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

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.

true. I haven't had lunch so I'm feeling very greedy!

price went up so decided to sell one but although a massive company it is over market size and they can't do it on the phone either.

Crazy times!

I bet they were happy to let people buy this morning..... just don't want them selling any back this afternoon.

Strawbs.

I can't even buy 50 = 200 of them!

Strange. Can't buy, can't sell. What kind of market is that.... LOL :-)

Strawbs.

just tried to buy 10 TW. without success!

Christ!

Right we're back in business

let it roll ..

Ah I see. Now they've all made their money they're going to allow us plebs to trade.

Kind of them to think of us inadequates at this difficult time for them.

let's hope they don't suffocate in the money they're all rolling in ...

;-)

In answer to your post #2742 Greyhound, the on-line maximum that can be traded varies hour by hour for every stock, but you have the opportunity usually to phone the on-line broker & get them to execute any size trade by talking to a trader. The cost is still 12.50, but is an execution service only, no advice is given.

now we have the recently unusual situation where one has to work out how much puff the markets have left in them ...... if memory serves me aright, last recession time around, once the markets started recovering, they just kept on going ...... however, i just have a feeling that we could have a sell off in NY in the last hour or trading, not so much from fright but while awaiting over the w/e the thoughts of the so-called gurus as to what lies ahead over say the next 4/6months