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

Yes, that's the one. The USD JPY trade I took was based on this which was a link from theworkingtrader on Twitter.

No, yahoo do some decent earnings screeners but not against NAV. You'll probably find that if you search for negative EPS your end up with all the companies that have a Market Cap less than NAV.

Ok thanks chaps - that 100 year DOW chart is interesting (I think!).

question was effectively why the plunge in the constituent stocks!?
anyway, i think the argument remains the same

I think builders are generally out of favour atm due to worries about the proposed mortgage criteria and coinciding with a disparate grouping of shares all falling by more than the market?

RB., AGA, IGR, GWIN.

One for you Cynic
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/387d448c-c191-11e3-b95f-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz30CCzpKu6

personally, and as i have written before, i think this mortgage thing is a bit overblown
the additional precautions are actually little more than should be taken by any prudent lender ..... unquestionably HUGE numbers of new homes are still required

RB is by far the largest constituent of the index with a market cap or £35,713 million - second is PSN @£4.016 million.

Whats a prudent lender? One thats underwritten his loan book tightly??

Small Data: Check for fifties under the mattress

Also if you increase the supply of homes on the market then effectively as you've increased the potential for borrowing lending rates fall..... Agree there will always be demand for housing but supply also needs to be tightly managed.

certainly no lender likes "jingle mail" for very obvious reasons

currently, i assuredly see no signs of surplus stock, and as the economy continues to improve, so too will demand, whether for home-owner or buy-to-let

16435 closed @ 16423 +12

thanks for the above distraction :-)
i had a small dow short earlier which i banked for +32, and am now running at +35 on a subsequent :-)
only twiddly positions, but better than a kick in the bollocks, of which i have had too many of late

===========

closed at +26

I've just been covering Cable unrealised losses today with my plays, happy to take a few profits quickly. Mind you Wall St and the Yen have both been very kind.

LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) - Sterling ended just a touch higher after hitting a 4-1/2 year high against the dollar on Monday, the prospect of another big buyout of a British firm not enough to drive it on towards stronger resistance around $1.70. Driven by an improving economy that has outpaced its peers in Europe, the pound GBP=D4 has gained more than 10 percent against a basket of currencies since March last year. That move has broadly stalled since mid-February, but a steady flow of solid economic data and signs of more merger activity which may require big companies to buy the currency have helped prod it higher this month. U.S. drugmaker Pfizer PFE.N confirmed on Monday it wanted to buy AstraZeneca AZN.L in a deal that could value its smaller British rival at more than $100 billion. ID:nL6N0NK194 The pound gained as much as 0.4 percent against the dollar before retreating to $1.6813, up 0.1 percent on the day but almost half a cent below the 4-1/2 year high of $1.6858 hit in early trade. It was broadly unchanged against the euro EURGBP= at 82.37 pence and opinion in the market was divided on direction for the rest of a week of important news releases in the United States. "The merger news this morning clearly helped but it played into the broad story of sterling strength," said Neil Mellor, strategist with Bank of New York Mellon in London. "With the lack of choice on strong currency stories out there, there will be a challenge sooner rather than later to $1.70." A number of strategists have turned more bearish on the pound's prospects in the past month though, especially against the dollar, which many banks and investment houses still expect to strengthen this year despite a weaker-than-expected first quarter for the U.S. economy. Tuesday's first estimate of gross domestic product in the opening quarter of 2014 will provide more evidence for the debate over whether Britain's upturn is really strong enough to justify a rise in interest rates early next year. ECONGB While headline economic numbers have been consistently strong this year, doubters point to the economy's reliance on the property market in London and consumer borrowing rather than growth in investment, wages and underlying demand. "There were parts of last week's BoE minutes where the MPC tried to pour a bit of cold water on the market's more upbeat assessment of inflation and the labour market," said Paul Robson, a strategist with RBS in London. "While official data have remained very robust, we see downside risks to the market and BoE expectations for the first estimate of first quarter GDP." A Reuters poll forecast the economy to have grown 0.9 percent in the January-March quarter, up from 0.7 percent in the final three months of last year. That would be more than 3 percent in annual terms.

dow showing a little pattern of lower highs and lower lows on this evening's trading

wow!
dow gone bonkers .... stupidly went long at 16385 and nearly got burnt when it dumped to about 16300 but eventually got out at just above b/e ..... in the last 20 minutes, dow has rocketed a further 65 points to 16465

Are the UK economic growth figures reliable?

Long USD/JPY again, rather hoping for a break of 102.70 which may take us all the way to 104. Which would be nice.