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

Cheers cynic , i am holding a few trades through xmas but really wanted to be out of indices ,i think the chance of a proper rally this side of xmas is over although today hasn't been bad .

Been out for most of the day, footsie comes good at last I see, along with the Dow up another 1%.. can we get some more gains for the half day tomorrow.

People closing positions for the 3 days including me I suppose, still another 2 1/2 trading days next week for the fts to look forward to.

Just looked at Dow futures and oil. Contemplating going short again reluctantly.

is NY open for biz this afternoon?
i think not

Looking at holiday list, I think both DJ and Nasdq may well be open

Markets open in US. They dont have boxing day as a holiday. China market gone walkabout this morning.

.

for a clearer and certainly interesting view of DOW chart, it's worth going back to post 6

both DOW and FTSE have broken some interesting barriers
in theory, provided DOW breaks north of 17,800 (now 17,700) then it could certainly be heading for 18,000 but no doubt volumes are currently very thin and thus movements exaggerated

How weird am I not seeing something right today as the Dow is up about 1% and ISF (which normally tracks the Fts) is stagnant and both have been like that since the Dow opened?

never heard of ISF but FTSE is certainly well up and up a further 20 since the close to 6320

Yes so I see, strange very strange all the same for ISF not to mirror pretty closely the Index.

Never heard of ISF.. what a heathen -): http://www.moneyam.com/InvestorsRoom/posts.php?tid=6016#lastread

Looks like ISF is back to normal so far today.

Happy New Year to all those on moneyam.

Best of luck for 2016.

Whats the usual deal with the Dow in election years chaps? up or down in general. I can't remember off hand.

Dow going down with the decorations.

2008 was not a good year for GW Bush in his last year in office.

Please we don't have another one of those.

but currently receover4ed quite smartly
DOW was down over 100 (125 springs to mind) but currently down only 45

Dow. Good trading opportunities on last day.

better things to do today, like golf this morning, then some cooking and now a bottle of ch

annoying to see dow -60 again, though i'm sure trading is very thin

i suspect the indices will make the best trading opps in 2016, but concentration usually required