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

I noticed yesterday after Hils' tip that the GBP AUD pair seem to move in a lovely trend mostly between 9.00 and 12.00, at least recently. Perfick!

Rather hoping that Cable moves back into the old trend and falls below 1.68710 by the close.

LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) - Sterling struggled to make any further headway on Friday, penned in by a slightly lower than forecast construction sector survey and the prospect of monthly U.S. jobs data later in the session. The pound had neared five-year highs against the dollar on Thursday following a robust UK manufacturing purchasing managers' survey (PMI). The equivalent construction PMI for April on Friday also showed growth in the sector but fell short of expectations and dealers said the pound looked set to trade in a tight range ahead of the U.S. non-farm payrolls report, due at 1230 GMT. "For today Cable (sterling against the dollar) looks like its going to settle back a little bit," said Ian Stannard, European head of currency strategy at Morgan Stanley in London. "We are not going to rule out any further upside but it will be increasingly difficult to get further positive surprises on the economy." Sterling fell less than 0.1 percent to $1.6883 GBP=D4 and was flat against the euro at 82.08 pence EURGBP=D4 . After a strong second half of last year which saw it gain 10 percent against the dollar, thanks largely to an improving UK economy, the pound steadied in mid-February, in part a reflection of doubts over the structure of the recovery. Many economists argue that Britain's upturn remains largely a matter of rising house prices in a small number of cities, fuelling the same sort of credit bubble that prefaced the financial crisis of 2007-8. As a result Stannard is one of a number of analysts now speculating that some sort of macroprudential steps may preface - and potentially delay - the rise in interest rates markets have priced in for early next year. Bank of England deputy governor John Cunliffe delivered the bank's starkest warning yet on the issue on Thursday, saying it would be dangerous to ignore the momentum from rising house prices. ID:nL6N0NN372 "We have deep-seated concerns on this front and feel that there has been a conspicuous absence of debate about the limited representation of asset prices in central bank stability mandates," said BNY Mellon analysts in an extensive morning note on the issue on Friday. "However, it has been made quite clear that strength in the sector will be redressed by 'macro prudential controls' not interest rates, and therefore the responsibility of the Financial Policy Committee, not the Monetary Policy Committee."

Looks like Selftrade are coming to an end!
"Selftrade wishes to announce that, following a strategic review, we have entered into exclusive discussions with the aim of transferring our customers and the Selftrade brand to Equiniti. This process is expected to conclude in Q4 2014, subject to regulatory approval.
We reviewed several offers from interested parties, having uppermost in our mind the need to closely match Selftrades values, customer pricing and service proposition and allow for a seamless transition. We already work closely with Equiniti in a number of areas, including their ongoing provision of custody services to Selftrade and are confident this will be achieved.
We are committed to making any transition as smooth as possible and, in the meantime, it is business as usual with no impact on how you access or use our services."

Harry - you might want to put that on here.

I might, I do and I have! ;o)

FTSE making new recent highs.

6859 roughly next target for the FTSE.

Hmm. I put a complaint in to them on Monday as their site was down for the first 20 mins of trading when I needed to access it. Not heard a birdy from them so obviously they have other things to do.

had a little flutter (long) on dow at 15563 jut before the employment numbers came out ..... looks to have been the right call, but now undecided whether to extend that position or bank the modest profit

US adds 288,000 jobs in April, unemployment falls to 6.3%
The world's largest economy created 288,000 jobs in April, the Department of Labor said on Friday. The expectation among economists was 218,000.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 6.3 per cent from 6.7 per in March. Economists had forecast it would drop to 6.6 per cent.

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perhaps too good - hmm!

Well the markets were undecided up and down like the proverbial whore's drawers on the news.

Factory orders at 3pm.

I think the market will be somewhat unnerved, so have banked a twiddly profit

Wouldn't be surprised to see some profit taking on Wall St this afternoon.

certainly since the new year, dow has got dizzy at this level and if you go back to page 1 the nasdaq also looks as though it may stall (once again)

should have trusted my instinct first thing this morning and extended my dow short then ..... have done so now at 16414 ...... it was ~35pts lower just after the open and then recovered about 60 pts

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looking a bit silly at the moment though that just wiped out my previous running profit

is the supermarket sector worth shorting or at least the "big 4"?

:-)) I would lean to yes rather than no. Especially MRW

From the Sains write up -

Retail analyst Clive Black at stockbroker Shore Capital described the cuts as a ‘contagion’ and he predicted further downgrades across the sector.

Well I'm short SBRY @326p - results tomorrow, MRW Thursday.

MRW doens't look like it'll bounce yet but I wouldn't bother shorting the sector.