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

Just checked ftse chart, and it seems to be in a small bull channel from 11th Feb, with top line at 6045 and bottom line 5900. So if it can break 6045 it may have chance of gaining strength, but a failure to reach this and a drop to below 6000 again could be a good entrance. This has played out on 16,17,18th Jan and 5,19,21th Feb, with no exceptions.

But whichever way it goes, I will go with the trend, even though I'm more comfortable with a short in these markets, I would certainly go long if signals were all in place. It seems that the dow want's to go higher, as seen on Friday with that late rally on a rumour. So ftse could be stronger Monday Tuesday on the back of a higher dow, but Wednesday onwards newsflow and result will kick in.

Good luck to all in coming week.

DOW

Right I think I'll go long on gold, oil, copper and sugar on a June future. All look like they have consolidated at higher levels and will go sideways extending the consolidating triangle before breaking out....

all very difficult to call, and thus very dangerous to take a position for there is no direction at all to Dow at the moment

unfortunately couldn't trade today, had to play Golf again (tough life) then again on Wednesday. I see ftse hit 6010 at 09:50, then fell through 6000 again down to 5930, thats what I wanted to trade. Maybe tomorrow unless it gaps up overnight too far, we will see.

I believe the direction of the dow is down, its fallen hard and fast in recent so a correction to a gradual decent is required. Gold has become an investment haven as has to some extent oil. I see no reason for the continuation of this. Copper, well its been dithering for some time now and demand has increased at a rate above supply, up then consolidate followed by the same again I think. Sugar, global useage has increased and is set to go further, an established food through mass manufacturing, a new energy also today. I'm still negative on the DOW, the service sector and blue chips have taken a beating over past years and been outsourced to cheaper labour contries. This decline in the indicies has been offset by the rise of the property markets but exists as a negative all the same. Third world countries who've taken a chunk of the service sector have become better off and so industry and infrastructure will have to be put in place to support. The propperty market in this sense hasn't really declined but just moved from one area of the world to another, this would of course be backed up by the mining sector still booming, but look where they are mainly supplying... Just my views from reading the papers, investment articles etc. Final observation would be that this is happening now, indicies just playing catch up..

Ditched be short on the YEN well before stop loss, DOW looking dangerous, stop loss was 12800, brought into 12650 and under 100 points away. If its hit this week then I figure the DOW will cruise to 12800 mark, no point risking it all the way with this pace...

Ditto, read enough to give me direction this morning, closed Dow short and Yen short first thing, consensus is 80% recession priced into Dow, i get the feeling any good news will send it flyin up...

smile smile from this poster!

Watch the YEN though for a peak as worth a punt after other fomations complete their head and shoulders. Still short long term and happy to take smaller waves on the chin but not these, be throwing your money away senselessly....

A least someones making some money...... Go on Cynic..!!

New short on FTSE now, above 6000 so thought why not. Wall St short still running as we've closed inside my stop loss. Anyone else like tell what moves they have in play?

only a little .... it was just a modest late punt once it looked as though Dow was determined to go through 12500 ..... have left it running but may close before US opens as am going out to lunch

Not much in the way of economic data to come today from the U.S., so no possibility of bad news to hit the market. Tomorrow (wed) is a different story with US Durable Orders, US New Home Sales & US Crude Inventories.
Futures figure nearer midday should give an idea of the direction today, imo.

unless Dow surges through 12650 (i think that's one of the magic numbers) today, then may well be a good opportunity to short ..... as always, be very careful and watchful

was planning on shorting ftse if it fell past 6000, can't see this happening today, expect it to reach 6070. dow only just broke out of triangle, but the ftse and nasdaq have yet to do so, still expecting a large sell off, but expecting to see dow hitting 12750 first or even over 13000.

after writing last thread just checked ftse and it is now at 6070, so sorry for stating the bleeding obvious. ftse and dax look strong today, so no shorting for me this morning.

ftse has been stuck at 6070 range since 09:30, has been good scalping range so far, only looking at 10 points each time.

6150 is my target

Dow is being quite contrary insofar as it is accepting bad news as good - i.e. the obvioius perception is that the bad news will precipitate yet another rate cut, whatever nastiness that may bring in its wake.

my own long position got shut out while i was at lunch, but suspect i would have closed it off anyway ..... but nice little profit in the bank

since then Dow has pushed up through 12600, but my own inclination will be to go short later especially if 12650 is hit ..... too far too fast goes the logic, with surely more bad news to come tomorow