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

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!

Wheres all the volatility gone???! come back...! This is like watching paint dry.

Ah, slow & steady, just like the old days (according to my dad).
Mind you, 20% rise on WMH, 36% CTT. Still the odd volatile stock.

Yes it's good to have relative calm today.

Normally a major bottom is almost never a spike, they have two roots like a tooth. It's the same when the market is at the top of a bull run. Could we be at the first spike down, and close to the second final spike ?

At this time it is worth remembering that the second worse bear market in 1973-74 would have bottomed out at 4088, pro-rata. And the worse bear market in the 1930s would bottom out at 2669. I believe I have worked the figures out correctly, but always happy to be corrected.

but much volatility expected tomorrow when lehman insured defaults are exposed - can't remember the proper acronym for them

credit default swap?

Oil might turnaround...Opec meeting coming up....(wish it would !),....still can't understand how on earth did oil rocket up to $147 before dropping to $69 ?...quite unbelievable !,.....people have to drive to go about their normal lives...I for one even if oil was $300 would have to go by car no matter what !,....I would have to put on hold other luxuries in life...less booze or something else, but driving would go on , so why the massive drop ?.

I have tried in vain to find a website that gives the latest (credit default swap) for financials, anyone have any idea's. ???????

On 14th March 2008 I read that Bear Sterns had a CDS figure of 7.2 before the bail out, most Banks in Iceland had similar figures. Shame the so called finance directors (Town Clerks) in our councils missed this little snippet.

meanwhile a great finish in NY so have left my longs open with very tasty profit but with stops in place

Just noticed WS, DAX and especially futsie futures have made one of those double bottom W thingies.