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

Spitfire prediction after after 5 or 6 glasses of J P Chenet, DOW will struggle to breach 12700, FTSE will rise short term Monday to 6050, at which point I will short with very long stop all the way down to 5343. Tuesday FTSE wiil fall to 5743, then Wednesday continue down to 5643, at which time Man Utd will proceed to semi finals of champions league.

I may have changed my mind in the morning, maybe I wont post this after all, where's the cancel button, post damn too late.

Thanks for all your pearls of wisdom! Can't decide which way to go so will sit tight for a while

difficult innit!

With start of new tax year - I think FTSE will climb some more - but my analysis has beed so far off the mark over the past week that I will just watch you experts for a while before making up my mind/

If or when it tanks they'll be calling it a fool's rally. Rio quite close to resistance now which makes a short a consideration as it it made a long a consideration at 48 support, wish I had then!

Pity I didn't follow my own thoughts and take a long position on the DOW last night. Hindsight is a wonderful thing :)

FTSE has just spiked to 6000 level, interesting to see DOW futures at 12700. So we could see some short term strength, I will content myself with a little scalping at 6000+ level to the downside.

spitfire - can you explain scalping please ?

Rather than taking a longer term view of the Index spitfire is trading very short moves for a few pts at a time, perhaps even just one, ie, scalping.

thanks PT.

I use BSL and they charge a fixed amount on index cfds of 12.50. So I would need to cover 25 plus 4 points for the spread. Am I paying through the nose? or do you use a big bet ie 50 per point - to reduce the overhead of the commision charges.

I am only at the 5 per point stage - so obviously I need a bigger movement to cover costs and spread to make a profita

I wouldn't consider scalping using CFDs, spreadbets only with no commission charges. Size of the bet is individual preference depenadnt on risk appetite. Personally I think 50 is quite a sizeable bet and one that could cause significant damage to one's pot in pretty short order!

Ah - thanks. Am only using CFD's - have not really got my head round SB's - perhaps thats my problem - and why my profits dissolve with the commission charges.

I started trying to use CFD for index reading, but changed to SB's which have no commission, only the spread which is only 2 points on FTSE.

I only scalp using 3 points, and only on days where market seems undecided about positive direction. A bit like myself today, I just can't make up my mind on when to jump in.

Very frustrating, problem with scalping you have to watch the screens the whole time, I missed first chance at 6000 to short, but I'm sure FTSE will hit 6000 again.

if in doubt, do nowt ...... if anything, would be inclined to short

Spitfire Is that Ftse daily? b'cos Ftse april with IG spread is 6 + extra 3. Can you roll over a daily bet ? knowing my luck if I short it I'll go up.

just for info, i think IG CFDs charge $10 in each direction per $2 mini-Dow contract, and FTSE must be similarly small - i.e. 5 in each direction per 2 mini-FTSE contract

FTSE spread during market hours is 2 points or 4 outside
I think Dow is be 4 or 6 outside

Thanks for the info guys

Will look at SB's

Hi Maggie, yes the 2 points was for a daily rolling bet, you can roll it over to next day for a small charge. Sometimes if you want to take a longer position, maybe over a week or longer it can pay to use a CFD contract.

Thanks Spitfire might take a dabble but not today.