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

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

==============

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!

6450 gone long

6462 position closed +12..

Think I'll trade 5 min charts this evening as I could do with building some points into by Blinkx long position...

long dow has been pretty tasty, though the recovery is not exactly convincing :-)

got out of all dow longs with a respectable profit ..... should have reversed with hindsight, but couldn't be bothered to stay glued to the screen

i have a modest ftse long still running, but it's a bit out of the money but we'll see what happens in the morning

Also long Ftse

Made a quick +26 this morning, off to a good start.. No FTSE position currently, need to spend some time looking at the hourly chart I think.

my ftse long is now modestly in the money (+16) .... i am tempted to go long dow again, but i really don't trust the market(s), for last night's bounce never showed much conviction

service sector PMI down to 58.3 from 58.8 in December.

EUR Retail Sales m/m -1.6% -0.7% 1.4%

6462 gone short