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

Just to clarify chaps, Think I'm right in saying that you two spread bet and or use CFD's to trade the indexes right?

As you know I use ETF's (3xboost short on this occasion) and simply just got in on the opening at 8am, it opened something like 40 down so felt that with all the bad news overnight it would go down further which fortunately it has. Not sure weather to come out before Dow opening or not yet.

yes; i use cfds

I use Spreads .

I use marmalade.

I suppose you make it yourself down there when your not rolling around in the hay with the wenches

Marmalade not had that for ages.. what a resource this site is -):

nearly time for seville oranges again, but season only lasts 2/4 weeks

following is due from US .....
The US will also see the release of construction spending data at 1500 GMT while Federal Reserve policymaker John Williams speaks after the closing bell.


unless the noises are amazingly good (unlikely), i see no positive effect to halt the current collapse

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there is also a supposed support line at the current level of ~17,075

Oranges? They are excellent this time of the year so have been feeding my face on a daily basis.

seville are bitter oranges used for making marmalade

Manuel,

I think you should avoid them from now on!

DOW going down further ,closed FTSE long with 2 points profit best out of it for now but may be worth going long again ..

DOW has dropped so far in the last couple of sessions that it is almost tempting to go long - but i'll try to resist the temptation :-)

To take profits or not.. that is the question -):

FTSE
jimmy - given the weighting of oilies in ftse and that both brent and wti are both up ~$1.00, your call for going long here may not be misplaced

on the other hand, DOW is doing its level best to screw up everything ...... whether or not china takes another beating o'night remains to be seen, though that market feels so rigged, that anything could happen

That's what i was thinking although oil has come off a bit since .

I'm going long DOW as well ...

DOW has just dropped through 17,000 but i have a feeling that there tends to be a bounce when london closes

Completed my customary "one" day trade per year on the fist trading day of the year, how satisfying -):

well done stan; that must have nearly paid for your summer hol

Long both DOW/FTSE may stay long overnight see how it goes .