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

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

6450 position closed +12

hey £6 profit shortie.... go steady.....;)

I remember those days BB, they were the best...

6461.5 short again

Don't know if anyone follows 3D Systems on the US market , down 20% .

6473 short added.

I do and shall stay with them ...... fall surely o'done (I hope!)

Have you got it on a spread cynic ?