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

So what do you guys reckon for Monday - further drop in the dow - or a rebound ?

The dow seemed to be tanking quite relentlessly on Friday.

My own view is a drop for the FTSE on Monday - but will it be sustained - not sure?

Further news of substantial write offs at Citi Group and Merrill Lynch probably means we are in for a poor first quarter results season and the Dow should be heading sub 12000 in the short term. Ftse tends to follow suit cant think of much chance of any good news short term, unless Brown calls a snap election!!

Last time ubs and Deutsche bank issued new writedowns the DOW went up 400 points in a day! Ever unpredictable!

FTSE should gap down at open 1% Monday, as it plays catch up to DOW, but Asia may influence overnight. Not sure if more write offs from Citi Group and Merrill Lynch will effect DOW that much, but more likely if we have more earnings dissapointments like GE and broader economy.

Bitter sweet trading day for me Friday, my morning trending system indicated a long position at 6000, which I correctely ignored and saved myself a large loss. Then just before 11:30 I pressed the sell button at 6012, it failed to register because I placed the points in wrong place, by which time it drifted of a little and being greedy I waited for 6012. Then farted about a bit , made a nice cup of tea, then bang down 65 points and lower.

Will try again Monday.

Good Luck........

Spitfire lovely to know that u experienced traders can make little mistakes like the novices

I only started spread trading last year and have made plenty of mistakes, hopefully learning from them. I have traded shares for many years though.

The thing I find hard is that I often will call things correctly, but then I don't have the confidence to follow it through. I think the problem could be that with day trading you need to act fast, as opposed to share trading where a longer time frame is used.

Think you're right. Was sure the Ftse was going to fall,and it has already but did I act on it..... NO! Of course it could be back up by 08:00 but I don't think so.
Good luck anyway I think we all need a bit of that!

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Oh dear This dammed thing didn't work so I kept hitting post 9 times it would seem sorry :o(

go to edit post ...... delete and just substitute wih fullstop and repost ... at least it tidies things up

At least you weren't trying to place a trade, could have been costly.

Thanks Cynic. Very true Spitfire Even worse than the time I put an extra 0 on an order!!!!!!!!

Lol, i remember the first time i traded shares on CFD as apose to indicies - i bought 10 shares in Southern cross group... needless to say was gutted when i realised that when they had gone up 5p it was worth 50p...!

UK Producer Prices +0.9%, not good considering we're expecting higher CPI tomorrow. Wachovia news terrible, was expecting the sector to react more than it has so far.

both dow and ftse amazingly robust all things considered

I figure CPI should come in 3%+ in which case a knock on consumer confidence should follow. Still running my Wall St Future for May, under 100 points from the money and counting on a good fall. If not an expensive lesson come the 18th May if I've not closed before hand.