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

sterling is already below rock bottom vs both $ and

Totally agree Rich, not sure that it will be any more than one or two quarters of negative growth - if that, certainly only a mild recession. Took other half shopping here in westcountry for her birthday last weekend, the shops were packed as were the pubs, no real signs of a slowdown here. Also just marketed a house on Monday this week, 3 viewings booked already, two for later today, so fingers crossed, but thats not exactly reminiscent of the early nineties when you were lucky to get a viewing in a month...

Number One Son, who is also a spiv like you (lol!), also reports that (better end)house sales in Yorkshire are still ticking along OK, even if prices have to be reduced a bit.

Pleased to be sidelined today.

Feels like one of those horrible ranging days, between 5500 and 5530 with no direction. May look again when the DOW opens.

BoE to pronounce today, hence lack of interest i suspect

5% unchanged has perked sterling a smidgeon

It's still the currency to short though, just my opinion of course.
2517

a safer short is $:ZAR - i.e. ZAR to weaken

Dow is horrific and really struggling to hold 111275/11300 (down 250) .... the inclination is to say that the fall is badly overdone, but markets are renowned for lack of logic

What the hell is ZAR? and what happened to the dow?

george was mentioning shorting sterling ..... ZAR = south african rand

as for the dow, it got real sick! ...... shit employment numbers

The only thing going up at the moment is the dollar a new bubble?

well I decided to play the idices one more time and went short just after lunch and rode it all the way down and banked almost 500 in profit.

Wasn't I the clever one. - easy peasy money this

So confident that the market was at its low I went long whilst I went to the Dentist.

Gave it all back !!! Lost the lot

Morale of the story - stay to what you know and watch it like a hawk. - Enjoyed the ride - but I am too compulsive for this game.

Hi to those I know through this board

Looks like we are about to go into a death spiral on FTSE

DOW bumping along at 11200 at the moment, looking grim for FTSE tomorrow, but there could be some bargain hunters about later. (including me hopefully)

bhunt1910
sorry to see you gave the profit back, why don't you set a daily target , and when reached stop for the day.

Spitfire - thats exactly what I start out doing - I had 100 as a target - but then I get carried away.

I know you are right - dont seem to have the discipline

i am amazed to see FTSE as resilient as it is this morning .... unfortunately, it hsa still crashed comprehensively though 5400 level

have been a bit quiet lately but y/day i surpassed myself and i am currently down 1.25 million[all be it play money ie demo mode] as i went long on the nikkei. was playing whilst watching but got distracted and then this morning i had a heck of a shock!!!
i was thinking of trying this for real as i had 'made 20k' this week but think i will leave it well alone.
Alex

indices really do need watching constantly but it is still all too easy to get it wrong ..... i am an ace on indices ..... getting it all wrong that is!

13:30 US unemployment data due, could move markets either way.

Markets feel very nervous this morning, I will just content myself with some bargain hunting today.