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

Oh dear ...

The company recorded a net loss of $9.83 billion, or $1.99 a share, in the fourth quarter. In the same period last year, the company reported a profit of $5.13 billion, or $1.03 per share.

Citi's top line took a big hit. The company reported revenue of $7.2 billion for the quarter, down 70 percent from $23.8 billion a year earlier.

The results were far worse than forecast. Analysts had expected the company to report a loss of $1 a share on revenue of $10.64 billion, according to analysts surveyed by earnings tracker Thomson Financial.

Citi's figures are hard to comprehend, unless I have misread them, a 4th quarter Subprime writedown of $18 billion, consumer credit costs of $4 billion which gives a loss for the quarter of $9.8 billion.

Thank god I had gone to a cash position, I will await February and the UK banks figures with interest, I just hope they have allowed enough in writedowns already.

i shall try to sit tight with what i have ..... glad i sold IEC this morning ..... a bid for RIO and/or XTA would come in handy!

spitfire43 ----- I would not be surprised if the mainstream UK banks surprised on the upside, imo BARC 470p ( my preferred choice), LLOY 410p, RBS 397p(although with reservations) and HBOS 649p all look as if they are pricing in a worst case scenario.
2517

Good luck with a bid Cynic.

Have you been shorting any companies recently. I'm still keeping an eye on SOLA, but they have been rising against logic, made a note this morning to short FCCN, but events overtook me.

2517GEORGE - I hope you are right, I'm keeping a close eye on RBS, looking for a good entrance price. But as I can see the UK Banks haven't written off that much, compared to US and European banks.

no ..... no cojones! ...... hard to believe that SOLA is holding up, but then so is PVCS

trouble with shorting is that one tends to do it when sp has already tumbled, and bear squeezes can be fearsome ..... WPP looks a good candidate though

I can understand PVCS holding up, they already have a profit making business, I wouldn't mind a holding in them in the future. But SOLA seem to be built on a mountain of debt.

all very contrary, but sp just not seem to want to drop .... have a look at the chart

don't like saying it, but Dow looks as though it may finish -300 and more ...... that gets scary

FTSE bounced from 6000 along with DOW from 12750

unfortunately Dow is currently 12565

Apologies, 12500, I'm numerically dyslexic.

Did it again! Meant 12550 need to get away from the screen!

i think you're making up numbers as you go along - lol!

12500 is where Dow finished (-275) ..... looking very bleak for London again tomorrow

breaking news ..... Intel figures now out and hated .... Dow after hours trading dumps a further 60 .......

that's ridiculous as the numbers are really not that terrible at all, or not that i can see

Even gold has dropped! Is there no safe port in a storm? Is this the end of Capitalism, the onset of a Great Depression , a changing of the guard or a great buying opportunity ?

futures 12431, thought it might bounce after hours when at 12500 and got caught out. Never bet against the trend, was that rule 1??

Was well up on gold at 3pm as well, that's gone pete tong, although managed to keep some profit. Might get its retracement to around 860ish now, and then off it will go again.

Intel, the worlds biggest chipmaker, disappointed Wall Street on Tuesday with fourth-quarter profits and sales below expectations and a cautious outlook for 2008. The company blamed problems in its non-core memory chip business for exerting a drag on its results. Its shares fell 14 per cent in after-hours trading to $19.50 its worse-than expected figures spooking the market a day after IBM had kicked off the reporting season with strong earnings, says the FT.