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

well i refrained from taking any new positions this week. just a defensive week for me being stopped out of most of my short positions at small profit/small loss/ breakeven.i just dont want to get caught on the wrong side of the market.
maybe were going to see that end of year quarterly bull run? i did get caught though.
caught between braving it out or running. it was a choice between what i considered 'safe' and good technical resistance stops and 'money management' stops.the latter was the one i opted for.live to fight another day.
the trend is still down so i'm not buying anything until it turns up,(even if it means i miss buying at or near the bottom)
although i'm still looking to go short again. patience is now required. just my opinion.
regards to all
jkd

Yes, a week not to fall in love with the downside. Lots of scary stuff in the pipeline though no doubt! 40% Ftse derived from dollar earnings according to FT so strengthening is positive for pharms, miners and bad for retailers as the products they buy in become more expensive.

wish i was always this good at reading Dow ...... had a good week at this, so am bound to come a cropper soon!

Lucky chap. DOW down 486 & if you rode the chart down all that way, then you can take a break for a day or two!

just part of the way, so am happy enough ..... thought it was quite an easy call

would also expect a bounce on FTSE from current 4400 either with or just ahead of the BoE rate cut

Cut is 1.5%!!!

Closed all your shorts?

0.5% probably wouldn't be passed on by the banks. I guess they're thinking a big cut like this will at least mean some of it gets passed on. Suppose it could also be viewed as a panic measure though.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

You must be dusting off your savings account books & getting ready for a plunge back in to the equities market soon Strawbs?

no .... am quite certain that WPP has much further to fall in the coming months ..... not quite so sure about CSR, but shall stay put there for the mo

Maybe only on the short side Harry. ;-)

Strawbs.

called indices wrong today, that's for sure, but shall just hold longs on both FTSE and Dow (just opened) at least for the time being ..... i could fool myself by proudly announcing that (for 2 minutes only!) there was a 50 point gain on FTSE just after the cut, and actually recovered to opening level about 15:00 before falling away again

Hmmm. Volatility's back. I thought the rally might last until Christmas before tanking towards 3000. Not so sure now. Worth keeping an eye on the DOWs close. Most of the extreme moves seem to be in the last hour. Think I might consider some ETF (index) based shorts if things manage to bounce back next week.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

I would have thought there would have been a positive kneejerk reaction to the BoE rate reduction. How wrong can one be?

I thought there was....for an hour or so! It's a fine line between positive move and panic move!

Problem is, you don't need much of an excuse to take profits with markets like these. Self feeding volatility maybe. Capital preservation still the key unless you like to gamble......

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

edit my post3416
have added my additional comments shown in brackets,
good luck to all
regards
jkd

The US government reports more grim news about the economy: 240,000 jobs lost in October and unemployment rate spikes to 6.5%.

200k was expected ..... Dow now showing +60 vs +110 before announcement

UK interest rate cut
i think it is almost inconceivable that if the banks do not voluntarily pass on this latest cut, then the gov't will force them to do so.

that will then give the public an injection of "feel good" factor, even if it is only short-lived and encourage some Christmas spending ...... imo, ASC will be among the serious beneficiaries of this.

as an aside, Beloved and daughter reckon the new Westfield shopping mall is absolutely fantastic and is causing the West End stores quite a lot of concern

I reckon Brown, Darling & King are playing the kidology card by talking tough about the banks passing on the full 1.5%, when they know darn well there is no better way to restore the capital base of the banks, and it's not quite so high profile as 'taxpayers billions bail out banks' and the bonus is, the banks take the blame. Aimo of course.
2517

it benefits all if sentiment can be changed for the better