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

cynic - the highest intraday and close was 18288.63 on 02/03/2015.

FTSE closing in on 7100.

thanks skinny .... obviously misread my chart

FTSE
as you almost observe, FTSE has surged to an all time high ..... looks nuts to me and may add to my small short here in due course

FWIW I'm short @7085.1.

i did so prematurely at 7,008 but have plenty of room to add without scaring myself

meanwhile, my dow long has done far more than compensate

Shot myself in the foot today.

Got FTSE 100 WRONG

out of DOW long at 18,044 for a decent profit

cynic - 10 Apr 2015 16:27 - 17677 of 17683 edit this post

DOW
after several attempts, it looks that 18,000 may at last have been breached (once more!) with impetus ..... if so, watch for 18,200+ ...... 18,278 is all time high

==============

after some stuttering and dithering, DOW is now walking or perhaps jogging towards 18,200

FTSE 100 ?
7200?

Interesting angle on the Greek problem. Sometimes the bookies are pretty shrewd in forecasting events:
"Bookmakers William Hill have closed their markets on whether Greece will leave the Eurozone during 2015 and on which country would be first to leave the Eurozone.

‘Greece had been heavily backed down ro 1/5 to be the first to quit the Eurozone, and we’d also been shortening the odds for Greece to leave during 2015. They’d come down from 5/1 to 3/1.’ said William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe, ‘It is now looking increasingly likely that they could begin the process of departing very shortly’

‘Noone is interested in backing Greece to stay in the Eurozone until the end of the year, so we decided to pull the plug on the markets until either the decision to leave is taken, or the crisis point passes and a plan is put in place enabling the country to remain in’ added Sharpe."

Greece is a problem no doubt. Its contagion, that's my worry.

Any new news out there to cause 100pt plus fall ?
Greece ?

Probably this: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-futures-tumble-traders-blame-china-regulatory-news-2015-04-17?dist=markets

It disturbed my thinking.

----=-=====

Stan

Thanks

very happy to be short FTSE, which has kept my portfolio blue today
have also just banked nice profits on both TW. and ITV, for no good reason other than that they were there for the taking

.

DOW
this is interesting .... straight through 50 dma and now threatening to break 25 dma as well

Seems there was a bit of a Friday afternoon sell off! Most of my watchlist has finished in the red. Hoping for a blue day on monday......no political connotations intended!

DOW currently down 330 at 17,778 and to think that 18,200 looked a real possibility just a few days ago

my FTSE short is doing very nicely, and i wonder if i were in uk, if i would have shorted Dow as well ...... i'll never know

if i had the balls, i'ld probably short FTSE250, but the spreads quite wide and the volatility cabn be scary

Did Greece pay the 193.7 million euros due on April 17th ??

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-17/may-9-grexit-date?page=1