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

That arguement works both ways though, Greyhound. Having an online broker works for most of the year & only costs 12.50 per trade regardless of the quantity. High street brokers charge a %age commission, which is unacceptable for the frequent trader. Yes, we are suffering at the moment, but over a period of time our charges work out less than using the high street.
Selftrade now working, albeit grindingly slow!

is anyone considering shorting the FTSE ? . It seems to me at its high but with the option expiry its a hard call. I think I will have small punt with a tightstop and lump on when it closezs for monday

Can you still short the FTSE? Surely it contains financials, so how does that work?

Strawbs.

sell on IG . I don't think it applies to spread betting

Oh. OK. Maybe the indexes are done differently.

Strawbs.

IG cfds are very good and provide dma with access to auctions, level 2 etc. Their spreads aren't as good as some and they trade the account in different currencies which can get complicated if cable drops but they have possibly the best charts and they will not try and screw you by spiking your stop losses as some spreadbetting firms seem to do! However they have done something very strange with my Hbos trade this morning

Harrycat, fair point it does work both ways. What's the typical max equiv these days you can do in one trade online, say for ftse100 stock?

Nothing if it's Selftrade lol although it does appear to have just come back I think!

Don't know I'm afraid but the moral of this story is have more than one account.

Still going up I see. I haven't bought anything, but might be tempted with an XUKS ETF, assuming you can still buy them when things settle down a bit. By removing short sellers and forcing others to close, the market is now effectively pushing on an open door. But be warned, this has also removed the downward brakes, no short covering means no reason to buy in a falling market. If anything nasty comes along now, this biggest rise in history will probably be matched by the biggest plunge too.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

Fair point Strawbs.

I've only just come back on and don't recognise most of these prices!

What do we do now though? Is this rise going to continue or will we have profit taking Monday?

Your thoughts would be appreciated cause I haven't a damn clue.

US pointing a fair bit higher now and looking at the Yen carry trade, looking good for further gains.

dealerdeal I reckon some serious profit taking will occur in the last hour or so today, aimo of course.
2517

Don't know either. Could go on for days, weeks, maybe even months, or go pop on Monday and open down 500 points. I've no doubt this will get the news headlines as I'm sure it was designed to do. My fear is people will see this as a new way to make money and jump in with both feet, then get burned as the shorters surely were today. They've taken the brakes off the car now, and with less weight it'll certainly move faster up the hill, the only problem is, what happens when it reaches the top!

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

thanks all.

I'm sitting on a couple of good profits but not sure now whether to sell and rebuy if a small drop, to sell and leave alone or let it run.


Decisions.

the volume and volatility in late trading will be even more extreme as it's quadruple witching today...

sold out too early today, having been unable to trade this morning jumped as soon as I could ( on iweb) when the ftse was up 6% not expecting too much more and also thinking it would pull back. so now sitting without anything and wishing iweb hadn't let me trade for much longer into the day - no pull back and no idea where this is going...

Likewise. don't be too hard on yourself because this is impossible to judge

DealerDear,

Thinking about it logically I would probably hold long positions until Monday at least. The US will no doubt go through the same rocket fuelled rise the FTSE has been through, and come Monday (after weekend news) I've no doubt the "make money quick" brigade will plough in and push prices up even further. Unless some bad news comes out over the weekend, I suspect the current Euphoria will last for some days yet. No guarantees though, but that would be my guess.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

I suspect you're right Strawbs. I've got that itchy trigger feeling in my fingers cause i am desperate to sell but it is usually a sign I'm getting out too quick.

The alternative is to lock in the profit then buy back in but then you are a sitting duck if the market falls.

A profits a profit. Depends how greedy you want to be I guess. ;-)

Strawbs.