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

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 !.

I think the authorities are of the same mind required field. Worrying times. At least now they can't be blamed for a lack of action if it all goes pop.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

it is indeed very good to see at least some of the serious gov'ts taking action ... inn particular, FSA's ban on shorting finacial stocks must surely be applauded, even if pretty draconian

SEC has already done it, so it makes sense for all other markets to do the same, otherwise, as someone has already pointed out, the hedge funds will just go on the prowl for foreign targets.

About time FSA acted, it seemed that some shorters/hedge funds were hunting in packs looking for the next victim. This needed to be stopped before we had well funded and sound banks going under, which is in no ones interest.

As I said earlier, we were only a few days away from financial meltdown if the government didn't act. I applaude the decision.

Strawbs - a lot of this is confidence. If the sp starts to rise then the shorters will have to cover their positions. I would think the shorts will soon disappear altogether. As you said earlier, we may not now have the massive ups and downs but in these times that is good for the sector.

Dow has gone through the roof... now +375

Anybody know what a RTC-TYPE solution is? Something to do with the US gov taking over the bad h'sing debt.

That's a 600 point daily range! Phew would not want to be short financials tomorrow, mother of all bear squeezes

if one can get in quickly, HBOS or even Lloyds could be a very good buy in the morning ....... have left a small and profitable Dow long open, but am disinclined to open a FTSE long at this juncture as already +200 or thereabouts

changed my mind and banked the profit!

I think Lloyds adr's are already 290 cynic probably best jostleing into the auction

how does that equate to the UK price?