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

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

Wonder if your right ,i'm more inclined to go long when it's taken a battering .

and of course it's 1/4 as well as month end ...... is part of the logic, and i saw nothing else this morning that should have inspired such a strong surge

i sure called that wrong and it just goes to show how markets can defy logic, for we have had yet more weak industrial numbers from china, imf forecasting weaker world economic growth, us employment numbers tomorrow and forthcoming earnings likely to be pretty rough

Perhaps all that is already discounted cynic? After all the Dow has given back some 1,900 points since its peak and the FTSE over 1,000 until today's rise.

dunno guv :-)
easy to rationalise after the event, but it'll be interesting to see if this rally has any real legs

in fact, i now note that the chinese numbers were still pretty pissy but above expectations

glad i didn't get panicked into closing out ...... but then sure as hell wasn't brave enough to add further either!

looks that my logic was right even if the timing proved to be rubbish

heading back to where you started .

indeed and fully expect it (ftse) to head lower still
i am also now short dow from 16,197 and have targeted 16,000 or thereabouts to close and probably reverse
at that juncture, the same is likely to apply to ftse