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

and the next snippet from CNN ...... Lehman reports lower earnings that top forecasts; firm says it 'maintains strong liquidity position.' More soon.

doesn't sound bad, but it's the analysis etc that will be scrutinised

===========

and a tad more

Brokerage puts talk about its imminent collapse to rest after reporting better-than-expected results. Shares up 12% in pre-market trading.

Just closed a long on ftse from this morning for modest gain. not prepared to hold any longer, what happens this afternoon is anyones guess. Most people seem to be expecting a 100 bhp cut, what if it's only 50, or even 75 would be taken badly.

Far to risky for my taste, will re-access any positions this evening.

fed cuts interest rate by .75 - market did not react favourably initially.

Hopefully a good day for equities & the spreadbetters are prsumably long the FTSE?
Only oil inventories today from the U.S., so can't see them rocking the boat today either. Back from the abyss again & time to take some profits I hope, in anticipation of the next round of bad news from a U.S. bank.

Running short on wall st rolled over from last night at 12404, look a small loss last night getting the sale on. Sold GBP/YEN last night also at 19746 looking to buy at some point today if it gets to 19450. SWISS also looking to buy 19600 being the price I'm looking for.

After a rise first thing this morning on ftse the trend is down now, so short for me before dow opens. I could of course be wrong.

US Futures down and also oil + gold, were looking at higher US inflation which with higher inflation in China and Japan should help push international earnings estimates down.

Morgan Stanley earnings still to come though, even if they do beat estimates the longer term outlook for earnings I wouldn't have thought to be positive.

12259 closed wall st positions... Playing safe...

19439 buy GBP/YEN on June Futures

for once - I managed to make some cash on shorting the Ftse this evening - but closed too early again - still - I was satisfied with my gain. Closed all positions tonight

Been in London all day, so have not been able to watch a screen.
Having assumed we would mirror the DOW 400 pt rise of yesterday, things seem to have gone t*ts up today. Not sure why, but miners seems to have been hit pretty hard. Looks like profit taking, so hopefully a slow rise to follow.
Interesting that a totally unsubstantiated rumour that HBOS was seeking extra finance has been quashed, but moved the sp considerably. Dark forces at work!
Don't blame you guys for not holding your positions open. Quite a bit of data from the U.K. & U.S. thurs, so anything could happen.

Miners may have been affected by turn in the dollar, fears of recession and general drop in commodities. Market sentiment seems to swing manically at the moment and FTSE seems to have decoupled from DOW probably because of the miners and because US is still in post rate change euphoria still!

At the moment there is a partial meltdown of good stocks...really crazy...I hope this ends soon....because : as things drop ...people sell and the more people sell...and so forth ! at this rate shorting will be the only thing to do !

This is a time to either be out of the markets completely and just watching until such times as some order returns, or short anything that became overbought in the bull run and is trading with an overinflated PE ratio, or if you firmly believe in a certain company just buy them on the dips....

Agree BigTed...I reckon certain banks are in serious trouble and are liquidating positions in a big way (just guessing on that one) !

Its my belief we were heading for a mass sell off before the fed intervened and injected $200bn into financials, both Dow and Ftse were near january lows, the next event was the Bear saga, so they drop interbank rate by .25, they are doing whatever is needed to prevent the next big sell, however i think they are running out of plasters, if Citibank reveal bigger problems, are they going to effectively buy them out too...?

The Fed won't run out of ammunition. It might run out of bullets and end up throwing the cutlery and the kitchen sink, but either way they'll keep on going regardless. Even if they end up with 0% rates and a seriously broken economy, what choice do they have?

I suspect the interventions will have less and less effect (just like pain killers), and at some point (maybe never though) the crisis will be too big to stop. At the moment, despite the volatility, equities haven't really collapsed in the way I would've expected. I suppose a slide in the currency equates to a drop in real value anyway, even if the markets actually go nowhere. These are certainly interesting times.......

In my opinion.....

Strawbs.

Steady climb by the dow today - nothing dramatic - just steady. I managed to balance my books today - lost money early on then spent all day recovering it.

Happy Easter all

F/E was seemingly steady to better last night, and it is good to see Dow indicators showing +36 at 11364, having nudged over 11400 at some point.

with Europe shut today, trading in US should be quiet (thank goodness!) ...... however, if the positive mood is maintained, then London should open solidly better, especially bearing in mind that Dow was about 200 points lower at close of biz London on Thursday.