vast factory sector dipped in April as new export orders shrank, a preliminary survey of factory managers showed on Tuesday, suggesting the world's second-largest economy still faces formidable global headwinds into the second quarter.

The flash HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index for April fell to 50.5 in April from 51.6 in March but was still stronger than February's reading of 50.4.

EUR French Flash Manufacturing PMI 44.4 44.2 44.0

EUR French Flash Services PMI 44.1 42.3 41.3

German Flash Manufacturing PMI 47.9 49.0 49.0

German Flash Services PMI 49.2 51.1 50.9

EUR Flash Manufacturing PMI 46.5 46.8 46.8

EUR Flash Services PMI 46.6 46.7 46.4