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 agree Cynic, closed down indicie positions and currency positions as theres no real direction at the moment. Hope this 'dire straights' doesn't last too long..

I've been in and out this afternoon - but I appear to be short again @6,467.

Deadlocked Congress brings U.S. government to edge of shutdown

WASHINGTON | Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:18pm BST
(Reuters) - The U.S. Congress, still in partisan deadlock on Monday over Republican efforts to halt President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms, was on the verge of shutting down most of the U.S. government starting on Tuesday morning.

With the law funding thousands of routine government activities set to expire at midnight, U.S. Senate Democrats killed a proposal by the Republican-led House of Representatives to delay Obamacare for a year in return for temporary funding of the federal government beyond Monday.

I hear that the same thing happened 17 years ago and the US government did actually shut down, so a last minute solution isn't necessarily guaranteed.

That one lasted for 28 days!

Institute of Trading ‏@Instutrade 2mins ago.

RUMOURS: US NFP number could be released earlier, possibly today, instead of the typical first Friday of the month

presumably on the basis that that agency could be on unpaid leave
as i said elsewhere, what a bunch of egotistical loonies run usa .... totally irresponsible ..... thank goodness our 2nd house can't block any bill, though it can and does frequently have amendments adopted

http://www.cityam.com/blog/1380611987/us-jobs-data-may-be-released-early-shutdown-leaves-fed-blind

James Hughes ‏@James_AlpariUK 16m

Estimates say shut down could hit GDP in the US by as much as 0.3% which in a tentative recovery is a lot. S&P, Moody’s are you watching!?!?

like i said, what a bunch of self-serving morons

From DP of Inv Chr:
"“Obama announces US government shutdown.” Especially to non-American ears, this sounds awfully serious. But there have been something like 19 of these shutdowns over the last thirty-seven years or so. This one will pass just like all the others. If the stock market sheds a few more percent before it does, so much the better. One of the nicest buying opportunities during this bull market in the S&P has been a bounce off the lower daily Bollinger band. Personally, I’d love to use a rally like that to establish a really decent long position-trade.

For now, I’ll respect the intraday trend, which is downwards. I look for shorts in S&P and FTSE."

Out of interest, in 1996 the DOW ranged from 5833.72 - 6162.80 between October 1st and October 29th.

That's what you guys (s/bs) like isn't it? Plenty of volatility!

I'm short (FTSE) anyway - and have largely been for a while to varying degrees.

I seam to always be short FTSE.
GBP/USD now at 1.624, looking very overdone..

Shortie - I contemplated closing @6,430 - but am still holding.

I just closed out my FTSE short

15 min FTSE

9:34 EDT - For now, what investors seem to care about is the economic impact of this government shutdown. It's difficult to quantify exactly, but CRT government bond strategist David Ader points to estimates that say about 10-15 bps gets shaved off GDP for every week government is shut down. While one would think these economic headwinds will lead investors into safer assets, the prevailing thought is that this will only compel the Fed to keep stimulating the economy. Until the shutdown starts to threaten a timely increase of the debt ceiling, bonds may keep paying defense as stocks continue to show resilience.