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

Apple!

all very dull and dreary again, though is suspect little volume ..... having opened brightly, ftse is now -36 at 5947, which is vaguely important being below 6000

i suppose we may see some more life once the roi announcement is out and the AV result known - local elections are almost certain to be horrid for tories and lib dems, though my own view is that it was absolutely correct to take hard and fast action to reduce the awful financial mess bequeathed by labour

for myself, at least MRW, BLNX and BAO are performing brightly today

BOE no change.

more bad news from over the pond .....
Number of people filing first-time unemployment claims surges to 474,000 in the latest week, the highest total in 8 months, U.S. says

Tis obvious something has been on the cards for weeks.

Nearly all AIM stocks are having the squeeze put on them similar to the period March 07 to when the subprime news broke in Sept 07. Indeed most stocks are now at best stationary or slipping down. There are exceptions of course but I suspect (and I hope I'm wrong) we have peaked and are slipping away to around the 4800 level

markets are AOTFS (all over the fucking shop!) with Dow currently only down 29 after more than 60

Yes I did understand what you meant!

lol

Are you allowed to AOTFS on here ! :-)

whether you can or not, he has ..

what a truly vile week this has turned into
"guru's" bulletin a couple of days back was quite bullish but suggested stop-loss on any fall with impetus below 5760

AOTFS was almost an understatement ..... Dow has been down about 120 but is now down just 26 ..... but where will it close?

cynic lets face it this has been a very good week Osama bin liner is no longer with us.

yes, but the market was arguably looking for an excuse to retrench/consolidate, so the perceived added danger was as good an excuse as any ..... there's also been some pretty shitty economic numbers from US

or perhaps looking at it cynically the US won't have to spend so much looking for OSB who was always right under their noses...... you wouldn't believe it if you read it in a book.

you forget that wars are a great stimulus to industry and the economy

cynic we dont forget that wars are a great destroyer of wealth and people, the point is its election year in the states next year and Obama needs to raise his rating before the Republicans chose a candidate to run against him. The demise of OSB is an opportunity for a President who had lost most of his credibility.

my comment was marginally tongue in cheek, but i think maggie the magus was very thankful for the falklands war

cynic there is no comparison between the invasion of the Falkland Islands and a terrorist act in New York.

strewth! Dow suddenly down nearly 200

thank goodness i ducked sharply today, but still may be insufficient

This needs to bottom out, the fact remains that economies are recovering albeit very slowly and it's mighty difficult to predict movements, because even though all is red today it can become blue with huge buying in a moment, such is the market so fickle at this present time.