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

Much more honest though Strawbs and companies live and die by their policies.

One of the problems I feel is the hedge funds have got the market to themselves atm. They have effectively taken over as most shares are not traded any more. Greater volume across the market would dilute their effect.

Hegde funds rise and fall in these markets just the same as the rest of us. Bet a few of them got burned by the HBOS bailout. Once the dust settles I dare say the regulators will start to tighten the rules up. Only time will tell if that ultimately has a good or bad impact.

In my opinion

Strawbs.

They can really move markets especially when markets are thin on volume and there is a lot of fear. Slightly worrying is that they pay major contributions into party funds on both sides of the Atlantic and we know how well oil and defense has done under George W's tenure!

Tis interesting in that for the first day I can remember in a long time, banks and miners have both gone up.

Probably just oversold in the last few days. My guess would be that shorters are covering positions and bargain hunters are dipping a tow in the water. Don't be surprised if this relative calm is short lived though. I'd expect the next drop to be bigger and quicker. The "oh my God" moment that clears the market ready for some kind of recovery.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Really don't know. The market is very oversold and could recover for a couple of weeks. Mind you, as you say it could be a one day rally beore the fall.

watch Wall Street ...... odds must surely strongly favour a sharp bounce, but indications are that it is struggling to hold convincingly above what i suspect is a quite important support at 11750

Always the way, lots of blue to tempt the bulls. If it lasts more than a week I'd be surprised, but then again the markets can be a strange place sometimes.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Wall St has as much chance as going down 200 as it has of going up the same hence the problem trading!

Will be a very lively open, major whipsawing I wager

today would do for starters

Rich, i do believe you mean 10750???!

Hold onto your hats ..

Vix has dropped from 36 yesterday to 26 showing a little less sheer terror

Naturally all those nice US hedge fund managers will be targeting Overseas financial institutions now that they can't target their own.

Ted ... you're right, though 11750 would have been very nice!

FSA Bans shorting of financials from midnight.

Strawbs.

Interesting.

Yep Stan. Although I think it'll have far less impact than people think. It might actually make things a great deal worse. Shorters can't create or add to positions, if prices slide now, they have absolutely no reason to buy or close existing positions. If these moves are merely funds liquidating positions with no reciprocal buyers, then prices will continue to slide. Where do the authorities go if this has no impact? I don't have access to CFD's or SB's so it doesn't affect me anyway. Just underlines how seriously bad things have become though.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Unless these drops stop....my fear is : a meltdown of the markets and we will be all stuffed .....ftse is looking really low...but there comes a time when it might just go over the top (or shall I say bottom).....let's all pray that this does not happen !.