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

out far too early, again, but short earlier @ 5141 and out by limit +31
watching quite carefully, as klal has posted on the Traders' Thread, there is an interesting and very clear channel for the FTSE 100 atm. Looking forward to the breakout either way :)

Yes - I've just closed half my short @5093 +50. OCO on the rest!

nice one skinny, glad to know some one is thinking similarly :-)

short some Doodah @ 10,180 and a PhootSey @ 5,144

you really do have to be super-alert trading the indices, especially at the moment with this huge volatility ..... last night was a good example and tonight i think not much different with dow climbing about 100 in the last hour - makes a change from it dumping!

closed a long ftse just before opening at a small profit, but as i was en route from m/e across the whole trading day, it really would have been very risky to have left it running with anything other than a very tight stop - which would then almost certainly have been hit

Given that it is so volatile, I have found that contrarian trades work very well. I have taken some 2,000 points over the last few weeks from both dow and FTSE, and to be honest, it should have been a lot more, but my exit strategy is and always has been my biggest problem as a trader. It is precisely the volatility that generates the points so long may it continue, as far as I'm concerned.

for instance, Dow is now some 286 points higher than it was at 21.00 hours last night, it is not unreasonable to expect some retracement of that, even if it is only 50 points and that's why I'm currently short. Thanks, I'll take 'em.

furthermore, we seem to be at the top of a downward-trending channel established around May 3rd/4th, which, if it holds, seems to me a reasonable bet for a few points.

mmm, on slightly closer examination - perhaps it has just split the upper side of said channel...so up again could well be the next move. Oh well, I have a sensible stop in place and an OCO to take in any potential profit.

Dow covered by limit +50 and UKX closed +9!

Daily Telegraph predicting a 20% fall in the FTSE tomorrow!!

of course that could be just a decline in the BP sp.

it might sell newspapers today but what about tomorow ?

lol

hali - would hazard that telegraph means next tuesday/wednesday (22nd/23rd) following the budget

cynic you are probably right, as usual journos trying to "create" news before it happens.

makes a change for me to be right, even if with a cautionary "probably"!
anyway, certainly prudent to be prudent beforehand, though so much has already been telegraphed (groan!) that much/most will already have been priced in

chinese yuan decoupling from $ makes what sectors the greatest beneficiaries?
my guess would be the commodity producers like RIO and perhaps the likes of WCC
i suppose it also makes the oilies more susceptible to t/o

what other thoughts guys n gals?

dow suddenly down about 35 having been +140 at one point very early in proceedings ...... ftse therefore indicating -70 or so, and bp could be in for another pasting by the looks of it too

Rio doing very nicely at the mo.,.

Cynic, your post #5514 is such a complicated issue that even the FT journalists couldn't really understand it today. There were a number of comments from brokers & none of them could agree on the effects. Obviously the miners were the obvious short term beneficiaries, but they then said that the Y/$ coupling was already priced in, so we are none the wiser! Maybe Warren B. will have something accurate to say soon on the topic!