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

More pain .

We can't blame oil this week either.

maybe just computer trading ...... i really have no idea, as cash dow is now down 85 and i think earlier this morning it was up perhaps 35

Miners have taken a right slapping.

ED: Confirmation here from Skinny's post http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=5209888

Looking at lists of stocks there are some real quality shares going down ,it's right across the board .

Yep, sooner or later after the shake out some gains to be made on individuals shares, but when? no one knows.

Better to be safe then sorry, so just concentrate on the indices for now.

but very difficult to determine what to do even with indices, as they continue to swing all over the place

in theory, you just trade with a stop, but with spikes in either direction, it's difficult to be logical ..... i think

fwiw, DOW was holding 16,000 without too much difficulty just an hour ago, but now 15,900 is looking to be breached ....... so a rhetorical question ..... do you back continuing fall or bet on a bounce?

in either case, at what level to you enter the fray?

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similar thoughts also occur with regards to FTSE which is now taking a close look at 5,600

No clue cynic ,i went for a bounce earlier and am close to getting stopped out .

Think it's easier to scalp trend which is down this morning, than it is when Dow starts going berserk in the aft.

Difficult to put it mildly as you say, just watching at the mo.

All over the place again ..

Wall Street will also be watching for the federal government's weekly crude inventories report at 10:30 am ET.

due in the next few minutes ...... wonder what effect if any, regardless of what the numbers are

Who knows cynic ,it's mad .

having had a little ponder, DOW has decided it didn't like the oil figures and is once again marching south towards 15,900

that level failed earlier and fell to 15,840 and then recovered to 16,000, so what this time?

Don't ask me i was hoping you would know. I closed a FTSE long earlier for a small loss and would have been in profit a while later , do i go long now ? it's gambling at the moment so quite frankly any profit from the FTSE for me is luck .

If in doubt stay out.

dunno guv ...... i suppose if i was to play FTSE i'ld look for 5,600 to go long

5600 has been hit .

in that case, assuming it was within the last few minutes, i hope you were brave enough to hop on board, as it's now 5624 :-)

not since 14:15 or thereabouts methinks, and it then went up to about 5960!

Oil prıce ıs nothıng new now. We know ıts low. The Banks are now begınnıng to take centre stage agaın.

one looks with hindsight at the violent swings on the indices and the tempation is to think, cor, there was a bundle of dosh to be made there

unfortunately, it is only with hindsight that one can see where one should have got in and in what direction
as we all know, had we done so, we'ld invariably have got it arse-about! :-)