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

Purgatory.....yeah, a good name for work.....

Strawbs.

Falcothou

Thanks for the link, thats cheered me up no end.

I'm sure he has a point, I will padlock the drink cupboard and medicine cabinet, just to be safe.

Which builders are you thinking of taking a sledgehammer to Spitfire?

Cynic - AZM - short of the rumour that someone might buy them here is no sensible reason to buy these. Change of CFO and CEO in August, Loss making with practically nil revenue. I don't question much of what you say but im scratching my head on this one. I hope your right but Ill sit on my hands on this one

puzzled myself, but traffic was 6x norm yesterday and sp is holding up well today - haven't checked volume yet as a bit early ..... i have only a very modest position so can't lose my shirt


have just looked ..... volume already 2x daily norm

Well first short didn't work stopped out for 16 point loss, but will try again.

short again 5353,

RMV is worth a look to short i think

I was thinking about bdev after a rise from 40p to 150 in 2 month's.

And second didn't work, another 16 point loss. Never mind there always tomorrow.

spitfire i think the red braces brigate have moved on elsewhere. BDEV are still down over 50% from jan 1st and over 80% from their high, thats why they have rebounded relatively. There are far better candidates other than the housebuilders. However, I hope they do as this time i will be buying in to lower my 656 strike price

All hanging on Lehmans in 30 mins.

Take your punts ladies and gentlemen

Any chance of some charts in the header?

DOW futures currently +72. Are you guys expecting the FTSE to follow suit this afternoon?

Harry.

Lehmans is coming out with a statement at 12.30 which will certainly shape the mkts one way or t'other. Will be very volatile just after.

I think furtures are only up on blind hope of good news, rather than expectation. Last roll of the dice? If you can't sustain a rally on the back of probably the biggest financial bail out in history (Mae and Mac), what hope do you have? Eventually the herd will decide to take the path of least resistance. e.g. If you can't push it up, then might as well let it fall.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Is the following superceded then?:
Lehman will report third-quarter financial results today at about 7:30 a.m. in New York, a week earlier than planned. ``In these periods of unprecedented volatility every word by banks or financial institutions is going to be scrutinized,''
EDIT: Ignore! Just realised time difference! Brain not in gear.

The way the FTSe and the US futures are behaving looks like they are expecting something positive out of Lehman. Might be something decent to sell into to

So, Lehman rose in early New York trading after posting a $3.9 billion third-quarter loss on $5.6 billion of writedowns.
No one seems to know if that is good or bad!!! Even DOW futures went from +72 down to zero & are now +32. Headless chicken springs to mind.

Market wanted some sort of deal to guarantee it's future which it didn't get but apparently the analysts call gave some reassurance, hence the drop then rise.