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

Closed gold 1392.70 +23.75.

WASHINGTON--Employers added 169,000 jobs in August but just 104,000 in July, suggesting the labor-market recovery isn't gaining strength and potentially complicating the Federal Reserve's plans to start dialing back its support for the economy. In its monthly employment report released Friday, the Labor Department lowered the combined tally for job gains in June and July by 74,000. The nation's unemployment rate stood at 7.3% in August, down slightly from 7.4% in July. The August jobs gain was slightly lower than the average monthly gain of 184,000 over the prior 12 months and the 175,000 new jobs forecast by economists. The new estimate of 104,000 jobs added in July was the lowest increase in over a year, a sign of easing momentum in the labor market recovery. It is the last monthly snapshot of hiring trends that Fed officials will see before they meet on Sept. 17-18 and decide whether to start scaling back their $85 billion-a-month bond-purchase program. The central bank signaled earlier this year it would pull back if the economy continued to show improvement. Many economists believe it could start to do so as soon as this month. Other data this week indicated a strengthening economy. Activity readings for manufacturing and non-manufacturing businesses from the Institute for Supply Management soared to multi-year highs in August. Auto makers reported a pace of new sales for August not seen since before the recession. And new jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell again last week. They have hovered around five-year lows since late July. The job gains in August continued to be focused in retail, which added 44,000 positions, and in leisure and hospitality, which added 27,000. This low-wage, low-productivity makeup has fueled concerns that the jobs recovery won't do enough to lift the overall economy. Over the last year, average hourly earnings have risen by just 2.2%. Some economists, however, have argued this composition follows a normal pattern after a recession as low-productivity industries are forced to hire new workers first because they can't meet rising demand without them. Higher productivity industries, on the other hand, find it easier to boost output without adding workers, at least initially. The recent pace of job creation is more than enough to cover population growth, but can't lower the unemployment rate very quickly. Over 11 million people are unemployed, while the number of Americans who are working or looking for work remains near a three decade low.

6563 gone short

6551 closed +12 pts

dow is a laugh a minute!
either the labour figures are too bad or too good and either fed will start tapering soon or perhaps it won't, so let's all have a really good churn!!

seemingly neither of those and dow just taking putin and his political sabre-rattling re syria with a certain seriousness

cynic we just have to take this huff and puff ball on.

thoroughly agree, and also to avoid being suckered in when the market is flying around without logic ..... but you must agree, today has been totally nuts!

cynic agree traders trying to create volatility, aren't you getting tired of all the blogs from "shares" journos trying to ramp up their punted stocks? we are.

i very rarely follow any though i find QL quite good ..... Shares Mag i only really use when it has something to say about companies in which i am already interested

FTSE short 6542 from this morning.

6527.5 Position closed +14.5pts

6522 gone short again

6579.8 short ftse

Looks overbought

It does, but the big guns are leading this today - some staggering rises.

We'll see, I think this afternoon could well see some staggering falls. Lets not forget that all this positive economic news strengthens the case that no more QE is required.

I've just gone short!@ 6599!!!

Shortie - have you got one of charts for gold please?

Daily below