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

It would appear that Zopa is offering excelent long term returns.

Well at least betting on the reversal at the Dow close still holds water, nice profit on Nikkei limit long and few points from off loading one of the ftse shorts covering my long dax(another war of attrition)Was that just a massive Monday morning blues with every long stop triggered between here and Shanghai

Cyners.. anyone.... what do you think to Zopa???.

Think its a good investment????.

thought it was some kind of hungarian goulash!

i now see it's some kind of financial animal, so would rather stick to the goulash!

LOL, nope.

We were talking about portfolio diversification yesterday if you remember, I forgot to mention I have a play on Zopa.

Check the site out, its a better reward than stocks at the moment.

.......... and safer imho.

Two threads about Zopa on here chaps, one in each room..just do the search.

Gold seems to be holding at $925, my silver trade is paying big dividends though.

Stan, strange it keeps asking me to upgrade my subs when I do search.

Good article on Zopa here...

http://www.fool.co.uk/news/investing/investing-strategy/2009/03/02/a-new-asset-class-with-great-potential.aspx

"Stan, strange it keeps asking me to upgrade my subs when I do search."

How strange, I'll get them up for you.

Ig in independent sees 3300 as 'a' not necessarily 'the' bottom

I expect we will have reached the bottom when people have "stopped" asking the question "have we reached the bottom" -):

Closed out bit more of the long dax/short ftse pairstrade they were below parity last week,patience is required and an ability not to meddle which I find difficult!

f
join the club, the meddling club that is, even the sage owns up to it. i am still learning though and getting better, at non meddling that is.
i have also been most patient.
i have tightened up all of my stop losses on my shorts with ftse at this level, just to lock in profits before they evaporate. is that meddling? guess it is. anyway i havnt just closed out for no reason so still in with a chance of more profits. they may not get hit and prices might yet just keep a tumblng. they may not of course. technicals to me say further falls still to come, money management says take care, take profits when available. a rally will happen.
not too soon and yet not too late. how to know? tight stops is my answer.
i just dont want to give back all of my short profits to the market, ive done it too many times by holding on too long, both short and long.took me a long time to learn the lessons.
good luck to you and all
regards
jkd
ps it still doesn't deter me from still selling short when i see an opportunity.

just gone long at 3481 flyer but would kick myself if i didnt tight stop just a question of how far it may overun, or not at all and keep going lower we will see.
no regrets come what may
regards
jkd

spot on m8 ... 3476 was said to be the key number as i thjink i posted a few days ago .... having missed that, i may have a small dabble later

just sold half holding at 3532. free ride from here.
regards
jkd
regards

f
i now find myself in a nice comfortable long ftse position. ref our dicussions above i am in danger of meddling with it. i have decided that i will not do so. i will now let things run their course with my stop loss at cost. no meddling. thanks for your comments and the reminder about it,
regards
jkd
ps i reserve the right to change my mind lol.

jkd I'm long ftse as well. Quite impressed wti rise at nymex close, good for ftse oil heavies{inventories tomorrow which will be richly anticipated esp. gasoline). We're very oversold now technically and could get a bear squeeze. I think these markets are different to ever before in that the access to shorting is greater than it has ever been . There was news on Bloomberg that banks have been shorting their own and other financial stocks!Lots of hedging therefore and naked hedge funds so when they take profits ...

whoops might have got sucked into a fool's rally!