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

As Stan said earlier, Non Farm Payrolls from the US at 13.30 hrs GMT should give direction one way or the other this afternoon.

211K jobs added in the US. Unemployment remains at 5%.

is that in line with expectations?
anyway, no great reaction in the market

Yes, very solid data. Janet Y should be happy!

11K above expectations.

really? quite surprised ..... below from FT


US jobs growth eased from its fastest pace of the year in November, though not enough to dent expectations the Federal Reserve will lift interest rates later this month.

America created 211,000 jobs last month, down from 298,000 in October, the Department of Labor said on Friday. The unemployment rate held at 5 per cent.

Breaking News: U.S. November nonfarm payrolls rise by 211,000 vs consensus of 200,000.

Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/news/us#VusP5A2fVAhWPFLz.99

Footsie unchanged at the mo, upon digestion that may change as we know.. talking of digestion I'm going for lunch.

and i've just opened a decent bottle of us chard as pre-prandial :-)

Is there such a thing as 'a decent bottle of US wine', compared to New World or S African? Never yet had a US bottle which has lived up to expectations!
Er........wine in Dubai????? Don't rely on any of us if you get sentenced to 300 lashes!!! ;o)

SA whites and indeed nearly all their reds you can keep
this US one isn't bad - Jordan 2012 chardonnay
bought it at the dubai duty free on the way in ...... drinking here at hotel prices is just silly money .... a bottle of beer costs £7/8

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i've come across a couple of very respectable Italian whites of late and just bought something quite expensive from Argentina
this will need keeping for a few years, so a bit of a leap of faith

I thought he was going green!

He will do after the first 100 lashes.
And if he tells them he likes drinking Italian whites!!
'They' will go green.

a greater puzzle for you to ponder :-)
DOW has recovered 200 points since yesterday, and comfortably back over the important 17575/17600 levels
FTSE continues to tumble, not even making an attempt to break back above 6300
compare and discuss!

I'm watching cynic ,have no sure answer to that as it's all Euro indices must be the knock on from yesterday , Dax/Cac the same , i'm thinking xmas bounce back ?

I'd like to add to that ,Oil hitting new lows dragging oil shares down with it ..

if one puts FTSE fall down to end of week closing, then it raises the interesting thought of running a FTSE long until at least DOW closes
does that make sense?

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money with mouth ...... small long at 6242
we shall see :-)

Can it fall much further ? came off a total of about 250 points from yesterday

dow did some very strange things yesterday, but currently +240 while ftse is -55

FTSE ran opposite to DOW twice earlier in the week as well .

Back from lunch, what very strange market movements Dow and Footsie I mean.