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

only 195k expected
does that mean US is suddenly getting lined up for another rise in interest rates?

So, we are not in recession!?

herewith ......

US job growth accelerates but wages disappoint
The US added significantly more jobs than expected at the start of the year, data released on Friday showed, adding to evidence that the world’s most important economy is weathering global growth headwinds.
The US economy added 242,000 jobs in February, a much swifter pace than the 195,000 Wall Street economists forecast. Meanwhile, the reading from January was also revised higher by 21,000 to 172,000. However, wages slipped 0.1 per cent on a month-on-month basis, compared to expectations of a 0.2 per cent rise.

It's seems the jobs data is boosted by low quality jobs in the leisure and hospitality sectors........so the figure is receiving mixed views.......thus, hold on your recession question!

sounds like a report on UK jobless :-)

Reckon the us will be leaderless quite soon......... then what?

Is oil headed for $40 per barrel ?

Seems likely....I wonder how quickly the UK pump prices will go up? Faster than they went down I bet!

All if's an but's as usual but March historically has been a strong month for Oil apparently, so if Oil generally will be on the up then we might well have an VG uptick for the FT100 this month. That assumes that the other indicators are positive as well, but as they say never assume anything.. Tricky stuff and wait and see.

from this morning's guardian, though the markets continue to think (behave) otherwise .....

'Gathering storm' for global economy as markets lose faith
The Bank of International Settlements warns that trouble has been brewing ‘a long time’ but central bank options are dwindling

GOLD SHARES
if the markets are now going to retrench (or more), there is perhaps scope for a further rise in bullion

indeed, this morning gold has continued to rise, though the miners have backed off

with that in mind, are there are quality (gold) miners who have been neglected in the recent rise? ...... POG doesn't qualify as quality!

Depends on your appetite for risk......HGM?

I think you may have missed the boat ..

Worth a quick read Mr C, just to bring another opinion to the fore.

http://www.bulliondesk.com/gold-news/asia-gold-gold-supported-etf-demand-short-covering-110109/

ACA
yes possibly, though still some headroom to 310 which is the serious resistance


FRES
remains unloved since its results, but perhaps due for a bounce as it has considerable strength in both silver and gold

kirky is the man for this stock, though i think he likes to short it

Where to this week is this a small wobble or are we done with the rise ? i have not traded indices for over a week now .

Not a huge amount of important data to come from the diary this week. Thurs is ex-divi day with some big names on the list (BARC, BLT, AV. etc), so unless something unexpected happens, my feeling is that the FTSE & DOW will probably drift.

CME Group analyst suggesting $1280 will be the high for gold and is expecting a pullback to circa $1200.

WORLDPAY (WPG)
not a stock i follow, and i don't even know that the company does
however it seems to have returned some cracking figures, but sp has dumped, so it may be that they're worth buying

Electronic payment platform. Tricky sector to be in, though they actually turned in a profit for the first time. Not sure why they have turned negative but others in the same sector (PAYS etc) also hit.