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's the way they tell em -):

basically they know little more than we do, or else they wouldn't be working for a living

looks like another boring day... inside and out!!! come on cynic liven it up a bit.

going out and away shortly for a couple of days, so you may have to do without me ..... bad Asia, Oz, NZ and Shell don't do anything to improve sentiment it has to be said

AGAIN!!! you just come back from Dubia..........ah I know, you gota keep the boy friend happy......nudge ...nudge... wink ....wink..

All you guys trading the FTSE presumably now long???
Statement BoE: "The Bank of Englands Monetary Policy Committee today (4th feb) voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at 200 billion.

After a substantial fall in output, the United Kingdom economy recorded sluggish growth in the final quarter of 2009. Spending by households appears to have picked up a little, though that may partly reflect temporary factors. The rate of decline in businesses investment spending appears to have eased. And the world economy continued to recover, raising the demand for UK exports.

CPI inflation has risen sharply to well above the 2% target, reaching 2.9% in December. That rise was largely accounted for by higher petrol price inflation and the reduction in the main VAT rate a year earlier dropping out of the calculation. Inflation is likely to have risen further in January, reflecting the restoration of the VAT rate to 17.5%. Pay growth has remained subdued."

This inflation percentage is a real joke : just go to M&S and all the other retailers and look at the prices...far more than they were last year....it is getting to a stage where when they give out the latest inflation figures : I just laugh out loud...pathetic,.. really !.

"look at the prices...far more than they were last year"

It is the way the sums are calculated. RPI, CPI, Shopping Basket. All contain different items. The gestapo simply use the one that fits their needs at the time.

TP

Tin-hat time again I feel

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tumbled early Thursday after a rise in weekly jobless claims sent an alarm ahead of the big monthly employment report. "We may well see some nervous trading until we get the proper payrolls [report] tomorrow," said David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Markets in London, referring to the government's monthly employment figures due Friday.

Tricky market to play this.....you could just as well have a blue day with it swinging up by the same amount.....

Question.

When NFP comes out tomorrow won't the expected bad news already be factored into the price?

I hope so.....stuck in positions and hoping that we don't drop much further...

glad i took money off the table this morning, though it often proves to be not enough ...... tomorrow's numbers aleady in today's horror story? ..... one would like to think so, but difficult to bet that that is so

I'm hoping for a rebound because any further falls will force me into closing positions...and I don't want to do that as in a few months things will look a lot, lot better.

Don't panic Captain Mainwaring!

Not looking good....bloody american markets...they go down so do we..they go up so do we...aaaggghhh....

These are the days I look to accumulate stock, I reckon we will have several more of them to come over the next 3 months or so.
2517

FTSE key number is 5100
having fallen sharply through that first thing this morning, it's trying hard to recover that ground
almost needless to say, the key will be NFP numbers in USA and how Dow reacts to same

not a bundle of laughs at the moment except for those with the prescience to go short - actual and not just saying so!

DOW futures only -9 atm, which is a little ray of hope.