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

Dow
topsy-turvy market or what! ..... have crashed on friday, today it is (currently) +140, yet nothing has fundamentally changed

Greek bail out has been agreed and confirmed today,i think.
regards
jkd

it was never going to be otherwise

they may have a bail out, but I am waiting to find out when greece has to repay this money

I see this morning, the communist party has occupied the Parthenon

general strike to follow

general election (again) wont be far off neither will be the army (again)

fat lady not singing yet

FTSE -145, DOW -245 so far today & a gross understatement to sum it up:
CNN -""I think a little volatility is back," said Dave Hinnenkamp, CEO of KDV Wealth Management. "We're getting triple-digit moves (on the Dow) like we haven't seen in a while. We've had some big moves but the market hasn't gone anywhere."

On Tuesday, the CBOE Volatility index (VIX), or the VIX, Wall-Street's so-called fear gauge, spiked 17% to hit the highest level since Feb. 11.

Hinnenkamp said there's a battle going on between the improved earnings and everything else - including the euro zone debt issues, the oil spill and China's efforts to curb inflation without slowing growth."

To me, this is the a sort of second dip......not happy about it as I am going long (or stuck in there) on most things....just praying for a small rebound now....

total bloodbath yet again with very few exceptions ....... i didn't remotely have the balls to (keep) open a short the other day

Some stocks now looking mighty cheap & maybe worth picking up soon.
CNN have DOW futures at +16 but Bloomberg have -35 (at 09.11 hrs), so based on an average of the two, U.S. trading is not going to support us later on today.
If the tories get in on thursday I can see a big bounce coming in U.K. stocks.

Well the second dip is here.....costing me a packet in one way or another.....

One short can make a bit of money.....but you need to have liquidated all longs as well.....that's the problem.....

HARRYCAT, some stocks are looking cheap atm but I think they will get even cheaper, this is just the start IMO. I mentioned many weeks ago that I thought a double dip was coming, just needs confirming via future figures, which I am sure we will get. Any election bounce we get will be short lived, again IMO.
Hang on tight!
2517

Hang on to what ?....the railings on the titanic.....you go down as well....oh !...that taxiderm feeling is coming back...now what was his telephone number.....?....let me see...Iran..., North Korea,....Valdez....general Custer....no that's not it....I know I have it somewhere....

RF, I thought the discipline of S/B or CFD's was to keep tight stops in place so as not to get caught in ever escalating losses? One reason I just stick to trading equities.
George, you may well be right about the double dip, but worth a short term punt on the election bounce, imo.

the talk was of double-dip recession, and i really do not think that will happen.
even though i have not managed to get the timing right myself, i have been warning of an imminent sharp sell of in the markets for several weeks
this is now happening and MAY have further to run, but that is mere and required correction, and nothing (directly) to do with the world economy

why do you say that cynic? The news is certainly not good out there and it seems that aside from the obvious political uncertainty at least in the UK, there are also the austerity measures required to reduce Sovereign debt around the Eurozone, supertaxes on resources, worries over Greece, Spain and Portugal, a fragile housing market and economic recovery, the Euro....no wonder the markets are twitchy.

because looking at a much broader worldwide scenario, i see usa economy recovering nicely, and far east and india continuing to advance strongly too ...... unemployment numbers always lag in both directions

As long as GS associates are active, nothing is reasonable in this financial market. They dominate, play in symphony, and do not bother about humanity.... Actions are similar to what Hitler did about 60 years go

a charming but inaccurate bucolic picture!

for the moment you should treat this as just another correction
the internals are still in trend

its not this fall you need to worry about

it is whether or not the reaction rally has the legs to make a new high

With you on that one Camelot, those crazy yanks could do anything. I'm more concerned about Tim Cahill staying at Everton cause they didn't qualify for Europe but at least if the worse happens Moyes will make another killing. Splat as a Kopite you must be concerned re Gerrard and Torres at mo? :o) Those Greeks aren't taking any shit!