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

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

cynic - Fabulous course! weather was fine but breezy only lost four balls :0)
When you do play make sure you hire a buggy pleasant eight mile walk, good distance between tees and hilly. Immaculate fairways and greens, lot of bunkers but not many steep ones. Challenging course, but you'll love it.

my aberdeen client will guide me well, but i fear will be unable to keep me on the paths of righteousness :-)

meanwhile, DOW is looking south, but not looking keen to take the plunge

Morning

Columbus day in USA.

A bit quieter than normal, whatever normal is these days. :)

Dragged lower again.

markets are all a bit strange
they're flopping about a bit, albeit with quite a wide spread across the day(s)
nevertheless, i note that DOW is currently reluctant to keep its nose above 17,000

for all that, i am not sufficiently convinced that all is heading south, so have banked a modest profit on some of my DOW shorts

China Q3 GDP numbers out on Monday morning

hard to know how the markets will take them, whether good or bad

Short DOW 17195 .. see if they sell off tonight before those figures come out

good call so far jimmy (17138)