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

a comment from my chart chappy

There may be no sign of either the Democratic-led Senate or the Republican-led House blinking first in public, but there will be serious discussions taking place behind closed doors. A timely resolution to the debt negotiations would coincide with seasonal strength into the year-end, with plenty of time left for my upside target to be achieved by the New Year.

Recommendation: stay long. Target 16,175. Stop-losses can be activated on weakness below 14,350.

sooner or later, this circus will come full circle, to make a really bad pun ..... at that point, the market will jump 200 points (say) even if only as a kneejerk ... the question is how do you pre-judge when that might be?

.

Hils - Thanks for the clarity! :-)

That was yesterday, Skinners. It stalled at 1.6120. I'm back on the short side today.

Please do try to keep up to speed.

:o)

:-)

Good run on GBP/USD so far, I'm cashing in before this springs back

Shortie,

Old resistance frequently turns into new support, and vice versa.

I suspect that, having initially stalled above the upper red line and then having broken it decisively on the weak data, it will probably now move on down to the lower red line.

I agree Hilary, think this may now go sideways for a bit though.

2 HR FTSE...

I'm actually long the FTSE for the 1st time in a while - a strange uneasy feeling!

Hils I have a cable S/R line at about 1.5960, next one about 1.5840 which ties in with the downtrend (don't have time to paste the chart), so waiting for a break of 5960.

I had a couple of long bets yesterday on the FTSE Skinny, got a little burnt with them.

I got filled @6,312 - watching and waiting!

Floss,

We're down to my lower line now. Time to bank for me now.

Shortie,

I've been confused all these years, having been told once that Ichimoku was a Japanese motorbike.

Ta Hils, I'm still in, but watching closely.

Lol Hilary, well played, my exit was premiture. No doubt this will be another short play soon.

Closed at 1.5931