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

I managed to close half @6,605 now wish I'd closed it all - what a mad few seconds!

Gold on a mission.

I debated the same Skinny, quite alot going ex div today also

Shortie - that was calculated last night - you must have picked up the tab on your short!

My closing was not one for the purist - more blind panic.

6632.8 closed at 6618.5 +14.3, two bet remaining average 6582.0.

Note the gold chart, a bit more and I think I might start buying.

I did pay a dividend and also a small over night fee last night yes. £2.22 in the pound the divi worked out at, ok I'm going mad, thought there was another one due tonight so didn't want to leave too much overnight.

I know the feeling - in that made fall just before the close, I unintentionally closed the trading platform instead of changing tabs!

I'll get me coat!

I've crystalised 82 pts today profit, verses unrealised losses of 70 pts on the FTSE. Hopefully sailing will be a tad easier tomorrow.

LOL post 12673, I've done that a few times myself, and I've opened a Wall St bet when I wanted a DAX bet before... Oh well its all good fun.

market could be fun from 19:00 - but i'll be out for dinner, so will miss the likely whizz-bang

cynic more like a damp squib!

the amis will almost certainly over-react regardless - its innate

cynic there may be an attempt to create volatility but it should die down fairly quickly as we are now in the holiday season.

Tell that to whoevers been buying Facebook stock, plenty of volatility at the moment I think.

i just stick to trading dow at the moment ..... stupidly managed to burn myself with aapl a few months back

facebook would you like to see our holiday snaps?

??????? i don't do facebook anyway

Cynic, aapl again, one of my favourite stocks to short.. I'll say no more as the iphone 6 could well see me buying this one.

Hali - Not really, facebook closed above its IPO last night, how can you justify the sp, so I'm shorting and already in profit.

Short, good on you!

FTSE100, still short, 3 bets currently average 6598.2