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

mark twain but never mind ...... played very poorly yesterday but was just very glad to be out in the sunshine after a shitty tuesday

Mark Twain it was.
For us 'non golfers' (what's the point of trying to knock a little white ball down a hole in the middle of a field?) G.K. Chesterton said: "I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles."

Isn't golf a game played by men with knobbly balls?

So how would you categorise the lady golfers?

You've made some great calls overnight recently Splat..... Very well done.
Am curious though .... do you leave stops .... before going to bed?
All the best.
Amar

A game played by women with knobbly balls, of course. Why? What did you think I meant?

:o)
Discretion being the better part of valour, I will refrain from delving into the risky subject of women venting their emotions on vulnerable balls. Knobbly balls it is!

Thanks Amar. Regarding the stops, no not usually, I like contrarian trading. Markets at the moment have been so volatile that a big swing one way has tended to have been countered the other over a very short time scale. It's without doubt a risky strategy, but I have found that by starting with a relatively small position and increasing or decreasing as the trade pans out seems to work well. My biggest failure, as I have said many times on here, is that I'm always too soon to bank a profit! Having said that, the reason I've been in the game as long as I have (only a decade) is that I'm equally quick to bank a loser. In other words, I never get a trade wrong, they just sometimes go against me!! :-)

cynic LOl

you are really good at misinterpreting
that's 2 out of 2

must be a gift

Closed my AV from last Monday +35 +10% after costs.

missed the boat here, but no really that fussed as prob have enough at risk already

Everything seemed to be going along nicely until Reuters came out with another rumour of bad news:
"RTRS-SOCIETE GENERALE SHARES DOWN ON CONCERNS OVER DERIVATIVES POSITION-TRADERS
SOCIETE GENERALE NOT IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT"
DOW futures seemed to reverse downwards, even though non-farm payroll figures at 13.30 hrs BST today appear to be above expectations.

Ftse has gone from a nice upside to downside.

See Harry's post above.

Hopefully it is not too serious as they own Selftrade!!

Have to say with the way the market is, I've been expecting something horrible pretty soon.

Jobless figures not so good, even though Obama seemed to imply the contrary:
"June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Employers in the U.S. hired fewer workers in May than forecast and Americans dropped out of the labor force, showing a lack of confidence in the recovery that may lead to slower economic growth.

Payrolls rose by 431,000 last month, including a 411,000 jump in government hiring of temporary workers for the 2010 census, Labor Department figures in Washington showed today. Economists projected a 536,000 gain, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. Private payrolls rose a less-than-forecast 41,000. The jobless rate fell to 9.7 percent."

Hungary ?

Hungarys currency fell to a one-year low against the euro on Friday after a senior official warned for the second time in two days about the weakness of its economy and public finances.

The forint fell about 2 per cent after Peter Szijjarto, a spokesman for prime minister Viktor Orban, was quoted by news agencies as saying Hungarys economy was in a grave situation and that a default was a possibility.

A quick call to the French president will do the trick.....

Bloody starving :-)

Didn't Hungary withdraw from the Eurovision song contest as they would have been unable to afford hosting it the following year if they had won?