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

I dipped my toes in today--FTSE DOW BARC LLOY and HSBOS got thoroughly burnt on all of them! They move so fast--I got stopped out 3 times and closed losers the rest. back to the manual for me!! lol

MP Lovely to hear there are others like me.

tomorrow is another day!

But......Tomorrow never comes.

Well the dow has fallen off a cliff so far so maybe a recovery tomorrow?? At least I had a winner on the horses today----Australia Day.

Some reckon that the next drop on the dow will be in the order of 3000 points whenever it comes so long is a risky business. Some also suggest a Summer rally.

Some say the moon's a balloon. Go and lie down and take another tablet.

Was expecting ftse to fall to 5280 level today, but is remaining stronger than I anticipated, must be oil companies and possibly commodities holding it up. I got one short away which was stoped out at level, just waiting for another opportunity.

Good luck to anyone else trading today.............

short at 5321 and moved s/l up to level, could be last chance.

Certainly the most difficult market I have ever known.
The problem is nobody has a clue where the FTSE (read DOW) is going.
As Falcothou says, some anaysts say and it certainly looks like we are oversold and a bounce should be for a few weeks in the making but others are predicting us testing 5000 again and probably going down to test 4500.

Whether you're putting your money on individual companies or the index, it makes it very risky to trade. I've come to the concusion go to do what you'd normally do, then do the opposite!

closed at 5291 for 30 points, that will do me for the day, will take day off now and go for a bike ride.

Bon chance........

my beginners luck has ended. got severely mauled by XTA [went long] y/day and broke through my stop losses. have gone chasing today but not sure if i could do so if playing with real money. does any one know if there is a general standard[or does it vary from co to co] on positions. ie if i go long on a co 1per point my trade margin shows up as 30 x 1 and my a/c balance is 30 short,for the duration of the contract. so far all understood.
if my said long position then tanks heavily so much so my a/c has minus figures for this trade. then do the spread companies automatically pull my trade and demand the difference or will they let it run[it is a rolling stock] until i close out and do i become liable for the loss at that stage?

Alex

Hi Alex

I think I'm right in saying that if your account hasn't enough cash balance to cover the loses they will first ask for a margin call, I believe they give you until the end of the trading day to top up the account.

A good idea would be to keep a healthy balance in the account, and set the S/L a level that if it is hit it you would only have 10% of your balance at risk, or better still only 5%.

Hi Halifax, I do need tablets but I think at the moment the market doesn't know whether it's coming or going and so I guess a market neutral strategy calms the volatility ie going long rio short blt or long banks short oils at the moment. I'm trying to identify key support resistance levels to trade from e.g. as cynic pointed out a while back barc at 355-360. It has tested this about 3 times in last 2 days which has made it a good place to short from particularly with massive gains seen in past week albeit much from short closure and perceived sector rotation though could now easily break out if dow has a rally. Oil is fairly key and that seems to be slowing its fall and a few oils are approaching support levels. I also met an American today who lives here who was wanting to buy a house and apartment in US North Carolina which though not much of an indication may be a sign that property there is approaching fair value but again easy to catch the proverbial knife...maybe that's why knife crime is seen to be reaching epidemic levels it's realy just traders!

Hi all, I'm a newbie doing badly at the moment. I went long the Dow and lost, short the Dow immediately and lost! same with the ftse---I've never seen money disappear so fast!!! I'm only 1 a point so not too bad---either I close much too quickly or I have to be prepared to see larger losses I close at 15 at the moment. When I check later I see my predictions are right so my timing must be crap!! ah well back to the drawing board. I'm bombarded with emails from RHPshares mag to join various s/b classes----is this worth doing? so far I've ignored them.

i know that feeling all too well ...... s/l is fine and prudent, though as you have discovered, it is easy to get stopped out just on the turn! .... nevertheless, running an open sore of a loss can be even worse and is certainly very stressful.

for myself, i try to run index positions only when i can monitor constantly and also find the 15 minute candlestick chart a useful guide when trying to determine direction .... if you are using IG, these charts are easily obtainable

Moneyplus also may be worth checking this site http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?display=discussion&code=cotn:UKX.L&it=li ,much as I like this one.
1 on the dow is a reasonable stake, it is still exposure to 10300. If it goes against you instead of closing with an s/l you can open an opposite trade on ftse, dax, s&p or whatever other your provider offers to hedge and hope for some convergence/divergence.

cheers--have a good weekend. It's so hot in Devon I'm indoors for a cool off!

Moneyplus, Why not print out the daily graph of the indices you wan't to trade at the close of play, and test your trading system each day. It sounds a bit laborious, but after a few weeks of back testing, it should help to fine tune your strategy.

I know exactly what you mean about predictions being correct, but timing being lousy. I has the same when trading companies long and short, I was rubbish at it, so now I just limit myself to the FTSE.

Cheers Spitfire..............

thanks for the tip spitfire--good one.