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

You may know about this already but i thought it worth posting .
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From Monday 21 March 2016, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is introducing a new auction to all stocks on its automated trading system, SETS. It's designed to improve the efficiency of the market and regulate the pricing of stocks that trade through SETS.

So what’s happening?

Every trading day, a pre-market and post-market auction takes place that helps determine the opening and closing price on an underlying stock. The new auction will be in addition to those that already take place and will start at midday each day the Exchange is open*.

During the auction, any stock that trades on the SETS system will not be available for 'Quote and Deal' orders. We expect it to last for a minimum of two minutes although the LSE have said the longest period might be up to 16 minutes.

WHAT..... no posts..... where you gone??

me?
sitting on my hands while the markets defy gravity .... or at least that's my view

That's ok then. ;)

.

Indices all over the place again .

but in a surprisingly narrow range

Yes i expected more carnage .

US existing home sales declined in February
Compared to a level of 5.47 million in the prior month, existing home sales in the US dropped 7.10%, on monthly basis, to a level of 5.08 million in February. Market anticipation was for existing home sales to ease to 5.31 million.


may not have much effect, being overshadowed by brussels

Hangıng around for the bıg red daıly candle to appear. Whenever that mıght be. Certaınly not goıng long from here.

I am short FTSE but only around evens give or take a few pts.
My first attempt at a trade for several weeks .

the markets really are amazing - dammit!

And so far it's going no where.

A down forecast to start, but fancy a bit of up ness later all things being equal.

And up we go.

a good article for you to contemplate .....

Why a complacent VIX makes me nervous
The call:put spread measure of the volatility index (VIX), sometimes referred to as the level of put protection, is back at pre-CNY devaluations levels.

The US VIX has declined from 30 to a low of 13.4 in two weeks. It has declined eight out of the last ten days and is trading a full standard deviation off the historical average, even as most point to the S&P and DOW being overbought and overvalued again.
The ASX equivalent XVI hit 13.7 yesterday, the lowest level since 20 July 2015. It has declined 55% since the 10 February capitulation. It’s also trading over a standard deviation from the historical average of approximately 19.5, yet the ASX has seen trade volumes fall to 27% below the 30-day moving average as buyer exhaustion hits
Intraday volumes through the US, European and Australian options markets have also declined by as much as 30% in the past 30 days. Put protection buying has plummeted to complacent levels.
Deutsche Bank’s ‘complacency index’ is at its highest level since the top of the market last year.
Complacency breeds laziness and roots out diligence, which is not great when macro risks are everywhere.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked 10 macro risks that may cause what could be massive shocks to global equity markets.

Four out of the ten global risks stand out as near term risks:

Number one on the list is a China hard landing, which has been a risk factor for over 10 years. It still remains the biggest global risk and it would severely affect Australia if the GDP targets were to fail.
Number six on the list is Mr Donald J Trump becoming President of the United States. We are 117 days from the start of the Republican convention in Cleveland, and Mr Trump is on course for the nomination. Besides the social unrest he may create, the protectionism and trade risk that may arise would see gold having its best year since 2011.
The horrendous event in Brussels illustrates that the seventh item of terrorism will be an ongoing risk.
And the eight risk is the Brexit, with 71 days until the 2 June referendum. GBP was shelled overnight due to the Brussels attack. It is believed that this strengthened the exit campaign and according to several betting agencies, the odds of Brexit have now increased to 46%. As we get closer to the date, the Brexit will shift up the risk order and the VIX will go with it. The economic impacts have been exaggerated by both sides but it will have a major impact and it will fracture Europe further.
The VIX cannot continue this level of complacency for much longer. Increases in put protection will signal that buyer exhaustion is upon us and the fixed risk dates are beginning to impact short-term trade.

Still short FTSE .

armageddon feels to be a long time in arriving

Yes a bit boring ,what about you cynic ? we have to pull back at some point .

Dumb question, but why do the Americans applaud the opening bell every day?