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

Hope you'll be ok Maggie and bh. I was lucky in that I went 'long' on the ftse this morning, panicked while watching it go down, but then was relieved when it recovered before I went out. Set my 'sell' limit just below 5900 and made a good profit while enjoying a good lunch - wish life could always be thus! Now reluctant to risk losing it all on the Dow, so may not do any more today.

Dow is directionless today and trading very tightly ..... currently determined to stay above 12600 though struggling to break and stay above 12650

Hi Toya I also enjoyed a good lunch but the afters aren't quite so palatable. Nevermind there's always tomorrow. Haven't traded the Dow yet and don'y think tonight's the time.

If you look at a minute-by-minute candle chart, the Dow looks to be in a downward trend since 16:00 today. It just seems to have broken out of that channel so perhaps it might go up now?? Who knows - not sure I want to scare myself tonight!

PTH seems to have gone awol! He's a wizz with charts

Well, couldn't resist it. Bought a couple of mini-contracts and will close them as soon as in profit - assuming they get there!

Sorry chaps and chapesses, nursing a hefty loss from some pretty reckless, stupid kamikazee trading yesterday, where all common sense and discipline was lobbed out of the window (nearly to be followed by the laptop) so contenting myself with some additional golf and football therapy.

Toya, didn't receive your email by the way.

Morning pth - don't know where in the ether it ended up then. I'll try again. Sorry to hear you're as daft as I am at times, trading recklessly!

Maggie: glad you had a good lunch - I was so busy watching the dow after my last post that I didn't check back in here; made a little profit so quite pleased overall.

would have been nice to be prescient and to have held Dow position o'night tho!

Well done Toya, hope we're on the way down today.

Looks like we are Maggie! I took a small profit during a little bounce earlier - always get it wrong when I choose to go short so trying not to be tempted, though would have worked well for a change

I prefer to go short as I never seem to get the long right in fact I'm not really getting much right anyway. Do think the warnings re banks and shortage of mortages will send ftse lower how low is anyone's guess.

I just trade in little steps when I can - so have made a small profit today and will adjourn to the gym before I go and lose it all in a flash of greed!

Still nursing my losses from earlier this week - still hoping the Ftse will drop back a tad more - but looking less and less likely.

I guess some possibility tomorrow as last day of tax year when I expect some selling to gain benefit from chgange in tax laws as people sell to lock in taper releif etc - though not sure if that will have significant impact ?

Toya I try to trade in little steps but doesn't always work. Bhunt You could be right - hope that's not wishful thinking!

I can't see which way to trade today, again FTSE seems to have no trend, it's interesting that at 08:30,09:30 and 10:30 the index was the same at 5910 but with slight downwards movement between. My feeling is for a modest gain today, but this is just a gut feeling. So no trades for me.

12700 to 12720 is the level to watch on DOW, still not there yet.

i shall endeavour to be a good boy today (don't all laugh!) and sit on my hands, or even pick my nose rather than ladling out sums of money to undeserving brokers or similar

Now having said that spitfire - its bound to go down !!!

Cynic - I bet you wont be able to resist!!

There you go bhunt, sent it down for you.

Anytime you need it to go in a certain direction, only to happy to predict the opposite way for you.

Hi Spitfire Thanks from me too if I can't close my short today any chance of another up prediction tomorrow?