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

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?

Not so sure its pushed down, the margin widens when out of hours as with any indicie.

I am talking about 50 points change in DOW futures from when Americans are in bed to opening time.

If its not the spread then maybe speak to your broker, below is the SP500 September Future for the last week which doesn't back up what your saying.

ahoj,

You can generally get a good idea of out-of-hours index futures pricing by tracking the relevant Yen cross during the period. During the time you're talking about last night, USD/JPY fell about 25 or 30 pips.

Thanks. I am talking about DOW. But 50 points change is not much to be important these days.

Depends which side of it you are and how much a point!

ahoj,

Well 30 pips on USD/JPY represents about 0.3%, which is proportional to the 50 points on the Dow you're referring to.

FTSE posions closed 6596 in profit.

Tempted to by GJ at the moment, worth a read http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/tokyo-time-bomb-japans-looming-debt-disaster-8885

.

Short closed +65.

Nice one Skinny, you debating going long now?

Thanks Shortie.

Yes - see what 9:30 brings.