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 think i will buy a lottery ticket as clearly my day. Despite taking over 1 hour for a two way trade and trading blind its actually worked out at the top and bottom of the market. Set a buy at 1.5 - filled at 1.46. Set limit at 194.75 and sold at 199.25. Never happened before and never likely to happen again

Well done!

Wish I could say the same!

Well you were right to short and right that they would leave rates on hold cynic

Bit about Aig from permabear
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

confess that though i called everything correctly, i got my stops and everything else all wrong, so got fucked! ...... anyway, at least the market has woken to the fact that "unchanged" was the correct decision, so London should open quite brightly

No more Mr. nice guy from Mr.Ben, getting strict on the wall street kids.I have had to do more hedging today than any other, thought ftse would never stop dropping live to fight another day

From yesterday's close dax down 57,ftse 149, dow up 100, ftse possibly oversold

I have listened to market analysis crap all morning about how the market will go up 20% on the back of AIG. Market reality set in to Asia about 3 hours into the session today. Im sure the FTSE and the DOW will follow suit. How can an $85 billion loan at 850 points over LIBOR repayable over two years and have 80% of your assets taken be considerd a rescue plan. It is a prolonged receivership where the assets will be let go to the benefit of the US government. I would not trade long if you have to step away from the screen, or atleast set tight stops

because if AIG had been put into receivership, the repercussions across the world would have been appalling ....... AIG's future has been plaguing the market for the last 7/10 days, and at least the uncertainty is removed, albeit that US tax payer is now the (unwilling) owner of Fanny and Freddy and AIG.

The demise of Merrill and Lehman is at least under control, the one going to BoA and the latter, probably to BARC.

Cynic don't get me wrong I absolutely agree that AIG had to be saved because of the counter party risk and the possible collaspe of the financial system. The point I was trying to make is this is not a catalyst to stimulate a 20% up side. But then again made 37% on HBOS in 60 minutes so anything is possible

the great enemy of the stock market is uncertainty .... that has now been removed, even if we still have no idea quite where the road is leading, even in the very immediate future

I agree with Cynic - a huge uncertainty has been removed and therefore should have a positive effect at least in the short term. Long term though, I reckon the FTSE will still head down from here.

maybe but still not catching any speeding trains on the way up today far too much of a coward for that. The paternal side makes meen feel obliged to pick to wounded animals, and there are plenty of them around at the moment so no need to take unnecessary risks

I gather its options expiry today which may mean, and I do know very little about options and would like to keep it that way, that there will be a desire to make all those put options shown on the vix expire worthless by pushing the market up, in theory

quite possibly but one of the golden rules of money markets has just broken with the blow up of the oldest US Money market fund (Reserve Primary Fund). If a $ is no longer worth $ that may well spook investors, especially if it is another domino to fall and hits other money market funds. There is still plenty of uncertainty out there

The Fed drew a line in the sand.....and events washed it away again. Markets may rally initially, but I suspect they'll be testing 5K again before the month is out.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Is the blood dry yet Strawbs or still sticky?

My guess would be severe flesh wounds so far. LOL.

The crashes I remember had an "oh my God" moment, where everything looked and felt like it was falling off a cliff. Can't say I've had that feeling yet, although I suppose this is the first time I've been able to hold a short position (XUKS ETF), so maybe I won't feel the same this time around. I'm pretty sure though, unless my chart analysis is wrong, that we'll test 4300 at some point in the future. But as Cynic pointed out, it certainly won't be a straight line.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

HBOS on the slide again. unfortunately have to leave the screens but will set a speculative buy at 120 and see what happens. It took asia 3 hours to reverse it took london 25 minutes. I would love to be positive like cynic and Toya but just cant see the silver lining just yet

Thats a hell of a reversal, is there some news out there. HBOS was showing a 15% gain and now are 23% down, with other banks also giving up the early gains.