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

Lets hope the NIKKEI doesn't let us down otherwise thursday looks to be a bad day.

Volume appears to be down today especially in the banks, not sure about the miners which have been hammered today, anyone know if volumes were above normal for them?
2517

Normal day _770 on dow correction now 855!

Capitulation appears to be the order of the day.

Don't panic!! That is what the market is trying to get us to do.

Now where are my tablets ....

to cheer up a little what looks to be another fowl day ahead, the attached is from a good friend on mine in US ...... spelling has been corrected - and hope it makes you cluckle!!


The Egg Business

John was in the fertilised egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilise the eggs. He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now, he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favourite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover.

To John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making.

Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully this year, the bells are not always audible.

Thanks Cynic....for the read....wish this market would change....at this rate I might as well become a kamikaze on the stanelco thread !.....euhh....perhaps not !.

hugely better than it was at open and NY is now even indicating a small blue, having previous shown -150 more

Looks like there's a whole raft of economic indicators due out in the U.S. today, so I suspect the market will probably wait for the DOW to set direction.

I had a look through a significant number of FTSE 100 member charts last night. Most appear to have breached or seem close to trend support. Pretty grim reading, and rather underlines my belief that most of the key support (big money) has left the markets already. Doesn't bode well for the future...

In my opinion.

Strawbs

Don't suppose you came to any conclusions as to which of the FTSE100 Co's look like maintaining their divi yield?

HSBC for starters I would have thought

Nope. Don't have any charts that go back far enough to look at where FTSE support may be, so I thought I'd approach it from the other direction and look at the constituants. All looked pretty grim.... None the wiser as far as FTSE support, but did rather confirm my negative thinking though...

Strawbs.

cheer yourself up Strawbs , go to the "Talk to yourself thread" and see the graffitti

I heard last night that the DOW has only gone up one day this month which is a pretty grim reading. I would have thought it was two but nonetheless ..

a least a start in blue for Dow after Citi and Merrill results cancelled each other out, but unemployment figures better than expected ...... have yet to see US inflation figures

here's a bit more for general digestion ......

The core CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy prices, rose just 0.1%. Economists expected that measure to come in at an increase of 0.2%.

At 9:15 a.m. ET, the Federal Reserve will issue a report on industrial production - one of the four measures of a recession. Manufacturing is expected to decrease by 0.8% in September.

DOW finishing very strongly! +405 at present.
Big bounces towards the bottom of the bear trend.

I still cannot believe how far oil has dropped...all the way up to $147....and now down to below $70 in such a short space of time !, overdone both ways I would like to think, but thinking does not work with these markets nowadays !.

By the way....a little amusing story for a change..... I was doing some gardening work trimming a hedge and thought I'd just go and have a quick look at the teletext financial prices and it was all red, and my Dad asked my dithery old Mum whether she would like to go out ?, and she replied : no I'll just stay in and watch all this come down !....well for a few seconds I thought that she was shorting the market....well you never know, it takes all ages !, and then I thought ? that's funny I can't remember setting up an account for her....she was talking about the hedge !, amusant non !.

Back home now and back in front of my computer for tomorrow, did I miss anything these past two weeks..

According to the chartists & the Elliot wave supporters, there is one more down wave to come. Quite possibly the bottom is approaching & time to be looking for solid growth stocks, imo. Will be interesting to see how the retail sector survives over the Xmas period. Quite amazing during 'pub talk' how many people are following in Alan Sugar's footsteps & buying Woolworth shares, but purely on the basis that he very rarely makes mistakes. We shall see!