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

Yep, just seen:
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- "U.S. stocks fell for a second day as an unexpected contraction in a measure of business activity spurred concern the economy is struggling to recover.

American Express Co.,Walt Disney Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped more than 2 percent to lead declines in all 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc.s business barometer trailed economists estimates. CIT Group Inc., the 101-year-old commercial lender, tumbled 35 percent on concern it will be forced into bankruptcy. "

Harry,

You mean the Dow that is now positive??

Short memory about those poor stats !!

TP

Amazing. Finished -29 but a good day for those who trade the index I imagine.

A cautionary note for later in the week from Digitallook:
"Earlier, investors were scared off by the ADP private sector payrolls survey that showed 254,000 private sector jobs disappeared in September. Thats down from a revised 277,000 in August, but worse than the 200,000 expected.

The fear is that this bodes ill for Fridays monthly non-farm payrolls report. About 180,000 jobs are expected to have been lost in September."

Volatility seems to be returning in a big way. Tomorrow looks potentially even more manic with possible break of 9600-9900 range.

Bad day on the DOW so far (-150) & possibly worse to come tomorrow?
Shorters in the ascendency I suppose?

DOW futures currently -23 which is less than I expected, but maybe worse to come. Tricky to know whether to sit tight or try to pick up some bargains before a bounce up:
Bloomberg "Goldman Sachs Group Inc. yesterday said the U.S. economy probably lost more jobs in September than it previously anticipated, citing disappointing economic data including the number of people receiving jobless benefits.

Payrolls probably fell by 250,000 workers last month rather than the 200,000 Goldman Sachs had previously estimated, chief U.S. economist Jan Hatzius said in a note to clients.

Its all to do with non-farm payrolls and if Goldman Sachs are right, then I think the markets cage will be rattled, said David Buik, a London-based market analyst at BGC Partners."

The market looks well and truly stuck to me. The jobs number in 10 mins might well be the impetus to push it violently one way or t'other.

stand by for another nasty day in NY, though have just shut my own FTSE short at 4975 ........

Employers shed 263,000 jobs in September - much worse than expected. Unemployment rate rises to 9.8% - highest since 1983.

NEW YORK, Oct 2 (Reuters) -" U.S. stock index futures fell further on Friday after government data showed more jobs than expected were lost in September.

S&P 500 futures SPc1 plunged 11.5 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures DJc1 dropped 99 points and Nasdaq 100 futures NDc1 lost 13.75 points."

and down we go ...

Interesting, why did you shut your short?

because my charting guru who uses a very complex and sophisticated system called GANN, reckoned that was a target level a couple of weeks back

to scare you further, he also has a Dow target of 9095

For my sake I hope he is right ..

Although 4975 was a target then, surely with a projected drop of another 410 points on the DOW there is very likely to be more downside on the FTSE??? Or am I being more dense than usual?

i would have thought so, but i was just following instructions for once!
anyway, was quite happy to bank a useful profit

there's usually a weekly update, so i'll try to remember to post the conclusions here

Today's news might already be priced in, but more bad news + some weekend profit taking and some more shorting will probably end in another down day both sides of the water.. interesting day.. so far.

Stan,
May be of interest to you. A bit painful to me earlier on.

*8-)

not exactly champagne time is it, though it is good to see Dow staging a strong(ish) recovery ... it'll be interesting to see where it finishes tonight

despite Dow's strong recovery (now only -11 after -115), FTSE hardly recovered at all and has closed just below 5000.
it therefore looks to me that uk investors were too scared to follow suit lest Dow collapses later on ...... it (almost) follows that if Dow now holds these much better positions, then FTSE could recover sharply on monday

============

and as can watch sporadically during evening, have married money and mouth

To play the markets : you buy when everybody takes to the hills.....we know the economies are in a recession....but barring more banking troubles should recover unless Iran or North Korea...I still think that there should be an end of year increase with a stabilisation in the new year for a few months....all shall be revealed in the months ahead.

9400 is 50 day moving average according to investor's chronicle so a point of support. Nikkei seems the most oversold of the indices that I can see though yen has not helped