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

5 min FTSE.

Probably some market shenanigans volatility before the US figures @1:30?

Not convinced Skinny, I went short at 6599 as support for 6600+ fades, regardless of the US figures I think a 6520 test is in order, if the US figures are good then maybe we'll see support and if bad then maybe it'll give way. I see little point in trading market figures and news right now, FTSE is at an all time high and you could hardly say UK growth figures or even global figures were good.

Getting ahead of itself but short still looking good..

Agreed its been a no brainer since open - just watching atm.

BTW, according to my figures, closing high this year was 6840.27 on May 22nd, intraday high (same day) was 6875.62.

The previous 6 days closing figures were - 6686.06, 6693.55, 6687.80, 6723.06, 6755.63, 6803.87.


All time closing high of 6,930, reached on 30 December 1999.

i confess i cannot make head or tail of these markets and i need to take my own customary advice - if in doubt do nowt

i have had a play over the last week or so, and overall, it's almost certainly cost me ...... i currently have small long positions in both dow and ftse, and i'll just let them run

No doubt your figures are correct Skinny and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we saw a new all time high at some point this year being that savings account interest is so poor over bond/equity yield. At the moment though the market seams to be looking for support so my plan is to follow it until it levels off. 6520 then 6360 are my support areas as per the below.

Certainly some of my best performers have been boring yielders this year (as posted before) with some up @50% - which reinforces your comments above.

I've sold quite a few of my big yielders recently, LGEN, BEZ, Drax and others to secure the profits as in the case of LGEN bougt at some 50-60p a share. No doubt I'll repurchase when the markets have a lower spell.

+50 pts up on FTSE now, maybe time to set a stop loss.

I'm talking 'really boring' - the likes of PEW,RECI,SDV etc.

I still hold LGEN, RSA and my current sector favourite RSL.

Just had a look at PEW, up some 42% this year, maybe not so boring if you like to trade trusts.

FTSE 6554 position closed

FTSE may go back to 6564 and present another shorting opportunity. Above chart is FTSE 5minute BTW.

6538 short again

I've gone long @6,569.

I'm still short with small stakes now.

Closed for +10 - no idea atm.

Me neither, sitting it out though for the moment with small bets.

re 12603 - phew!

Still holding short on FTSE

get the timing right (not me!), then there's a lot of money to be made in both directions with this high volatility