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

Flippin' 'eck! What happened to the DOW -145!!!!

bad BoA numbers i believe

Apparently it's China's fault:
"(Reuters) - China's central bank surprised on Tuesday with its first increase of interest rates in nearly three years, a move that reflects concern about resurgent asset prices and could mark the start of a more aggressive phase of monetary tightening in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

The People's Bank of China said it was raising benchmark rates by 25 basis points, taking one-year deposit rates to 2.5 percent and one-year lending rates to 5.56 percent.

If there was ever any doubt about China's role in driving the stuttering global economic recovery, the impact was felt by markets across the board. Oil and gold prices tumbled, stocks turned negative in Europe and the U.S. and the dollar jumped."

torrid day in london ahead - dow currently down 187

was expecting a bloodbath this morning, so am more than pleasantly surprised.
indeed, once GO's cuts are actually in the open, market may well move smartly north.
fwiw, i am delighted the gov't has had the balls the cut hard and fast as i think that is the only sensible way ...... time will tell if it is indeed so, though for sure it will very tough for some in the meantime

Hello, I'm in need of help!

Does anybody know where I can find the FTSE level at 08:01 each day? I've found that trying to trade from the official open us useless and watching the live market changing so that I can note the figure is subject to human error (my human error)

Thanks for any help you can give me.

There's a horrible look to the market atm.

Bar the falkies, everything seems marooned I guess through a lack of buying/selling and no credit. I have wondered a few times recently whether we are on the verge of another credit crunch. Hopefully not, but we shall see.

Not sure you are correct dd. Some sectors doing very well comparatively, especially the cyclical stocks (GKN, IMI and other engineering firms.) plus many have bounced from their post recession lows. Much, much better than putting your money in to savings @ 2.5% gross. Airlines are reporting good growth on their business class & insurance companies are reporting steady growth with hardening premiums.
Your 'horrible look' may be due to a too far, too fast for some stocks, so as posted above, I suspect a correction isn't far away.

I meant over the past 2/3 weeks Harry

Errrrr. The footsie's pretty close to its high for the year and about 20% higher than its low for the year. I'm not exactly sure how it can have a horrible look to it.

That said, I've been short for the last couple of hours.

I'd have thought it would be quite easy to read my post 5679 but perhaps there were too many words in it for you ...

I only saw your post after I'd posted myself.

At least I now know why I don't generally bother looking at this thread though.

As we speak gold is up $22...quite a jump...and oil as well up a little....

all looking very gory, though "guru's" last report was still very bullish for both dow and ftse ..... still, a sharp correction is often no bad thing

There could be a lovely christmas advance coming....like you say....got to have some red now and again...

i was about to ask if there was going to be a bounce off 11,000 but i note dow has dropped straight through that, though so far, not by much ..... below 10750 gets scary, so keep your eye on that

and being a total dickhead, i've gone long dow at 10998, though i also have a stop at 10925

You must be at a little profit.....my oil shares not doing so well today...except XEL and BPC......there was bound to be a little pullback...just have to hope it's not too serious....the european economies will pick up bit by bit but for one or two : Ireland and Greece will have terrible times for a few years yet......cannot see France or Germany getting into trouble.....so to me a little correction is sometimes necessary.....hope I'm right on all this.....could prove to be a good time to pick up one or two bargains.....

Looks like China & Eire are the flies in the ointment:
Bloomberg - "Global stocks fell for a seventh day, the longest streak since January, and commodities slid on concern China will act to slow its economy and speculation grew that the debt crisis in Ireland, Greece and Portugal is worsening. U.S. Treasuries trimmed an earlier rally."

i keep trying to spread my portfolio into other sectors than commodities but really struggle ..... i like AIE (tuck away), WPP and CRDA, and perhaps UBM and just maybe MCRO are worth a dabble