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

I'll have a read - thanks.

Meanwhile, I'm aiming to improve on your timings above - Unprecedented Speeds for High Frequency Trading: NeXXCom Solutions Approaching the Speed of Light

Not a new article and there was a recent Horizon? on the amounts of money being spent on centres nearer and nearer to the bleeding edge.

I'm sure that Ginge will do you a knockout deal, Skinners.

:o)

GBP/USD and GBP/JPY have my attention, possible short position.

i don't do currencies - too much intelligence needed!

From last month - CFTC Said Near Releasing Plans for Regulating High-Speed Trading

Cynic - Intelligence needed for currencies, not sure I'd agree!! Unless of course you count band wagon jumping as being clever..

My view of the FEDs decision is that no change will only add more uncertainty to the markets. The low labour force participation rate, drags on economic growth due to congressional wrangling over a looming budget deadline, and the recent rise in mortgage rates were the reasons given and Bernanke expressed frustration at the looming congressional impasse on whether or not to raise the limit that the US can borrow.

Shortie,

The problem facing the Fed now is that they are adamant they will still meet their target of exiting QE by mid-2014.

The clock is ticking on some kind of self-enforced countdown, and they've got Janet Yellen (a known dove) waiting in the wings to take over from Bernanke. How's all that gonna work then?

Unsurprisingly, the market can smell rocking horse poo and the smell will get stronger if they continue to sit on the fence in October.

hilary - surely if that were the case, the markets would not have reacted so positively?

Rocking horse poo, thats got to be the best term for capital outflows and a selloff in emerging markets yet... lol

Cyners,

QE (and any tapering delay) is +ve for equity markets and -ve for USD.

quite so, but hilary writes as if tapering will indeed be completed (extinct) by mid 2014 ..... personally, i very much doubt it

Hilarys views are the same Cynic, she said...

The clock is ticking on some kind of self-enforced countdown, and they've got Janet Yellen (a known dove) waiting in the wings to take over from Bernanke. How's all that gonna work then?

Cyners,

I'm certainly not writing as if anything is going to happen! I'm simply stating something that is already in the public domain.

It is the Fed themselves who have a framework to wind down tapering by mid-2014 and, in his address last night, Bernanke reiterated that the framework remains intact. The only caveat is that the Fed framework is data dependent which is something the market had probably ignored up until last night.

The other thing I said which is a no-brainer is that, if the Fed doesn't start tapering soon, then the market will become increasingly sceptical that they will be able to meet their own target.

ah .... as usual, i can't understand or read english :-)

I think you forgot this bit Hilary:
"...tapering would not begin before the end of this year and that financial markets have misinterpreted the Fed’s intentions, partly for reasons connected with the vested interests of analysts and traders, whose livelihoods depend on convincing the world that economic policy is highly volatile and uncertain. If monetary policy were predictable and stable, which is essentially what Bernanke has promised, then the status and salaries of Fed-watchers in Washington would be hard to justify and the profits of short-term macroeconomic speculators would disappear. But maybe this view was simply wrong."
I think Skinny's conspiracy suspicions are uncomfortably nearer the truth! ;o)

Harry,

How did I forget anything exactly?

Those words are a copy and paste from Anatole Kaletsky's Reuters blog in June. They expressed his personal opinion on Bernanke's comments at the time, rather than being gospel.

Interestingly, his article is titled "Are markets making another blunder?". Has nobody ever told him that the market is always right?

:o)

Mere mortals do forget things occasionally Hilary. That's what makes us human! ;o)

Perhaps I should have put a link to the article rather than copied & pasted, though it was in " to signify it was a quote. Nevertheless, AK has a point and I'm sure he is aware that the market is usually right. (I wonder how many traders, brokers & dealers were all pushing Marconi before it went t*ts up, amongst others? The market was eventually right, but not before or during the event!)

The point is was trying to make was that it appears tapering was never on the cards this month. Quite a number of people with vested interests seem to have been pushing the possibility for their own gain, which coincidentally (or not) happens to have benefited the HFT's. There is no way that us little guys can factor all those possibilities into our trading. At some point you have to (semi) believe what you read or hear! Seems we've been scre*ed again!!!

Of course tapering was a possibility this month as it will be a possibility on the next meeting and the one after that. Personally I don't buy into all this conspiracy, if you trade on the basis of what you read then why bother trading at all, you'd be far better buying into the funds of those you think are correct and able to make you the most money.