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

Added to FTSE@6,424!!

dow now down ~300 and though cash ftse only down 40, it's surely a racing certainty that it'll be quickly down a lot more than that after tomorrow's open, so have doubled up

skinny - long or short?

Long - but not looking too smart!

i've now banked all my dow short positions and managed to recoup a big chunk of those muppet longs i held for far too long ..... still short ftse on the basis of what i wrote above

surely there's going to be an awful lot of forced selling in the morning - perhaps even of blnx!

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I was short both DOW FTSE yesterday,went well ,i'm thinking long this afternoon ? a small bounce for the DOW ? i don't usually play the indices as i'm generally rubbish at it .

concur re dow and have just placed same

Closed one FTSE long @6,465.3 +41.3, still holding from 6,450.8.

I'm still holding my FTSE long, DOW had more momentum than I expected last night and overshot downside targets.

Back to FTSE breakeven

The FTSe has fallen on 10 out of the last 11 days.

That reminds me of playing Roulette Skinny..

DOW maybe about to turn nasty again .

How quick did that turn !

6473 FTSE closed +20

I've now closed 3 longs in the 6,460's today - suffice to say, I'm not long atm!!

Jimmy - best to speak quietly - it always hears!

well i am, and on that nasty little dip, i bought a bit more dow (long) ....... :-) for now

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about time dow stopped pissing about and got stuck into a sustained and decent rally!

I'm long again - it keeps looking over the 6,470 wall, but doesn't want to go!