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

Better than watching the stress on screen at the moment .

Here's one of cynic .

i have my fans too :-))

Thinking of going long on FTSE too cynic . Still heading South at the moment .

good job you didn't
DOW trying very hard to fall below 16,000 ...... 15,664 26/8/15

Yes held off after close as it was still falling ,however when's the bounce back because there will be one at some point or are we in for some kind of market catastrophe .

at least DOW cash has just about clawed its way back to 16,000

Looks like Dollar is more stable against the pound today or weakening.
i.e. more cents to buy a pound - on my exchange rate page it shows in blue as more
cents to buy a pound, but really means that the dollar is down against the pound.
( sometimes hard to get my head around £ / $ changes as blue or higher, really means the dollar is weaker )

Which then may move the price of gold and silver higher in ( weaker ) dollar terms,
which may influence higher Fresnillo, by giving the impression that gold and silver
are trading higher in dollar terms.

In fact are higher because of gold and silver are valued in a weaker dollar, so
effectively gold and silver value is unchanged or little changed.

For what it is worth, my guess is that I see the market as moving higher later
in the day. Also Wall Street and China are more stable in after hours trading

no markets move in straight lines either up or down, though sometimes it feels like it

Dollar now in a weaker cycle ( not continuous straight line ) and if stays weak or goes
even more weaker then the prices of both gold and silver should rise to maintain their
values in real terms -

numbers now £/$ + 28.3, Gold - 5.41, Slvr -4.5, let's see what happens -
tho it may take several hours to adjust to real values

Gold and silver should move higher, or worst senario £ / $ will return to lower levels

I would rather watch paint dry at the moment, as nothing seems to be happening.

Maybe all hell will let loose soon ?

Are we waiting for some Govt statistics from somewhere ?

Maybe jim has some more pictures, as I am bored ?

You could always start trading currencies! I believe that is a way of keeping yourself entertained to the max. ;o)

Cover your eyes the DOW's opened .

it was much better before it did!
having indicated +80 it's currently -50 ...... let's hope that's just a hangover from last night

Went long FTSE earlier with a stop at 6920 which has triggered ,when to go long again ? or not as may be the case .

scared myself with a small dow long at 16005
this then dived but thank goodness recovered strongly, so i got out with +32

not sure whether i have enough spare undies with me to have another dabble later :-)

DOW having quite a problem getting above and holding 16,100 ...... it's had several attempts (6+ times) already today and fallen back on every occasion

as posted on advfn yesterday, markets often fail to follow a logical path

even so, the o'night jump certainly comes as a welcome relief, though i do wonder how fragile this bounce may prove to be, even if (for example) FTSE has comfortably cleared the important 6,000 hurdle, at least for now

however, nagging at the back of my mind is that this is the last trading day of the month, so the funds and similar could just be squaring away their books

have followed my own advice and banked a thankful and decent profit on FTSE (+44)

almost tempted to short FTSE later this evening - perhaps when wall street closes - on the basis that today's rise is quite possibly just squaring of the books ...... and of course it's 1/4 as well as month end

on the basis that FTSE has really struggled to break 6050, have just placed a small short at 6045.8