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

Watching also, just closed a cable short for a small profit. Have a long position on USD/JPY running.

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Ed Balls is going to blow a gasket!

Autumn Statement 2013 Live

DOW long @15,869.4

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Deltastream


Bounced off 25DMA for now.

Chris - that looks like the 200 - see post 13583?

25MA according to MAM skinny

Yep, sorry skinny my head is still in Old Trafford heaven :O)

Yes, nobody likes to see that! :-))

Stopped out of GJ short for a small profit, now long from 166.78 early doors.

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US November jobs report beats expectations
The US economy created 203,00 jobs in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. That compares with 204,000 in October and a forecast of 185,000.
Meanwhile the unemployment rate was at 7 per cent from 7.3 per cent in November.


on the back of which, dow is now +150

+71 from GJ in a little under 2.5 hours. Had an iffy week trading but this has made up for it. Weekly target exceeded.

so much for the pre-Christmas rally?

bit the bullet on ftse long, but that is somewhat tempered by an existing short on dow and s&p ...... cashed in some other bits and pieces too, though as usual a bit late in the day and not heavily enough ..... still, not a bad (fiscal) year so far

just opened a small ftse short at 6432.5 .... let's see whether or not a foolish move

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In answer to your comment h, here's D. Picarda's take on things from IC:
"Daily market outlook 13 December 2013
Our stock market seems to be sticking faithfully to the seasonal script. As I set out in last week’s column, the widely-awaited Santa Claus rally is an end-of-December phenomenon. By contrast, the fiftieth trading week of the year - in 2013, that ending 13 December - has tended to be rather weak, with the FTSE 100 more likely to fall than rise. As if to prove a point, the UK large-cap index gave a repeat sell-signal on its swing-chart on Friday 6 December.

FTSE's repeat sell-signal
A bit of weakness now is frankly just what the doctor ordered. My only complaint is that the US is looking so robust. The S&P gave a repeat buy-signal on Friday 6 December, while the Nasdaq 100 is actually rather overbought. Another pullback on Wall Street, say to the 21-day exponential moving averages, would set up an end-of-year rally - and make a great buying opportunity.

S&P's buy-signal
The fear of the day seems to be that the Federal Reserve is about to pare back its money-printing bonanza. I agree that will likely be bad for stocks once it happens. But I don’t really see it happening at the Fed’s 17-18 December meeting. In fact, I think that it might even wait until once Janet Yellen has taken up the reins in February. Continued easy money and positive seasonality tilt the odds in favour of fresh highs in the US."

FTSE100 1HR