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
currently close to but not breaking september high (16,937), and looks to have challenged it a couple of times today
similarly, yesterday it broke through but fell back, and indeed o'night very sharply

this evening in USA ......

Still to come, the Federal Reserve's 16-17 September meeting minutes at 1900 BST will be under the microscope for hints on the first interest rate rise in nearly a decade.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said policymakers expected an increase at its October or December meetings this year but last Friday's weaker-than-anticipated non-farm payrolls report prompted some analysts to push back their expectations until next year.

Despite a slowing of job gains in September, Fed official John Williams said on Tuesday he still expects the central bank to begin raising rates this year. He said he believed the labour market has continued to improve and there have been no signs of a worsening global outlook. Williams will speak again later in Washington. Fed officials James Bullard and Narayana Kocherlakota were also due to speak on Thursday.

Your pissing against the wind again tonight cynic ,surely it has to take a backward step at some point ?

yes i know i am and yes it should but where's the logic in markets? :-)

at least in meantime there is an offset with my long stock postions

No logic ,i'm tempted to go short myself .

Aye, even Spock would struggle with this. Casino.

Went short DOW 17048

everything says that this should be the right move, though you may need to clench your buttocks until it happens


IG has an interesting article, the briefest of excerpts being ......
This rally is likely to stall, and one of the key factors I would point to is that by-and-large much of the recent economic data continues to be negative.

I'm the right way at the moment ,after such a good week maybe a sell off today folk taking profits, i'm staying short for now .

it's certainly been a puzzler

Good luck guys, I'm away to play a company four ball at Donald Trumps course in Balmedie today. May well end up in a few bunkers, preferable to hiding behind the settee wearing a tin hat or not :0)

Iv'e closed with a 28 point profit for now but will watch closely for sell off this afternoon .
Have a good game Chris ,see if you can hit Trump in the head when you tee off .

jimmy - bowl of porridge a fiver, I'm taking sarnies :0)

i hear it's really tough but a great course ..... hope you're well wrapped up and that there isn't too much of a breeze
one of my clients in aberdeen is ex pro and keeps threatening to take me over there

We moan when stock go relentlessly down but this week they have relentlessly gone up .

I've dipped a short toe into the Dow @ 17, 062....

DOW having had a little flurry in both directions earlier this morning, is now almost stationary and holding its breath to see what the opening and the rest of the day brings

because i'm a silly boy, i've just added a very small extra dow short at 17,082.8
we shall see :-)

You should be right however the market just keeps going up .

banked a little profit (30 points) on the above, but am still running others
meanwhile, DOW is currently disinclined to climb further .... or to fall for that matter