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

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

.

what unbelievably crazy markets ..... i've been zipping but i'm sure that even if i had been glued to the screen, i'ld never have read the direction correctly

phew!
thought i was going to have to fund more or take a bath, but have now escaped from FTSE with a good profit (about 70 points) but pretty happy to leave dow running for now

Why are we down so much today ?
It can not be VW cars making such a negative impact.
China seems OK today.
Perhaps because leaders are meeting at UN to discuss Syria and action against IS ?
- If so this should not be such a drag on markets -
a war is probably good for resource stocks etc

Maybe tomorrow we shall have a bounce back, as could be just dealers short
selling to create activity ( shake the tree ) and buy back at cheaper prices.
I do not see any reason myself for such a fall in markets - any ideas

rekirkham - 28 Sep 2015 15:15

'I do not see any reason myself for such a fall in markets - any ideas'

Best time to sneak up behind ya, and shake your tree :~)