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

how red and how blue? ...... far too simplistic a statement

Simplicity can often be the best policy..but not always.

in today's market, would rather buy when all doom and gloom then gamble on a fools rally (ie after 3/4 days of gains...) lets face it, the bad news from the states is far from over...

Ted, you are totally right re bad news, problem is the yanks don't seem to be bothered by that rather salient fact, quite nuts!!

have decided that shorting the indices at current levels is too risky and shall stay neutral for the time being

Stan .... do not confuse simplicity with simplistic!

decided to sit on my hands today, no real direction on the ftse, would favour going short now. But too much of a gamble.

I was confusing nothing.

good for you! ....... anyway, i have concluded that shorting more SOLA is a much better and safer propostion for now .... see that thread

Here goes, gone long FTSE 6387.

Hopefully with Bernanke speach last night we are in for a bullish day.
We will see.

DOW futures currently +75, so the usual friday sell off looking unlikely, imo.
Quite a large number of companies go ex-divi next week, LSE, VED, ABF & TL. just to mention a few, so next week will see a few adjustments to the share prices.

As you say Friday sell off looking unlikely, but I have protected my position with a generous stop/loss. So hopefully in play for this afternoon.

Closed long position for a 40 point gain at 6427. Pleased with that.

I believe FTSE could go a little higher, but I will sit today out now, and look to Monday. Good luck to any traders out there today.

FTSE up 95 now to 6445, looking a little toppy to me with DOW futures only 138 up, but not brave enough to short today, the trend would be against me. And I dont want to give the profits today straight back.

Just as a matter of interest, spitfire (or anyone), what %age profit would you expect to make on an average week spreadbetting or CFDs? Don't reveal your stake.
I am just interested how much people make going long or short on stocks or indices, as I only trade stocks conventionally, but as things get more tricky then may have to look to other means.
Generally, over the last 3 years I make approx 25% p.a. on my equities, but is that realistic trading CFDs or spreadbetting?

I'm new to spread betting, I have been trading for only about 6 weeks on very small sums. small amount down but hopefully learning as I go along, and making less mistakes than at first. The biggest lesson I have leant is don't go against the trend, I tried to be to smart in first few trades and it didn't work.

Funny enough my return on equites would be about the same as yours, I still trade equities but have gone to a large cash position at moment.

Good luck if you decide to go down this route.

Harry ..... geared derivative trading is very scary and requires constant vigilance ..... all i will tell you is that my CFD trading in the current fiscal year is currently +24%, but only about 10 days ago, when the world caved in, it was down a similar amount

Thanks guys. So in a given year it should be possible to make 20-25% profit no matter which trading system you use. That's got to be better than +/- 6% gross at the building society & more interesting too.

as it is geared, the % gain or loss is significantly magnified .... with CFDs, and i think SBs are similar, the margin required is usually only 10% of the underlying stock .... thus, if you have 50k, you could theoretically buy 500k of stock

Of course, but you need to be ready for the dreaded margin call if things go badly wrong??? Don't worry, I will do plenty of research before committing & try the trial trading platform first.
Nice to see both the FTSE & the DOW finishing in the blue on a friday.

i am not convinced Dow will keep its head above water, but then i did not expect to see it +134 at opening either!