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

wrong thread

Closed MKS +1 +10.80p dividend.

Well done Skinny, Tiffany & Co, think I may have just jumped straight into the fire!!!

Should have waited to short, oh well, think I'll sit on it for a few days and see what happens, thats a large gap and its kicking around the high currently looking overbought still. Margin is a monster though!

Bad luck Shortie - I thought perhaps it was a typo and you meant 9767.

Affraid not, I'm looking at the loss right now (good job it was a small bet) and it has wiped out my realised profit today and is sat on quite alot of margin also. Fingers crossed Wall St crashes later.

Small short @6872.3

Same here, 6872.5 short.

6872.5 closed @ 6863.3 for +9.2, it was a large short and I'll wait and see if it returns.

Well done Shortie!

Large shorts! :-)

Very good Skinny!!

Looks set to climb 6880 next

Testing the morning high..

6881 small short

Also @6880.5

Copycat.... ;-)

I was too slow for 82 and my I keep losing WIFI this morning without realising.

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter for the first time in three years as it buckled under the weight of a severe winter, but there are signs activity has since rebounded. The Commerce Department on Thursday revised down its growth estimate to show gross domestic product shrinking at a 1.0 percent annual rate. The worst performance since the first quarter of 2011 reflected a far slower pace of inventory accumulation and a bigger than previously estimated trade deficit. GDP growth was initially estimated to have expanded at a 0.1 percent rate. It is not unusual for the government to make sharp revisions to GDP numbers as it does not have complete data when it makes its initial estimates. The decline in output, which also reflected a plunge in business spending on nonresidential structures, was sharper than Wall Street's expectations for a 0.5 percent contraction pace. The economy grew at a 2.6 percent pace in the fourth quarter. U.S. Treasury debt yields fell slightly on the report, while U.S. stock index futures trimmed gains. The dollar fell against the euro. But the decline in output does not appear to have persisted into the second quarter and the factors that held down the economy are temporary. The economy should rebound strongly as they fade. Economists estimate severe weather could have chopped off as much as 1.5 percentage points from GDP growth. The government, however, gave no details on the impact of the weather.

6881 closed 6871.5 for +9.5 awaiting the US open.

More resilient than I expected...