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

Looks like another down day, at least the earlier part but we shall see.

That's better we are blue for a change ,oils kind of stable , won't hold my breath though .

good morning jimmy
like you (i am sure) i have no confidence that any decent rally in london or ny will be sustainable

however, i have had a very small dabble in both those markets this morning, and so far so good ...... but all pretty scary for all that

if you look back at the last hour (10 min chart) of trading in ny last night, it is well exampled
steadily down for 4 or 5 stints, then whoosh, then retreat and a fairly significant dump o'night
this morning sees a nice bit of blue ...... long may it last

Morning cynic .
I am thinking the same , however keep an eye on oil there does seem to be correlation ,any bounce in oil will push the market up (i think) ..

a bit cart before the horse i think, as oil shows no sign of spiking

however
cash DOW has had a couple of darts at 16,500 (merely a round number) but so far not penetrated and held

cash DOW fell back to 16,465 which was some sort of support/resistance level, so added in a very small way

that said, i sure don't want to be away from my screen for long!

FTSE is now contemplating it's next resistance at 5970, for having had a quick dart through, it promptly fell back

suddenly cash DOW has exploded (upwards!) and shattered the 16,500 barrier
FTSE is limping along behind and has now crept back through 5970

Here we go ,now can it last ?

FTSE is a bit of a bugger for trading as the new resistances come thick and fast - ie next one is at 6,000 - a mere 20 points away, and after that at only 6010

DOW on the other hand, now has a technical clear run through to 16,700

I may be interested in the DOW as oil has put on a few points . DOW currently up 130

meanwhile WTI (or WTL if you prefer) is up a paltry $0.60 at $32.75

FTSE
its relative lack of life compared to Dow is very puzzling though perhaps related to crude scarcely moving north either

Oil going down now . FTSE/DOW more likely a short .

I really can see oil going sub £30 .

i'm certainly not happy to see DOW back below 16,500 and am considering banking the much smaller profit than i had earlier ..... have already done so with FTSE

ducked out and with it went a large slab slab of my earlier running profit ...... bollocks

==============

so then
DOW
16,470 suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly reverts to being a resistance

Better out than it turning in to a loss , these are hard markets to play ,including stocks which i normally jump in and out of .

exactly so, but as always and with hindsight, got a bit too greedy ...... confess i thought 16,500 was going to hold ..... it did once, or perhaps twice, but then succumbed rather too easily

blast!
got distracted chasing a client for money .... was close to shorting DOW at ~16,455 but missed the chance ...... never mind

Went short DOW