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

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!

:o) Barratt Dev also gone up which means the whole lot up today, but over the last few weeks the sectors have been separate.

but the following does not presage good news .....

Drugmaker Merck (MRK, Fortune 500) pushed back its earnings report until after the market close. The drugmaker said it wanted to publish its report after research notes for a study of cholesterol medicine Simvastatin are released.

Analysts expect to Merck to report earnings of 83 cents per share on revenue of $6.05 billion, according to a Thomson Financial poll.

Now DOW stock futures +19.
Cashed in my mining stocks at a small profit & now waiting for the next oversold sector!

What a bloody nightmare market!

Shares go up, then down, up then stand on their head.
The only thing they don't do is turn themselves inside out .... yet!

How are you meant to trade the market like this?

Answers on a postcard to ...

DOW looking grim again. Currently -94.
Most house builders down today, so a possible bounce on the cards in that sector.

I think the knee-jerk reaction after hours on Dow, primarily due to weak forecast by Apple despite first rate numbers, will be shown to be overdone ..... if you read (www.cnnfn.com) you will note they have some new stuff in the pipeline to be launched within the next few months

...... we're busy finishing several more wonderful new products to launch in the coming months

An interesting read, but he also said
".......Apple's CFO, said on a conference call with analysts that the company's profit margins will be pressured in part by a "future product transition" that he said he was not at liberty to discuss at the present time."
The other thing which I think may be a worry is that they are pinning their hopes on the new iphone 3G. I may be wrong, but I thought that the 3G takeup in Europe was very low due to the comparative cost to normal networks. Maybe in the U.S. 3G is successful. Admittedly Apple have a very faithful customer base, which is a point in their favour.

I think Apple is a great company with excellent products but they are consumer discretionary items and generally priced at a premium to competition. They have been selling vast amounts of their new phone though at a reduced margin

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/ mention of apple and naked shorting on here today

Naked shorting: "An investor agrees to sell shares without having borrowed them first. This encourages hedge funds to sell shares & then rush to buy them again."
They are thinking of outlawing this practise for financial institutions. Maybe they should ban it altogether! Just mho.

would certainly ban most traders from rushing around naked!
meanwhile, looks as though we shall be in for a juicy day in london tomorrow with a really strong performance in NY and Dow finishing at day's high.
5450 is the resistance to break (i hope)