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

Europe’s biggest banks will have to cut €661 bln of assets and generate €47 bln of fresh capital over the next five years to comply with forthcoming regulations aimed at reducing the likelihood of another taxpayer funded bailout. The figures form part of an analysis by the UK’s Royal Bank of Scotland – which singles out Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole and Barclays as the banks most in need of fresh capital – highlighting that five years on since the financial crisis, Europe’s banks are still “too big to fail”. Overall, the region’s banks need to shed €3.2 tln in assets by 2018 to comply with Basel III regulations on capital and leverage, according to RBS. The burden is greatest on smaller banks, which need to shed €2.6 tln from their balance sheets, raising fears that lending to the region’s small and medium size enterprises will be sharply reduced as a result – FT.

Vince Cable is looking at imposing a levy on businesses who fail to pay their suppliers promptly, after a Whitehall push to cajole companies into improving their behaviour voluntarily failed to make enough impact. The business secretary has ordered his officials to look at whether Britain should introduce a fine for late payments as he prepares for an autumn offensive on the issue. The threat of government intervention comes after months of pressure by Whitehall to get businesses to sign up to the government’s voluntary prompt payment code – FT.

Vince Cable is looking at imposing a levy on businesses who fail to pay their suppliers promptly
and just how does he think that will work if you want to remain a supplier?
a number of the major players will impose THEIR terms of payment on any potential or actual supplier, and it is not unknown for that to be 120 days or more after the goods have been supplied and invoiced

cynic as usual Vince was looking for a popular headline, why do we have a business secretary that lives in "cloud cuckoo" land?

I fully agree Cynic, I was rather surprised by the article, doesn't Vince Cable realise that under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Act business owners can already charge interest for late payments. If he introduces a fine then how will this run with the current Act in place.....

http://www.promptpaymentcode.org.uk/ It all stems from this waste of a domain which should be covered already with a commercial agreement. It's times like this I'm glad I don't waste my cash on ICM subscription.

Also - people in glass houses..........

6587 ftse closed +21 pts

Well done Shortie - I was waiting for 6,624.

Tomorrow is ex divi day!

Sold too soon

Have you got a buy point in mind?

Its in a 150 point range at the moment 6520 to 6670 trending down. The 1hr below sums up my ideas.

I've got 6,521 as S2 which seems a reasonable entry - or not!

FTSE 6612.8 gone short. I think it'll drift in the range until next month when the FED could start to taper relief.

Other thoughts.

On the DAX theres the German election on the 22nd Sept, the risk being that she needs the Free Democrats as partner to and not the Social Democrats who could throw a spanner in the works over issues bailout packages. Greece being the agenda and a new bailout needs to be agreed by the end of the year.

GBP/JPY, Mr Kuroda is to fire up the printing press silos again.

The EU passed into law on 1st August an act outlining who’ll be on the hook in the event of a banking collapse. Mr Osborne says that “in future, taxpayers will not be called upon to bail banks out. It will be down to the creditors and the owners.” Who do you think bank creditors might be? Yup! You and me and if you think it stops at >€100K (£85K) deposits, think again! It is planned that smaller savers will suffer a “penalty tax.” If you’re a larger saver...start thinking Cyprus...and physical gold! Good old Europe! So why be a saver right now, super low interest rate and high risk of losing money, buy gold maybe but what if a nation sells its reserves to bailout itself driving the price down... Better get on and spend then, but where, cue Cynic as the housing market has been picking up recently... Another bubble in the making, well maybe.

It looks like quite a hefty charge for being short tonight!

Thanks Skinny, fingers crossed I'll be out by 22:00 then.

Shortie - just got in - I'm now with you from 6,624!

bet you're glad you're not short AAPL tonight!

Ouch £23 per £1 for the FTSE short!

Investor Carl Icahn buys stake in 'undervalued' Apple

Apple shares have fallen 30% since hitting a peak last year


Billionaire investor Carl Icahn says he has built up a "large" stake in Apple.

Mr Icahn says Apple shares are "extremely undervalued" and wants Apple to carry out a bigger share buyback.

In April, Apple said it would return $100bn (£65bn) to shareholders by the end of 2015, by raising its dividend and buying back shares.

Mr Icahn said he had a "nice" conversation with Apple's chief executive Tim Cook and plans to speak to him again shortly.

In response Apple said in a statement: "We appreciate the interest and investment of all our shareholders.

£20.40 per £1 for the dividend overnight plus the overnight fee paid.

Yep, am glad to be out of AAPL currently.

I did however open another FTSE bet this morning, so running 2 shorts averaging 6611.4 at the moment.

I noticed that US futures are pushed down when US market is closed. It recovers when Americans wake up and start trading. This has been trend over last couple of days, if not weeks.

Is there a reason for that?