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

Ah, sorry, now I understand. Big cash waiting in the wings then? ;o)

I also believe that to be a wise move.
2517

DJIA nearing 11000 will that be the tipping point?

11100 tops

And what then cynic ? ,,you've been saying that for ages (and going short) ,you will be right eventually but at what cost ? i must say it looks rather toppy to me ,but i dont know how you can call it.

i went short, called it wrong and cut my losses ...... nevertheless, markets cannot rise (or fall) indefinitely without a consolidation - aka a tumble of greater or lesser magnitude

my concern at the moment is to curb my own enthusiasm and to cut exposure somewhat before the event, but that's quite a difficult call when so many stocks are performing well

Am I thick or what? Why would the markets fall when interest rates are so low, trend is well intact, plenty of bad news out there and anticipation of forthcoming armegeddon is well documented but they keep going up. Why fight it, just go with the flow with trailing stop losses or is that just to simples?

it is merely an obvious observation that no market can continue indefinitely in one direction ..... as it happens, the Dow charts indicate that a (significant) pullback is imminent - but as i often say, charts are merely tools and not the gospel

thus i am not advocating shorting, for that would certainly go against the current impetus, but merely taking prudent steps to avoid being singed .... stop losses are one way of doing it

Cynic I totally agree with your philosophy re markets indefinately going in one direction, every so called market expert on the planet bombard us on TV (Bloomberg and Cnbc) and my hotmail inbox with comments like 'Get out of this suckers rally now' etc etc. As you say stop losses if you are still long have to be key, or just take profits or stay out end of! :o)

i certainly don't hold with the "suckers rally" nonsense any more than i did with double-dip recession, but (sharpish) pullback on Dow is 120% on the cards within the next few weeks or even sooner

Cynic absolutely, but can you guarantee it? and there lies the rub and as you have proved to blindly go short against the present trend ends with taking an unnecessary loss. But then again as they say, no pain no gain eh!

120% DOW pullback!???? From what starting point please?

Dare I suggest it (tongue in cheek) It will either rain or go dark before tomorrow morning. Nobody knows how the markets are going to react surely that is the reality here to make a prediction like that Cynic '(sharpish) pull back on Dow is 120% on the cards within the next few weeks or even sooner' in my humble opinion is wishful thinking at best.

stay with the trend

you will only be wrong once

Ah, mis-read the post! '120% on the cards' not '120% down'. Phew. I thought the end of the world was nigh!

f**k off harry - lol!
anyone is perfectly entitled to keep piling money into the market or to short it as he sees fit.
for myself, i shall try to force myself to take some profits off the table while they are still there, to give myself a ready warchest for when i think the time is right.
am i going to short the dow tomorrow morning?
No, but if it climbs just a further modest 100 points or so, i shall definitely consider it quite seriously

S&P 500 chart looks ready for a 40-45 point drop, but not sure about the DOW. 11000 seems to be a crucial sticking point. Most uninformed opinion seems to be that it will not easily go past this level, so think I will probably do the same & lock in some profit this week. The w/e FT also reports that statistically the 3 weeks preceding an election are usually poor for stock market trading due to the uncertainty of the result.

i've always said this is just a bear market rally, all along, i am not so sure now, so thats why i'm staying long. when i think it isn't any longer, a bear market rally that is, then i shall have to seriously consider changing my mind and going short. surely everyone knows the market does the opposite to what we think it will, dont they?
regards
jkd

Problem is cynic you will be right, but when ?? is the million dollar question if the Dow sales past 11100 to 11500 before any turn you get stopped out ,it's a dangerous game .
Good luck anyway..

Time has surely come to consider shorting Dow . Even the Fed reserve in an attempt to ensure that there is enough liquidity in place to protect the nations fragile banking system has by increasing the M3 credit based money supply to chrisis proportions almost confirmed this fact . We have NEVER seen such unprecedented unheard of M3 expansion ever before without a chrisis of historic proportions !! Reg FTSE 350- Anyone noticed the start of the movement of a lot of big money from capital growth driven cyclicals -whose returns this past 12 months have been truly staggering - to more high divi paying defensive stocks ? A posting i meant for this thread i posted on CHAR thread by mistake and am to lazy to repeat all the stats. But in essence i would rekkie underpinning portfolio with gold !! ,,,,,,,,,,