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

DOW 17440. How far more can it go?

BLIMEY!!! just got back from holiday. Are we at war? THIS TOO SHALL PASS! :0)

well it is very difficult to tell but i cashed in my ftse dow and dax shorts and took profits this afternoon just in case - a few a bit early probably but heyho it was getting a tad too choppy and i was getting bored lol!!
many worrying things happening globally - but the single most unsettling item is china obviously - could well be some more saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfffffffffffffffffff! lol
so unpredictable in a similar way to china index doubling in under a year.......... lets see what occurs............

hope you had a good holiday chris

Cheers del, every cloud could be in with a shout FTSE comp LOL!!

ha ha lol chris - like it! you must need a new cardigan then!? :-D

china:
China's top securities regulator, China Securities Regulatory Commission, has said that China would continue to buy shares to stabilise the stock market. The move, which comes after Chinese shares slid more than 8% on Monday, was made to dispel "rumours that the national margin trading service provider has backed off from stabilising the stock market," said state news agency Xinhua. Shares fell after weak economic data raised concerns about the health of the world's second largest economy.

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Turnaround Tuesday!!

nice1 claret - it would be rude not to!! :-)
gl

interesting - even with china propping up the market still many averse to any risk for many reasons - saaaaaaaaaaarfffffffffffff could continue.................... we shall see

I think the Chinese believe its a "Right of passage" to have the numbers only get better. Learning the hard way.

i agree with dz and am glad to be out of the indices until i can pay full attention

typical day ...... earlier, cash dow was showing +100 or thereabouts, but now trading at only +30

fantastic day - the saaaaaarrrfffffffffffffffffff never really fully went away - it was / is a perfect traders day - false bubbles created to enable rapid profit taking (takeaway day) - nicely done and executed
tonight / tomorrow will be the real interesting day imo
gl

Sentiment not good at the moment overall.

yep claret that is why tonight / tomorrow so important - may end the day blue but not looking convincing according to city chatter....... china is one of the reasons the ftse benchmarks can be 'fragile' at times.............................

dz. A bit of short squeeze today possibly?

beware the false dawn ..... following a terrible run, some sort of bounce always has to happen, but watch for lower high

i think 6,650 (ftse) and 17,700 (dow) are the levels that need to be broken upwards if this bear run is to be halted

Looks like we have reversed again upwards.

maybe but tread cautiously - see 18286

YUM 7PM!
Wall Street was higher in US early afternoon trading in the run up to a statement from the Federal Reserve that could give clues about the timing of a rise in interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.56% at 17,729.85, the S&P 500 was up 0.46% at 2,102.94 and the Nasdaq was up 0.17% at 5,097.975. The statement is due at 19:00 BST.