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

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.

one of those funny days again with the dow dropping since the open and the Ftse holding - even pushing up ??

Dow remains decidedly undecided ...... am glad i have taken no position at all, but still remain inclined to short, but shall wait and watch

I've been 'scalping' (thanks pth: didn't know the term before) and actually over-achieved my earnings target for the day so am tempted to leave it at that rather than risk squandering it. I would not have been brave enough to try and predict where the ftse or dow would go from the start of the day to the end, so scalping suits me better.

i've already been scalped!

scalped - I have been beheaded. FTSE so strong at the moment - really did not expect it to go above 6900 today. Think I will go back to gardening

I didn't expect 6900 either! Are you sure you are not trading the DAX ?

bhunt: at least gardening is productive, though I've not done as much as I should have been out there. Hope you find your head again, and Cynic his scalp!

Well, I've been on the golf course and won 2 so nothing lost on the markets today, in fact I engaged in a bit of FTSE scalping earlier and made 4!!

Well done a profit is profit, I finnished scalping up 28, but should have done better, I just can't sit and watch the computer all day. I played Golf last Friday and won two Golf balls, I can't play for money, even 3 euros a round makes me nervous!!

Well spotted Falco - perhaps thats where I am going wrong -looking at the wrong index!!

On some platforms it's quite easy to trade dax instead of FTSE, and I'm not talking railway stations or 70's shoes here. In fact I actually made a profit (unsually) by doing just that!

At 7pm the FTSE was +77 and the Dow + 103.

At the 9pm the FTSE was +53 (-24) and the Dow -3 (-100). The dow is so much more volatile than the FTSE. I would have been happier if the FTSE had dropped 100+ points !!

Lets hope te Hang Seng and Japan are weaker overnight

made a minor loss being long Dow yesterday evening, but have made that up and a bit more shorting o'night ......

to me, it is almost inconceivable that we are not in for another very difficult month's trading with all sorts of potentially horrid figures to come out of the financial sector woodwork over the coming weeks.

what happens thereafter (aha! May = go away?) is anyone's guess, much depending on whether the interest rates to come, and more importantly, the effect of those now in the past, start to take the desired effect on consumer confidence, especially in USA.

DOW dipped after the bell last night with Alcoa posting earnings below analyst's expectations and is a stock according to Bloomberg that is a bell-wether for how companies are dealing with rising commodity prices, ie not very well!