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

almost sorry to see these short positions in the money, but this sell-off is long overdue ...... having also been pulling other money off the table

Long Indices

for obvious reasons, i think that's a brave call

Keaydian - Good trading!

Ta CC.

Longs closed.

smart move ..... it is very difficult to call (correctly!) at the moment ..... my short positions are pretty modest (i closed part yesterday at a profit!), but are as much insurance as anything

DOW 11200+ & showing no signs of slowing down. Being short without a stop would certainly worry me. The annoying thing for me is that I am bailing out of stocks too soon (in profit), in anticipation of a big correction which never comes!

i stopped myself out of dow last night with a bit of a bruise which had been ameliorated during the day by a modest profit banked on ftse short .... i am still convinced that a sharp correction is imminent, but damned if i can get the timing right!

in preparation, i shall endeavour to keep my (geared cfd) exposure on the conservative side

Same for me Harry, taking profit to be safe being end of week too, but then seeing the likes of POG and PMO jump back to where I sold them is frustrating..

even when this does top out, there wont be any hurry

its not going to crash overnight

don't confuse the emotive crash with sharp and sudden correction of 2/3/400 points or more (on dow) with a reflection in london ...... the uncertainties with inevitable market effect approaching the election and in its immediate aftermath should also not be ignored

2010 could well prove to be a "sell in may" year

Have to be honest getting a wee bit nervous myself now, tightened stops to initial targets on stocks, still think there is more upside to come, BP. reporting this week and HGM on 29th. Well in profit with LOQ bit of a tree shake yesterday bought this one @ 100 and my initial target was 120.0 closed yesterday @ 128.0 so still well in the game for now. Still a traders market as demonstrated by Keaydian above, trends well in place for now! Dads Army springs to mind and that immortal line 'Don't Panic, Don't Panic!' :o))

if DOW only goes down 400, it will still be in an uptrend

CC
i agree with you on both counts and have done the same.or is that 3 counts? only difference being i am not taking profit on or at targets. may regret it but am using trailing stops to try to keep me in my positions.i may have to "give some back". but thats ok just so long as i dont give it "all" back.
fwiw wall street is now approaching fibonacci level of 61.8% long term retracement whereas ftse has already broken through(tentatively) so may be leading and not following.
its tricky so please all do be careful.
good luck and regards
jkd
edit and ps especially do be careful this week.

trailing stops when decent profit running also not a bad strategy

jkd - Aye sounds like a good plan :o))

CC
LoL! hope it worked :-)
regards
jkd
sorry CC it clearly did. LoL!
edit/ addendum. so as not to be misunderstood.it is CC who is clearly right , not i.

what a very nasty last 30/45 minutes ..... glad i ducked pretty quickly and banked some profits, albeit they were smaller than 24/48 hours ago!

am again modestly short Dow, and as previously, will be delighted to be shown to have been wrong

watch CNBC Goldman Vs Senate fascinating.