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

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.

if i'm not careful, i'll be sorely tempted to buy back the "trading" contract in NMX 3720 that i sold this morninhg

...."if you trade on the basis of what you read then why bother trading at all,.."
qed, read nothing because it's all irrelevant???

If BNP are to be believed then actually QE wasn't really on the cards as the data wouldn't support it, but again the point I was trying to make was that nothing that I read hinted at the likelihood of tapering not happening this month. Everyone (Financial Press) now seems wise after the event!!!

(BNP : "Investors had almost entirely disregarded the message stressed repeatedly by Chairman Bernanke that the tapering guidance he gave in June was data dependent, and we expected that the primary goal of the September communication would be to reinforce and re-establish that message to the financial markets. It would have been challenging for the Fed to taper against the backdrop of mixed data and a weaker forecast, and convince markets that they were not running scared from QE.")

Analysis - Fed delay both delights, confounds investors

The last couple of paragraphs :-

"I think the Fed is very concerned about the potential for political dysfunction and to start withdrawing stimulus now might be to put something back in the bag that they may need in literally a couple of weeks," said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial in Waltham, Massachusetts.

And that leaves investors wrestling with whether to be happy or worried.

On one hand, "people are going to say, ‘Hey, great, the Fed is back in the game, they've still got our backs,'" said McMillan. But "from a real economy standpoint, what (this decision) says is the Fed is more nervous about the economy than generally perceived."

FTSE falling reality beginning to sink in nothing has changed.

not quite true, but certainly some profit-taking

ASC was ridiculous (don't hold in either direction), and looks like some badly burned bears as traffic very heavy for them

for myself, i did succumb at the very last knocking and bought back my "trading" contract in NMX 3720 at 10343 (sold this am at 10407)

Harry,

That's Ok - I shall forgive you on this occasion, although please note that I shall accept nothing short of immortality in future.

:o)

Regarding the market always being right, however, I would assert that the market is simply a place where buyers and sellers come together and find a common price level at which to trade. All the time that the market is able to successfully match its buyers and sellers, it is unquestionably right.

News, data releases and speeches simply serve as a catalyst to change the balance of buyers and sellers which, in turn, can lead to new price levels being set. If you (or Anatole Kaletsky) are suggesting that the various Fed commentators had incorrectly induced market participants into thinking that the Fed would taper last night, I still think you're mistaken. When you look at the charts for both cable and the Dow on a slower timeframe (eg. 1hr or 4hr), it's pretty clear that both markets had been trending upwards since the start of September. Last night's news simply prompted an extension of the moves which had already been in place for some 2 or 3 weeks. If the market had seriously been expecting anything different to that which we saw last night, then we would have almost certainly seen the bounding lines of those 2 or 3 week uptrends being broken in a flash.

That wasn't the case, so, again, I have to conclude that the market got it right.

The market is always right!!!!!!!!!! what a load of bollocks the market is always wrong.

Think about it, how would opportunitys arise if it was always right. !!!!!!!!