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

I trust all you shorters are profiting nicely from the DOW decline?

Bloomberg - "Its a bear-market rally because we have not yet turned the economy around, Soros said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, referring to the rebound in stocks since March 9. This isnt a financial crisis like all the other financial crises that we have experienced in our lifetime.

The first quarter will be a reality check for investors, and they will be focusing on guidance, said Charles Dautresme, a strategist at Axa Investment Managers, which oversees $651 billion in Paris. Well decline from this bear-market rally, but have established a floor on March 9 and thats positive.

Alcoa reports a loss of 59 cents a share in the first quarter - bigger than expected. ...... it's only a couple of cents out, but more interestingly, Dow indicator has firmed 20 or so points after this (after hours) announcement rather than dumping as might have been expected, and Alcoa's shares have also rallied 2%

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- "The dollar advanced against the euro, heading for the biggest weekly gain in three months, on speculation the worst of the financial crisis is over in the worlds largest economy.

The Dollar Index completed its largest weekly advance since November after Wells Fargo & Co.s profit beat estimates yesterday, triggering the steepest gain on record in the Standard & Poors 500 Banks Index."

"Bullion is now about 12 percent below the 11-month high above $1,000 set in February. This week it fell as low as $864.30 to its lowest level since Jan. 23, and looks set to end the week down about 1 percent.

Investors have begun to sell safe-haven gold and buy other assets including stocks as equities markets have risen on hopes that massive fiscal stimulus packages implemented in various countries may help get the world economy back in a recovery path."

Presumably this now means that the demand for gold as safe haven will diminish, the price of gold will also decrease, as is now happening slowly thus putting pressure on the share price of the gold miners? Time to be moving out of gold related stocks???

i confess to becoming a little nervous of this current rally, not so much because the world's economies have perhaps just about bottomed out, but because all the minnows are jumping all over the place almost indiscriminately - e.g. OXB, CFR, VIY, RKH and any number of others.

it looks to me, and i am very happy to have profited from it along the way, there is actually very little proper news to justify many of these large rises ...... for sure, the afficionados of these stocks will all get very excited and say the true worth of these companies is being recognised again, but my gut feeling is one of considerable caution (did i hear scepticism?) as to me it is all beginning to look very frothy, especially among the minnow stocks.

Maybe so but the fact that minnows are being re-rated shows to me that even if we have a pullback, the worse may well be over and a recovery is under way unless of courses this is all a false dawn and the economy is about to crash. Like you though it is a time to make your money and get out, just in case ...

I suspect it's a combination of low volume (city still on Easter hols), some bear squeezing/short closing because of the new tax year, and people itching to reinvest as things 'appear' to have bottomed out.

No doubt a great oppertunity for the active trader, but probably just another bear market rally. I suspect May will bring a different direction to the markets.....if the old saying is to be believed.

I thought minnows always did crazy things....

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

http://www.cfdtrading.com/story/Equities_Reports/Asian_Equity_Markets/Technicals
Make or break for the bulls at this juncture. Key resistance for Nikkei,S@p,ASX whilst Dax is attempting dow parity!Options expiry today. Friday. Approaching the dreaded May.This rally has been supposedly a dash for trash(retailers/banks/housebuilders) the winners of the last boom.In the 1930's there were 5 25%+ rallies averaging 35 days,not that I'm bearish or anything!

FTSE 250 has rsi 73 compared with ftse of 56,bigger spread on 250 but ...

Very interesting observation Fal .............

will keenly watch on Monday.

All the best
Amar

Apparently Aussie /yen is a good one to watch, this has been dropping recently which apparently indicates risk aversion, flight from Commods into safety. Doji on Dow on Friday, sign of indecision and trend change and double top! Looking between the lines of the recent(better than expected ) bank results Goldman, by new accounting rules did not have to include December in it's results despite losing $1.3billion then. Citigroup also re named $2.6 billion of CDS liabilities as assets!Corporate bonds should be flying if this was the real deal according to history 1974, 1982, 1921, 1932(from Moneyweek). Dax seems to be benefitting from falling euro and possibly UK car subsidy in budget?(sell on news?)We shall see...

Will be interesting to see which sectors are boosted by tomorrow's budget.
Looks likely that the house builders will get some good news & maybe the banks also if savers get some kind tax break. Presumably alcohol & fuel duty will go up, squeezing the transport & pub sectors? Bound to be some kind of knee jerk reaction, imo, unless the budget is neutral, which looks unlikely as taxation is going to have to increase.

Surprised to see the FTSE down so much today. I thought we might have a small dead cat bounce before a proper dive off the cliff tomorrow during the budget. I don't think the government has any money left to provide any meaningful intervention, and with so much already in the papers any plans are probably already factored into prices. Pretty certain we'll all be worse off though, and for many more budgets to come until our massive borrowing is paid back.

Strawbs.

purely out of curiosity Strawbs, when was the last time you actually bought any shares ..... or shorted them for that matter?

Last week.

Strawbs.

Life Insurers look to be one sector which is going to suffer:
"Footsie continues to bob above and below last nights closing level with investors reluctant to commit themselves ahead of tomorrows Budget speech.

One sector on which investors have made up their mind is insurance, where fears that the Chancellor might scrap higher rate tax relief on pensions are pushing down the share prices of the likes of Aviva, Prudential, Old Mutual and Legal & General. Broker Merrill Lynch said that the removal of higher rate tax relief would reduce the attractiveness of pensions versus non-pension savings and therefore affect the flow of money into the UK pensions industry.

Seems we got a bit of a recovery afterall. Might just be a coincidence, but I notice the last 3 trading days appear very similar to the start of the falls in January. Although history never repeats itself, it may be worth keeping an eye on for any FTSE traders out there.

Strawbs.

seemed to me that the markets were quite keen to sell off, but bears sensibly closed postions towards the end ....... however, assuming the budget is something of nothing and NY stays strong until and after close, it could be quite boisterous tomorrow and thursday

We are still in the 7800-8200 channel.Had a good profitable short on ftse 250 but it is an expensive way to trade with the 60 point round trip per point! It also doesn't open until 815 or of course overnight but does give a different exposure to ftse with its heavy oil and mining exposure. I think the ftse250 is best for a longer term trade where a few thousand points might be available over a longer time frame, Tomorrow should provide some very good trading opportunities for those with a strategy and a quick reaction. Get ready to get boisterous!

glad you liked "today's word"!

When I looked at DOW futures at noon today they were showing approx -135. Now the DOW is +30.! Almost tempted to open a spread betting account!
Another item which keeps you on your toes is the swine flu outbreak. All U.K. travel companies share prices seem to have been badly hit, which must surely be an unreasonable kneejerk reaction to something which is currently a tiny problem, yet the pharmaceutical/health care companies in the U.S. have bounced up on anticipation of a rush of orders! More people die in the U.k. per month from ordinary flue than have died globally in a month from swine flu! Absurd, imo.