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

Brave call, best of luck with that one..

Yes - not looking too clever!

Got my fingers crossed for you. I've been struggeling to find support numbers to go long off at these hights. Carrying a few FTSE shorts also, so not that comfortable adding to indicies risk at the moment. This year the market just seams to want to go higher.

Looks like the DOW might be about to test that range I was talking about earlier. Its outside the current lower trendline.. (see last charts I posted today)

16343 now I'm debating a long (looking at 15min charts)...

Looks a bit like the 5 minute when I went long :-)

I mentioned organovo the other day.

Easily done Skinny, trading discipline going right out the window. Wish I'd shorted 16550 now like I originally planned but managed to get distracted by currency movements.. USD/CAD and a few others GBP/JPY movements also very interesting..

I'm on the fence with 3D printing currently, appreciate its had super growth but is it going to be sustainable. Maybe it'll grow so every high street has one (extension to current photo printing outlets maybe). Not something I'd short againt price to profits action right now and not something I'd go long on as I think I've clearly missed the boat.

A case in point - DDD - currently down 4.2% on a downgrade and ONVO down 9.2% - makes the DOW look tame at times.

Dow long now not looking clever at all, glad I'm on the fence, think I'll wait until tomorrow and see if its going to test support (long overdue)...

You know as well I do, nothing can trade in vast multiples over its earnings indefinitely... SEO (Stanelco springs to mind), the last large burning of investors proves if nothing else that especially with new tech, sales and predicted margins have to be hit otherwise its game over... With 3D printing the potential is there, it seams to make sense but I just don't see the bigger market getting in. We have mass-manufacturing competing strongly and emerging markets keeping manufacturing prices super low... Thats a contender to this tech and I think a force to be reckoned with. I'm sure you know alot more about the tech than I do, maybe I'm missing something here...

Skinny, you still holding that DOW position, I logged in last night and saw you were back to breakeven / profit..

I closed it for -10 in the end - it was in profit last night, but I held it until this morning!!

That was some movement yesterday.. Well done holding your nerve though..

UK unemployment figure in at 7.1% that's 0.1% above where Carney said he'd consider raising interest rates. The gilts market seams to agree a rise is inevitable and if bond yields rise you'd expect to see money flowing from equities back into bonds and a fall in market prices.. With a widening spread and off all time highs you got to wonder if we're in a bubble and its about to burst or if all the worlds QE has simply swamped the markets with money..

Shortie - thanks, but it was a sh*te trade really - still could have been worse.

lol, indeed it could...

Oil on the rise; natural gas jumps in wake of storm

MADRID (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures extended gains on Wednesday, as investors awaited upcoming U.S. crude inventory data and the scheduled start-up of TransCanada’s Gulf Coast Pipeline, while natural-gas prices saw a sharp jump in the wake of another storm for the East Coast.

Crude oil for March delivery CLH4 +0.84% , which became the front-month contract after February crude oil expired on Tuesday, advanced 43 cents, or 0.5%, to $95.42 a barrel in electronic trading.

Oil prices rose 58 cents on Tuesday, or 0.6%, to settle at $95.55 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. February crude oil CLG4 +0.98% climbed 92 cents , or 1%, to close at $94.88 a barrel on its expiration day.

Clear as mud!

Intel: The PC is back, now what?

Bank of England in no rush to raise rates as unemployment plunges