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

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.

all i can say is that, considerably to my surprise, our chemicals-focussed biz, which is usually one of the first sectors to suffer in economic downturn, remains robust ...... whether all will suddenly come home to roost in 2009, i have no way of telling

Falco .... gold all over the shop ...... opened +$3 then shot up to +16 and now back to +7!

now watching FTSE with a view to closing short and maybe even going long as fall possibly or even probably overdone

further to go (below 11000) for Dow before looking to close

I'm still backing a collapse to 4300 (good support) and a finish to the month around 4700...... Well. That's what I've picked for the "FTSE 2008" thread anyway..... :-)

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

it won't be in a straight line even if you are correct