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

Patience Alf patience.

trading the indices is somewhat different from trading stocks

jimmy is rather the "whizz man" in this area, and i'm sure he'ld tell you the same

Agreed, but not if trading "in harmony" stocks which can be profitable at the same time.

i tend to hold stocks (per se) for rather longer periods

actually, i note that ftse is once again trying to break further north ..... but that dow - this morning at least - has been something of a laggard
i may therefore take a small long in dow

Change whizz for luck ! where i'm concerned ,just had a good run of late with FTSE.
I usually stick to stocks .

So what of the DOW cynic should it go up today ? as you say it's lagging behind ,although i tend to watch the DOW to judge where the FTSE is going .
Are we watching the FTSE to see where the DOW goes today ? i could come unstuck here , also can it keep rising ,i tend to go long when we have gone down .

DOW
has been very strong recently, but i missed out through fear - aka lack of balls
however, breaking north of 18,000 now looks a very real possibility and certainly that index currently seems disinclined to head far south

the strong showing overnight in f/e should do its sentiment no harm today


FTSE
tends to get dragged along by dow, but they have become somewhat decoupled of late, primarily i would have thought, because of the heavy weighting within ftse of commodity stocks and the banks

BoE inflation report out at noon tomorrow, which may affect your FTSE positions. Depends a bit on what Mark Carney has to say.

Profits taken, coffee time.

Short FTSE 6436

just made a nice little turn dow long so we may both be winners :-)

FTSE
not happy to see 6400 being challenged again on the way south

Out for 27 points .

reuters at 16:28
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday pointed to a December interest rate "liftoff" but a slow path of increases from then on as the central bank continues to nurture an economic recovery.

"What the committee has been expecting is that the economy will continue to grow at a pace that is sufficient to generate further improvements in the labor market and to return inflation to our 2 percent target over the medium term," Yellen said during the question and answer session of a congressional hearing on financial regulation. "If the incoming information supports that expectation then our statement indicates that December would be a live possibility." The economy, she said, is "performing well," but the Fed would still take a gradualist approach to raising rates once the first step is taken.

"The whole path matters," Yellen said.

Her remarks are the first since a Fed policy meeting last week in which the central bank gave a stronger-than-expected hint that it will hike rates next month. That would be its first hike in a decade, and an important sign that the Fed feels the economy is returning to normal after the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Her comments pushed bond yields higher and also caused investors to reset their expectations of a December rate hike above 60 percent – a sign that markets are finally taking the Fed's language seriously.

above probably explains dow weakness

Nice trade jimmy, I don't trade it but wouldn't be surprised both indexes back up again.

Well done Janet, why she just doesn't keep her mouth shut is beyond me.

Xmas rally Chris ??

I think she kind of has to make a statement every now and then Chris i just wish she would phone me first :)

Who knows jimmy :0)

a US rate rise is actually no bad thing for it implies confidence that the US economy is growing

Just do it. Raise rates