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

Thanks for the link, I think he has got his point across, not a happy chap and correct not to be.

But he should be a very rich chappy, I hope he shorted all of those banks shares, when he saw this coming in April 2007.

The system I use was indicating that I should have gone long at 5379 ten minutes ago, but I just don't trust this rally, Lets see if I was right to ignore ?

I'm getting a long signal as well.

i am very mistrustful of Dow as the late surge was based on the story that Lehman was in t/o talks ...... sort of "so what?" even if true, for the underlying problems remain

Even if Lehman is resolved, there are others that may follow. See below........

Washington Mutual Inc was downgraded to below investment-grade status by Moody's Investors Service, after the largest U.S. savings and loan projected a $4.5 billion third-quarter increase in reserves for bad loans but said it has more than enough capital.

Moody's cut the Seattle-based thrift's senior unsecured debt rating two notches to "Ba2," its second-highest "junk" grade, from "Baa3," with a "negative" outlook. It also lowered its rating for the banking unit to "Baa3" from "Baa2."

"Washington Mutual's access to the debt and equity markets remains severely constrained," Craig Emrick, a Moody's senior credit officer, said in an interview.

He added, though, that "there are no significant ratings triggers from a downgrade like this, because Washington Mutual is not reliant on wholesale short-term funding."

This week's Share Mag, Simon Griffin urges caution of being sucked in to a DOW bounce. Although his analysis is purely charting, he predicts the bear channel to slide to 10628. The only unknown is the effect of the U.S. presidential election in november.

Wonder how long before i can start opening longs on DOW and FTSE to let run and run, with no regard for what they do short term, if DOW goes to near 10,600 might be worth starting... lets face it they will go back to 13000 one day!

same can be said for oil in a few months time, lets face it, on average there is only one way that the price of oil can go over time, i dont see combustion engines being replaced in my lifetime, mind you i am 84... lol

There seem to be more & more working examples of hydrogen vehicles, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the petrol engine popularity decline considerably before you pop your clogs! :o)

it certainly needs to, because look at the problems we have had facing oil at $145+ its only a matter of time before it gets to $200 a barrel - of course not until we have passed this latest global slowdown, and perhaps, one decent conflict somewhere involving an oil producing state should, of course, help...!

Just a taste of things to come, though a bit early to guage exactly, but DOW futures currently -270.

It looks bad, but it doesn't strike me as any kind of real panic. I'm sure we've had bigger down days than this in the past..... Still. Maybe too early to judge.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

No panic. No jumping off tall buildings.
Certainly worth watching for a bounce sometime this week as almost everything is in the red this morning apart from Randgold Res.

Agree Strawbs. ATM the panic selling has left the market. HBOS opened about 10% down, went to -15% but then rose. Seems to me that traders are and have been for several weeks trying to buy the drops which is a change from several mnths ago. We shall see!

I was reading all about the 1929 crash earlier in the year. Everyone associates the great crash with lots of suicides, but in fact it was no worse than the average. I think it just adds to the drama of the event, which is why it's stuck in peoples memories.

I'd imagine gold will do well as a "safe play" in uncertain times.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Yep DealerDear. Seems to be more of a "media" event than a "market" event at the moment. Still. Early days I suppose. Someone always jumps in too early to catch the knife........ It used to be be at one time! LOL.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

I've got so many stab marks on my body I leak like a sieve :-(

I'm long gold strawbs from 740 after being stopped out after going long at 760 which I thought was the support. Recent events would suggest that gold has support at 740, cable at 1.745 and euro dollar at 1.39 for future reference.

rather agree re current fall, for as i commented a few days ago when Dow surged, "What diff does the potential rescue of Lehman's make?" ..... however, am happy to leave my short running

Question is, once you start to shake the tree (e.g. no more bailouts), how many more bad apples will fall, and will they take out a lot of previously good ones on the way down !

The authorities are assuming systemic risk is losing the foundations, which causes the house to fall down. What if the house bricks are actually in a worse state than the foundations? Same result, different trigger.

Whatever happens, it'll be an interesting slice of economic history. For all the lessons of the 1930's, maybe government intervention has merely bought time, rather than prevent what could be another great depression.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.