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

me too (added) but pretty scary
not sure why the collapse, but there you are

a bit illogical, but i guess the VW scandal may well have had a significant impact
that is to say, VW shares get whacked which then drags dax with it, and then the spill-over into ftse ..... or some such nonsense

if several of the VW directors are not sent to jail, it will be an even greater scandal
i also wonder if there are others who have done similar

falls look horribly overdone, but i'm certainly not brave enough to piss against the wind, so shall just keep fingers crossed

This morning I pressed the sell button on FTSE with a target of 5,000.
Will not be able to watch the markets for a few days, but as previously said a break of 6,000 is very significant and I am quiet comfortable holding the short position" blind ".


Good luck

All in my humble opinion and no investment advice intended


Andre Minassian
Clever Games UK

aldo - am also less than sanguine about the markets in general and am certainly very concerned with the continuing weakening of the chinese economy

i have already bitten the bullet on 50% of my ftse long and shall now contemplate my navel as to what action on the balance + dow

Should have hung in there this morning at least ,i'm now in a few point profit.

easy after the event isn't it :-)
confess i was slightly in two minds, but decided prudence was the better course

Closed 6005 . +18 pts
Up around 65 pts this morning after big drop so i'll see what happens next .

EDIT and still going .

Could have hung on this morning for a nice 80 pts at least but didn't like the look of the market early .

I too closed a FTSE long too early, jimmy, but took 40 odd points nonetheless. Waiting to see what the Dow brings this afternoon before opening anything else! It's not straightforward to predict but I am not particularly confident of any sustained rises given the amount of uncertainty around so perhaps days such as this are shorting opportunities?

wall street strangely out of step and reluctant to correct that

I'm the same splat ,can't see the FTSE really motoring this month .

What a crap market..

I am selling toilet paper to-day!

I should keep it Fred, the amount of shite that comes out of your mouth :0)

i guess the markets are panicing because of the unknown effects of the ever-growing can of worms emanating from VW ..... and probably other can manufacturers too

i confess that though i can see why car shares will be hammered, i don't see what peripheral damage there would or even could be

Jobless Claims in U.S. Increased 3,000 Last Week to 267,000

is that good or bad news ..... certainly cash dow is heading sharply south once again

wall street has now crashed through an important (alleged) support at 16,160 and this is now looking very nasty indeed

at least ftse is just about holding above 5960

not a pretty sight .... see also almost exactly a month ago

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