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

are fools buying this

Oil falls more than $4 to drop below $130 for the first time in six weeks. Stocks rally with Dow up almost 200 points.

so the answer is "Seemingly so!"

after hours, Microsoft figures a bit parson's egg and Merrill's look horrid, but indications are that market not hugely affected (Dow off 40) which is fairly surprising but good news if proven to be so

the market will do what the market wants irrespective of results. Out of 4 companies. Merrill horrendous, Google missed by a mile, Microsoft mixed and IBM good. On that basis the market should fall tomorrow but I wouldn't put any money on it!

MERRILL DOWN 10%

Seems to be some support at 11350. Think the market wants to go up. The technical guy at investor's chronicle was predicting a 7-800 bear rally on the ftse around the 5200 mark a few weeks ago that might also coincide with a drop in crude looks like he has been proved half right so far. 1305 on the s&p seemed to be the key support for this rally but as I undserstand it from mr market ticker the fed has injected 250 billion dollars in the system for fannie and freddie and that's hitting the dollar, good for exports but not inflation. Today has seen a big commodity sell off but are the instiutions really going to switch into banks from oils and miners? Yesterday the prices for uk banks were reaching silly levels but looks like hbos will not meet rights issue price so there could be trouble there! Airlines and cruise liners must get a brief bit of respite from the oil anyway

agreed that unfortunately this is probably a short term rally so we have to make the most of it.

could be one hell of a day!
US finishes on a high but earnings after close disappoint. End result is we open lower. So I guess we could crash today or alternately we could recover and continue the rally. Ant bets anyone?

I suspect everyone is rotating out of commodities (slowing economy = less demand) into the beaten up financials (high yield etc.). Probably not great for the FTSE being so commodity heavy.....double trouble too if the banks have more bad numbers, and we see dividends getting trimmed because of money raising problems.

I also wonder if inflation is really going away. I wouldn't be surprised to see commodities bounce again later in the year, when China ramps up production/building again after the olympics. Of course they may not have too many buyers of goods in the West come Christmas time... :-)

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Options expiry today and nasdaq hit by disappointing goog and micro

Strawbs, "double trouble too if the banks have more bad numbers"...what do you mean "if" -):

ftse turnaround at the moment.

Miners getting hammered again & DOW currently tipped to open down 60 points.
Tricky to make money on equities, but shorters having a ball I imagine!

both FTSE and Dow indicators have improved very significantly within last couple of minutes ...... just maybe Citicorp has come in with acceptable numbers ...... we shall see

Citi swings to quarterly net loss of $2.5B on writedowns and soaring credit costs. Results top estimates.

good guess wasn't it

Seems to be a feeling of sector rotation oil/miners to banks. However if they both go up the ftse could really rocket if they both drop probably looking at ftse 4500

it looks very much as if there could be life in this rally yet ...... Dow closed up 50 at just below 11500 and after hours edged up another 30 points to 11510 .... depending on your readings, 11450/11500 are important indicators

if bears (hedge funds) start getting squeezed, then some interesting action ahead.

Bank of America's second-quarter profit tumbles 41% to $3.41 billion, but earnings top analysts' estimates.

Dow indications now +75

Amazing! They were -40 first thing this morning.
Mining stock in favour today. There seems to be a cycle of sectors being heavily traded. One day miners, then financials, then house builders. Maybe easier than trading the indices at the moment.

Today both the banks and the miners have gone up.
That's confused me!