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 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.

Pound nearly at $1.70......interesting.....oil to rise further ?...

my dow short now back in the money and I confess I expect it to be even more so by the close of biz

Just bought BP (ex dividend tomorrow) to offset some of the 6.8 points on the FTSE tomorrow.

I'll carry my FTSE shorts over and absorb the divi tomorrow I think, I doubled by Cable short so am hoping for a pullback soon....

Skinny BP were ex div feb ???? nothing in forward diary?