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

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

All shorts now hit their stop losses after bringing them in after last couple of days..... Think I'm going to re-evaluate before getting back in, lost alot over the past few days and have no intention of throwing more in the same direction. Would be nice though to get the top right, 12707 currently....

confess i am amazed to see Dow zoom straight up to 12700, which makes my initial short this afternoon at 12624 look a bit sick ...... having done quite well over recent weeks, i have now doubled up at 12691 and hope i shall not live to regret it

at least i have the comfort that nearly all the rest of my portfolio is long, so if Dow stays at this comparatively stratospheric level, there will be some good profits in London tomorrow morning


by the way, public thanks to Toya who suggested i went long AL. this morning ..... being a sheep (really an old goat!), i did and that has finished the day nicely in the money

think the breakout from current range has been well publicised, could see it changing recently to positive, with troughs between, i think we are going to see 13000 soon...

dow seems intent on reaching 13000, but starting tomorrow we have plenty of UK company results to the end of the week. including HBOS tomorrow and RBS Thursday, I think RBS will be a crucial one to watch, with all sorts of rumours, from div cut to rights issue or 3.0bn w/o, even asset sales.

I wiil short ftse whenever it passes back through 6000, but I can't decide on a good entrance for a short higher up yet, if it keeps rising. Will have to look back at some historical data tonight to try and come up with a figure, then probably disregard, change my mind and get the timing wrong.

oh well .... could have been far worse .... ended up +/- breaking even on the day with all Dow positions ...... with Dow closing comfortably above 12650 all to play for on the morrow

Very very tempting the short from the off, Yen June Futures over 21000 now, thats another tempting play.... At least there wasn't another 200 point gainer on the end of the day.