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

I can see your logic Claret, trend is down, never goes in a straight line. How are you going to play it. Go long Monday with no stop and pray oil does'n't tank again or no other sudden disaster to take it back to 5700, or trade it daily? Curious, hope you don't mind me asking.

Panıc ensued thıs week. No doubt we wıll get lots of chop to help out IG et al. Just reckon that a short squeeze mıght be ın the offıng after three weeks of almost one way traffıc.

Wıll just day trade markets.

Now wınter has fınally arrıved ın US and Europe. Oıl ıs another one that mıght catch out those only bettıng one way. That beıng down.

Just my thoughts.

CD - quite right .... it can very tempting to hold o'night, but some of the swings we have seen when we have been asleep have been downright terrifying ...... often pretty scary when we are awake too

Thanks Claret.

just going out for a few hours, but may have a small dabble in DOW or FTSE when i can pay proper attention
good to see both recovering well after a bit of a shaky start

i wonder what, if anything, has rattled wall street tonight ..... even oil has held steady so perhaps just computer generated stuff

I don't know if you read the Sunday Times Business at the weekend ,there is a hedge fund returning capital to it's investors and throwing in the towel ,says the markets are just becoming too hard to get right .

A bad start to the week agaın for US Markets. I am (perhaps wrongly) lookıng for long sıde trades.

Another down day CD but may be a change when the Dow opens depending how the Oil price shows.

Apple results or update out this week might have an impact, maybe today I can't remember.

The Opec oil cartel has issued its strongest plea to date for a pact with Russia and rival producers to cut crude output and halt the collapse in prices, warning that the deepening investment slump is storing up serious trouble for the future. Abdullah al-Badri, Opec's secretary-general, said the cartel is ready to embrace rivals and thrash out a compromise following the 72pc crash in prices since mid-2014. - Telegraph

Where is everyone today, not been more banning orders served has there -):

I think Fred got banned for being such a leftist loony .

i certainly haven't been
don't know what's happened to fred either ..... he must have disappeared up his own arse and now can't find the way out :-)

Abdullah al-Badri, is he a Saudia Alf?

libyan it would seem

opec as a group may say one thing, but of course the individual countries continue on their own merry way with their own agenda

however, it is for sure that aramco (saudi) has still got well-development on hold as it has been for the last 3 months

So pinch of salt to be taken.

as with the negotiations in eu re brexit (or not), and indeed in many if not most areas of politics, what is broadcast for general consumption may have little bearing on what is actually happening off stage

The polıtıcs behınd the move to drıve Oil down ıs now hurtıng the protagonısts.

Stock moves I am sure are down to fundamentals other than just Oıl now.

Not helpıng me wıth my long call though

Capital outflow from China seems to be the excuse for the market decline today. The weakening Yuan causing Chinese investors to find stronger currencies. As far as I know this has been happening for some time now, so not sure why today is anything special!

one always rationalises, but i think the chinese investors are just jumping o'board, no doubt encouraged by the market fixers