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

Skinny....or anyone.......on the FTSE best divi yields website do you know what 'Payout Ratio' means?
http://www.topyields.nl/Top-dividend-yields-of-FTSE100.php

EDIT: Found the answer!
DEFINITION of 'Payout Ratio'
The proportion of earnings paid out as dividends to shareholders, typically expressed as a percentage. The payout ratio can also be expressed as dividends paid out as a proportion of cash flow. The payout ratio is a key financial metric used to determine the sustainability of a company’s dividend payments. A lower payout ratio is generally preferable to a higher payout ratio, with a ratio greater than 100% indicating the company is paying out more in dividends than it makes in net income.

The Payout Ratio is calculated as follows:

Payout Ratio = Dividends per Share (DPS) / Earnings per Share (EPS)

Also known as dividend payout ratio.

DEFINITION OF 'DIVIDEND PAYOUT RATIO' ?

Thanks skinny. Just looking at some of the Co's, the divi looks to be unsustainable based on the very high POR.

Yes - not something I've seen before - over to you to investigate further! :-)

The BP figure is obviously distorted by their very high litigation payouts, but the SSE figure is a bit of a worry as is Petrofac and AstraZeneca. Hmmmmmm.........

glad i had a little flutter on FTSE (6952) about 45 minutes ago :-)
should really have done so about 30 points lower, but was not sure index would hold ....

however, no great surprise, it is looking every more likely that greece will be given a plan, which they will accept, to allow greece to borrow more money from EMF - to repay earlier EMF loans (of course!)

bugger!
missed the sudden dip on on Dow and bounce had already happened in the couple of minutes i was away from my desk ..... never mind

Great moves if your the right side of them.

currently neutral as too busy on other things, but fluctuations are likely to be pretty wild

i'ld be very surprised if EU/ECB/IMF do not cobble together some fudge that will allow Greece more space

DOW
just possibly building support around 18,000 but if the US market catches fright at the opening bell, then a quick dump of a further 50+ points is far from unrealistic

Dow is limping north - now down >50 - but not dragging fstse with it

Harry, if you read this, the Final Results for PETS contains the payout ratio!

Quite reasonable at 40%.

FTSE 100 now gone through all the recent support.

certainly all looking pretty ugly

if NFP figures are greeted well, a decent DCB could well be on the cards on both sides of the pond

i see NFP numbers were very strong, but clearly the markets are in no mood to react positively to good news

Everything gone very quiet!! Presumably all settled down to watch Andy kick some butt?!!!.....We hope!

andy who?

He is that Sweaty British Tennis player.