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

Mid-morning when I looked DOW futures were approx -17. Now down 137!!! Another grim afternoon?

never a dull i'm afraid ...... latest collapse probably due to ....

14:42, Wednesday 16 March 2011
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union banks must disclose sovereign debt holdings on both their trading and banking books as part of stress tests, EU leaders will say at a summit on March 24-25, according to draft conclusions.

"Banks (Euronext: SBK.NX - news) ' disclosure will be enhanced, including on sovereign debt holdings on the trading and banking book," read the draft conclusions, obtained by Reuters.

"Member states will prepare, ahead of the publication of the results, specific and ambitious strategies for the restructuring of vulnerable institutions, including private sector solutions (direct financing to the market or asset sales) but also solid framework for the provision of government support in case of need," the document reads.

The aim of the stress tests is to restore confidence in the region's banking sector after last year's health check was widely criticised for lack of transparency and credibility.

Only seven banks failed last year's tests and needed to raise just 3.5 billion euros, far less than expected. All of Ireland (Berlin: IIK.BE - news) 's banks passed, yet months later Dublin needed an 85 billion euro bailout and all its lenders had to be rescued.

Stocks deepened modest losses on Wednesday after Guenther Oettinger, the European Union's commissioner for energy, told a European Parliament committee that a nuclear power plant in Japan is "effectively out of control," and that the situation could continue to deteriorate.

"In the coming hours there could be further catastrophic events which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island," he said.

ah .... thanks irlee; that's much more likely ...... very very dangerous markets at the moment and is becoming or even has become a case of "see a respectable profit? bank it"

Have a read here for the latest.

What happens if you can't see one cynic ....?

lol

strange that the army of nuclear experts cannot come up with a worst case disaster scenario, can't believe that a nuclear meltdown means japan is going to disappear into the pacific. the markets are as usual over reacting.

don't entirely disagree with you, but i'm certainly not brave enough to go long on the dow tonight - are you?

not yet, but life goes on and for some what is going on in japan and the m.e. does not impact on their businesses. the yanks always overreact, it takes them a couple of days to catch up.

m/e is much more likely to affect everyone than japan due to the oil factor

Presumably someone is going to do very nicely out of the rebuilding effort in Japan when the problems are sorted? I saw that Caterpillar was already being tipped as a benficiary. It seems that 45% of all semiconductors come from Japan so maybe other manufacturers are picking up the shortfall in capacity, which should boost their y/e figures.

Komatsu should do well.

you'll be promoting West China Cement soon - what happened to that one?

for those who don't know Komatsu is a major manufacturer of heavy earth moving equipment.

Looks like FTSE will open down another 100 Thursday. DOW down 274 18.22 Wed

Bernard - you never answer the Q, but i'll try again .... have you married money with mouth? .... if you did earlier, then you are, currently at least, nursing a considerable bruise as dow now only(??) down 180 and ftse cash -29 since close

==========

as always, the great fear is the uncertainty and it is that that is primarily driving the market south .... libya and m/e problems in genreal seem to have been put on the back-burner

bernard stays stumm as always ..... meanwhile, NY has had a horrid day with dow showing +/-11630 after hours and cash ftse -36 ..... my guess is that tomorrow may well open worse than that

glad i took money off the table again late this afternoon, but probably not enough

As I have said before, this has been a long time coming.

The AIM market and in fact many of the larger stocks stopped moving several weeks ago which spelled danger in a similar way when the sea disappears before a Tsunami.

I would suggest that any hedge funds left standing and other institutions have been out of the market for some time. It makes me smile when I see people on here say that a particular share will be miles higher in a few weeks time. They are either just trying to blatantly pump it or they have no idea about the general dynamics in the market at present.

DOW down 274 18.22 Wed this price was correct at the time of posting yes it did recover.

Price was taken from ETX Capital live platform. 18.22 GMT Wednesday 16/03/11

So Mr C*** it is easy for you to post after the event to try to discredit me.

I suppose all your trades were Blue again.

I think he is asking you if you had a position open (Spread bet or CFD)("have you married money with mouth?"), not questioning your data.