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

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

GBP Public Sector Net Borrowing 16.7B 14.3B 4.4B

Spanish HPI q/q -0.8% previous -2.2%

def a good day at the ranch so far today! .... inter alia, cheekily bought into HG+HC Index this morning :-)

CAD Core Retail Sales m/m 0.7% 0.5% 0.4%

CAD Retail Sales m/m 0.8% 0.3% 0.9%

Just gone short FTSE @6,376.8

USD Flash Manufacturing PMI 52.0 53.8 54.6

USD HPI m/m 0.7% 0.7% 0.6%

snap Skinny 6372

Are you guys still short FTSE as it still seems to have legs!

Yes - I am.

I'd been long twice since Friday and closed the 2nd and reversed around R2 - ignoring everything else!!

I'll see if it gets above 6,411.74 and decide then - ho hum!

1HR Wall Street

FTSE 15min Cross forming for the downside...

6406 I'm short FTSE also..

Underwear change

Thanks Hils - I saw it and assumed it was fat finger.