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

glad i didn't allow myself to be panicked out of my dow short yesterday evening, as it's now rollicking along once more ..... need to check where next support comes

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14735 but say 14750 as potential target

Big swings in the dollar made Thursday a blowout trading day in the $4 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market.

Citigroup, the world’s second-biggest foreign-exchange trading bank by market share, said it handled a record number of trades during that day, but declined to disclose the total Barclays, the third-largest, said it was the busiest day for trade in the dollar against the yen since 2008.

The surge in volumes came after comments Wednesday by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and minutes from a recent Fed policy meeting suggested it might start pulling back on its bond purchases some time this year.

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Only a few more days to follow the "Sell in May" adage.
FTSE recovering well from the fall last week . Only 100 points to go before it gets back to the recent highs.
Question now is will it hold its nerve and keep on going?

It is very rare for any market to turn from a single top.

16% of time

For those worried about a big correction or a 'go away' sentiment, most of the broker notes I have seen are bullish about equities at the moment and are not predicting a dull summer of trading.
Below is a summary of the Morgan Stanley take on things:
"Latest developments point to more modest and volatile returns in 2H vs 1H. We do not believe the recent weakness in equity markets is likely to morph into a material correction in stocks, although it does highlight the risk that equity returns are likely to be more modest and volatile in 2H13 than 1H13 as markets increasingly focus on the prospect of liquidity withdrawal.
Sentiment remains somewhat elevated. We believe that recent equity weakness should predominantly be viewed as deflating a short-term overshoot in equity prices at this time, rather than more fundamental concerns. For example, Europe’s RSI hit a high of 78 and the FTSE All-Share registered an unprecedented 12 consecutive days of price rises in the run-up to last Thursday. While we do not believe investors are excessively optimistic, some of our sentiment metrics still remain somewhat elevated and hence may have a little further to unwind in the short-term.
Valuation undemanding – MTI is in buy territory. On headline 12m PE multiples European equities do not look particularly cheap (MSCI Europe trades at 12.5 and the median stock is at 14) however neither do we feel they are overly expensive. More supportive for European stocks is the fact that our MTI is in buy territory and the dividend yield remains above the credit yield.
Fundamental growth outlook should improve going forward. Most importantly for stocks, we think the fundamental macro backdrop is going to improve in the coming months and we look for Europe’s economic surprise index to start rising soon. Although a weaker-than-expected China PMI appeared to be the focus of markets last week, we did see German and French business sentiment indicators improve on the upside. European earnings revisions also troughed last week.

If what the brokers wrote actully came true we'd all be lying in the sun..

bit the bullet on Dow short and reversed
still, can't call it right the whole time, and so far this (fiscal) year, have done very nicely

how about your asos short??

thought about closing it, but have left it to run ..... it's not doing much damage, though it does tie up a lot of margin

Bullish......

http://www.ftadviser.com/2013/05/28/investments/equities/ftse-set-to-surge-past-barrier-say-experts-cDeOGjMWJ9Z3JrSk0Z8LJP/article.html

keep an eye on German economic numbers out soon.

well i sure look to have lost my touch - at the moment!

Can't believe after such a good day yesterday it's all gone backwards today! Profit taking & ex-divi day I suppose?

Ex div very small this week - less than a point!

More likely the China growth IMF downgrade.

If you're looking for answers, I think you need to look at what Amari said to the market a week or so back. Ditto the effect that Kuroda had when he spoke back in April.

I would guess they're trying to slow the rally to stop Japan's trading partners from throwing their toys out the pram.

And, like normal, it's in the chart.

USDJPY - lower highs, lower lows

if you're a smart and alert cookie (unlike me in the last few days!) there's a lot of money to be made especially in trading Dow .... that particular index has made the apocryphal whore look positively restrained!

My one bright spot in the gloom: