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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yuwdsNpO_Y&feature=channel_page
2 day rule?
No signalwatch update so far today as far as I can see.
The thing I have noticed about overnight reversals after big moves is that they sometimes coincincide with a major top/bottom so it's probably worth setting half the trade at limit and half to stop at break even letting it run til domesday(better on a index futures than a rolling for slippage)

GOLD
for those who want to play ..... IG offers standard CFD contract - i.e. open-ended time - wherein you win/lose $100 for every $1 that bullion moves ..... i believe IG will also do mini-contracts

NY looks to be struggling this evening .... i wonder if there will be a late heavy sell-off

Last hour usually when Cinderella makes a break for it which would be 7pm our time I guess. Oil bearish today with higher inventories

Signalwatch seems to have departed this life at least for the time being .... however, 7100 on Dow is the next serious hurdle, and we are approaching that fast .... care required

nymex recovering nicely after yesterday's slump
meanwhile Dow at 7075, so am watching carefully ..... may well take a modest short with say 50/75 point stop if/when 7100 hit

According to that pivot point site recommended by Falcothou, 7085 followed by 7162 are the standard levels to watch. The other more technical levels are tighter than that, but am still trying to figure out which is the most important. Bit of a learning curve.

i took a punt and shorted at 7080, having been too smart and missed 10/12 points higher .... shall watch fairly assiduously, though have set a sensible stop

new high coming ?

high relative to when? ..... index needs to break 7100 or thereabouts with impetus and to hold it, or there could be a sharpish reversal

yes, I meant on a daily basis. The rate of gain is slowing a fair bit now though.

intraday uptrend pretty much in place - no reason why it shouldn't keep going.

dangerous statement, but yes, Dow looks to be staying northbound for the moment

now been stopped out, but don't mind too much as augurs well for tomorrow ... curiously, both nymex and gold are strong

Surely gold will plummet with the DOW surge? Are you still trading gold ETFs?

one would have thought so, and ceratinly not that it would go in the same direction as crude .... but not so for tonight at least ..... no, not trading bullion and haven't for a long time, and if i did, would be with IG straight gold CFD contract

Ah, I thought your post #4025 implied that you were trading gold.
Looks like GE have boosted the US. Imagine some profit taking may take place Fri pm.

it crossed my mind, but was not brave enough .... cannot work it out at all

I'm not a very long term trader, so I wouldn't have said that was a dangerous statement. It was meant as a comment on the move of the day so far, and that was firmly up. The Dow has halved in value over a comparatively short period of time - and with good reason, I hasten to add - however, a bounce has been due, and in my experience of market watching, and I know it's a cliche, trends are friendly. That was all.

Not sure what has happened to Signalwatch but he did see 7500 as the lid