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

dow is a bit twitchy this morning
however, as it is 99.7% certain that a deal will indeed be struck, finding the long entry point is the question

Deal or No Deal I'm not going to go long on the DOW, I will however wait and play short when I'm ready.

May also go short GBP/USD, EUR/USD...

Yep - I'm short again (FTSE).

WSJ Washington Wire‏@WSJwashington5m
House could vote as soon as today on Senate deal with changes -- GOP lawmaker (1/2) #shutdown #debtceiling

Jake Sherman‏@JakeSherman13m
The vote on the HOUSE PLAN will be TONIGHT.

I'm rolling FTSE shorts Skinny from last week.

Shortie - I'm much the same - I got out of jail free yesterday morning when I reduced by 75% - have increased again today @6,565.

I also took a profit Sunday night when the FTSE dipped. Debated a further position also at 6560 but didn't as I'm happy with my current risk exposure.

Its quite blatant how one SB co quotes out of hours index numbers (compared to other company quotes) if you are in a position - especially when, as was the case yesterday morning - it moved down quite dramatically before the market opened.

At about 6614 I'll consider another short when the top of the range is hit.



The spread increases out of hours though!

GBP/USD 1HR

Yes - I know - but out of hours, comparing comapinies A & B quotes when you are short/long with A is quite obvious - I guess at the end of the day they are only bookies and can decide how they make the book.

DOW Daily


Sometimes out of hours numbers works to your advantage, other times they don't.

Shortie,

Your IT-Finance STC indi looks well dodgy to me. The plot certainly shouldn't look like that.

Shouldn't have included it on the above DOW daily.

depending on how quick on the trigger you are, for the dow is whizzing around all over the place, i'ld be very nervous (a) of being short and (b) of placing any stop position

my guess is that the time to short will be AFTER the vote, especially if there is some kind of resolution

maitate‏@maitate22m
ベイナーはよ仕事しろ、“@zerohedge: WHITE HOUSE REJECTS HOUSE REPUBLICAN PROPOSAL”

Peter Nicholas‏@PeterNicholas325m
White House opposes plan emerging from the House.
Calls proposal an attempt "to appease a small group of Tea Party Republicans"

Retweeted by Wall Street Journal

well the market does not take much notice of that unsubstantiated nonsense
if there was any credibility to it, then the market would have plunged, whereas dow is not much moved at all - currently down just 23ish