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 wonder what's spooked DOW as it's now in negative territory and FTSE down nearly 50

haven't been around to trade, but jimmy and others could (must) have been having a field day

Not me ,too erratic .

slightly puzzled by FTSE dilatory performance, especially with crude on the up
am inclined to go long

any thoughts jimmy?

So am i ,oil was flying and FTSE/DOW going down , got stopped out of a FTSE long ..

it really is very odd
ok, so DOW has slipped back a lot - no idea why - but FTSE is now -20 with crude flying

perhaps look to buy ~5935, to where i am amazed to see it has now slipped

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

gone long at 5921

bit like last night, all looks too silly

Yes really strange ..And still falling ..

I shall join you ,just waiting to see how far it falls before close .

this is starting to look very uncomfortable on both sides of the pond and i cannot think why on earth everything should have slammed into reverse

FTSE
5875 is alleged to be the next support

How odd ,must be some reason ,although at the moment it seems to be what not happened or what might have happened or what didn't happen that makes markets react .

Something cooking I expect.

FTSE closing level has left it teetering .... fingers x'ed it goes north tomorrow for otherwise might be quite a big bang south

Never mind go with flo.

Ford figures were amazingly good, but the sp fell on the logic that future figures from Ford couldn't be any better.
Facebook figures are also amazingly good and the sp is up 13% with no hint of what the future could hold!
Defies logic!!!!!!

the only numbers that must have been dire were e-bay

all curious stuff

I'm pretty sure Amazon & Microsoft are reporting today, so just depends on whether they hit expectations or not.

Out for a bit so I will leave it in your capable hands chaps, if you could possibly wish the Dow up around +400 I will be very grateful, by for now.

Satya Nadella’s turnaround of Microsoft Corp. persisted in the fiscal second quarter, as more businesses bought cloud services and Internet-based tools like Azure and Office 365 from a company once mainly known for personal-computer software.
Revenue from Azure -- Microsoft’s platform that sells data-center based computing power and services -- more than doubled as customers signed up for pricier offerings that can handle machine learning and process large reams of information. Subscriptions for Office 365 productivity software also lured both businesses and consumers, and even Windows sales came in better than the overall PC market, fueled by the adoption of Windows 10.
The gains add to optimism that Chief Executive Officer Nadella can revitalize growth by focusing on Web-based services and productivity applications. More than 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies are now using at least two different Microsoft cloud services, Nadella said on Thursday. His plan to focus on apps for rival platforms is also attracting users, with 340 million downloads of Office apps on Apple Inc.’s iOS and Google’s Android.
“They have two things going for them -- one, the belief that Nadella is driving innovation towards the cloud, and No. 2, Amy Hood has had a blowtorch out on expenses," said Brent Thill, an analyst at UBS AG, referring to Microsoft’s chief financial officer. “It’s a totally different vibe coming out of that place that it was three years ago."
Microsoft shares rose 4.2 percent in extended trading following the report, after closing at $52.06. The stock climbed 25 percent during the three months that ended in December on optimism about Nadella’s turnaround, compared with a 6.5 percent gain in Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

DOW (cash)
stalling slightly at 16,230 but i think this will be overcome
not sure where after that ....... i have a long running currently, and it's doing very nicely and put in an arbitrary limit at 16,250 but may well raise it or change to a trailing stop