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

so it is

Martin Luther King Day.

no holiday in southern states then!

DOW finished 8281 (+68) which is positive territory.
However sub the 8370 level, so where to now please Mr. Falcothou? I believe 8000 was your next support level??? Sub 8000 is then......?

http://www.signalwatch.com/markets/markets-dow.asp
These guys seem slightly bullish, however public holiday Monday, anniversary of Kermit Kerviel's antics that shed nearly 1000 points off FTSE so who knows. Seems to be a lot of twitchiness about credit cards, worth keeping an eye on dollar and yen as when they strengthen the market gets ready to tank and vice versa. Vix is about 45, volume has picked up so the big boys are back. Interesting headline on breaking views yesterday re. shorting ban having no detrimental effect on bank stocks, they had been trickling up until that point, before a herculean sell off at close. Interesting to see what happens to the re-birth of Lloy on monday di-worsification at it's best

a lot depends on the perception and ultimate actuality of this "toxic bank" dumping ground ...... the key, i think, is whether it will truly free up funds to be lent to house buyers on either/both siders of atlantic ..... at the moment, house sales are being crucified by the refusal of banks to lend rather than there being no demand.

though this "toxic bank" may be "bad" for the banks, i don't believe the general public will give a toss, and i am damned if i have a clue what the effect is on us all by having to notionally stump up 33k each for this treat.

though MLK Holiday in US on Monday, market there will still be open ..... adequately profitable evening trading Dow on Friday and have left a small long open at 8328 ..... my suspicion is that Monday will just be quiet without too much volatility, but Tuesday to be strong, purely on sentiment on the inauguration of a new president

Having watched some of the build up, I think I tend to agree that there will probably be an 'Obama bounce' next week. A good trading opportunity, imo, but probably short lived once the excitement is over. Possibly a slight weakening in the gold price?

I can't help feeling that the Dow will be heading down to 6000 at some stage though with world trade stalling, check out shipping rates, baltic index. We.ve bounced off 2002 low and consolidated in 8000's but the next break-out will be of the 2000 point variety at least according to Signalwatch!

Good call for Obama bounce cynic, futures cracked 8370

Good call for Obama bounce cynic, futures cracked 8370

Good call for Obama bounce cynic, futures cracked 8370

thanks Falco, but read your post first time around - lol!

The usual chaos with on-line trading today!
Selftrade already posted a warning that access will be tricky & have found that it is impossible to even log in at present. RBS falling like a stone (-30%) & am stuck just watching! Somehow you would have thought that they would have made provision for high volumes of trades by now, after the last fiasco!!!

This is selftrade you know.

They are somewhere betwwen useless and crap!

It's been a long time since I have posted here. Someone might find this interesting as to why we still have further to fall.

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOD_fsg4bmg

What the hell happened??? I nipped out for a couple of hours & the FTSE has gone from +74 to -44 !!! RBS down 60% can't be the whole answer. (Who would have thought it. Talk of RBS now going to be nationalised. LLoyds falling in sympathy?)

I tried trading first thing this morning with Barclays Stockbrokers, the system still seemed to be active but it was so slow it might as well been down. I had to use another broker, I would have thought that systems would have been upgraded by now.

Free online purchases of LLOY shares @ Halifax sharedealing services between 19th and 31st Jan. Desparate or what, I still cannot believe my luck and sense of timing when I sold HBOS for 11.60, most unusual for me.
2517

So, having seen the You-Tube clip, the theory is that the big guys with b's will borrow the stock in huge quanties, short it until the company (Bank) is on it's knees & then buy the stock at a rock bottom price, supported by the fact that the Government will not allow a bank to go under. Is that good enough reason to ban shorting financials for good? I seem to remember the arguement that shorters themselves can't drive a share price down, but that fundamentals in the company must be a contributing factor, such as mega writeoffs & profit warnings.
Just glad I don't have any bank stocks myself, as nationalisation is looking likely, imo.