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

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.

The answer is no Harry, no position just observation.

no i did not have a short or any other dow position running .... i merely asked you the same question ..... if you never put dosh and gob together it's easy to make whatever call you like for there is no risk attaching

for myself and well after dow closed, i fully expected the london market to open horribly down and was very thankful to have taken money off the table yesterday - as posted at the time

===============

and by the by, i have (rashly?) bought back into BLNX, HOIL and TLW this morning

So Mr C made a wrong call. Must be a first for you.

as you decline to answer the question, it is a reasonable assumption that your gob and wallet are disassociated ...... as for me, i often make bad calls and usually post as much ..... and you? .... whoops! a senior moment - i forgot you don't actually back with bucks

What question ?? Mr.c***

did you back your prognostication with real money that ftse would open -100 this morning - clearly you have short-term memory loss too

Mr. C*** Wake up, and read the posts, the answer to your question is in there. Are you on medication ??

I bought FTSE and Dow after the close last night at 5561 and 11,620 respectively as the drop looked overdone on a short term basis to me. I have closed both out this morning as markets are so news-flow driven atm that there may well continue to be some big swings for a while yet.

yes i am and obviously i'm blind, but guess dosh and gob were indeed disassociated

splat - brave boy! i looked at IG live prices at about 22:00 yesterday and they indicated a further slump on dow after hours, similarly reflected in ftse cash

Glad to see you are NOW with the programme C. Let's hope the rumour that the number 4 reactor has no water and is leaking, is untrue otherwise we will see yesterday's massive volatile Indices.

pretty scary isn't it .... that's why i watch carefully and happily bank even modest profits, even if it means (perhaps) buying back at a higher price in due course

PS - when you get to my age, you too may be on medication if you are not already!

Would never take Viagra, my father tells me it causes a big headache.

nor i, but then not required either

If you say so C.

would i lie???? ..... ask the late (un)lamented cielo/mrsi!