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

JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) reported fourth-quarter earnings that fell short of Wall Street's estimates due to a $1.3 billion write-down on subprime assets. The company's net income fell to $3 billion for the quarter.

interestingly, following the above news, Dow indicators have recovered some more and show only -50 .... perhaps the perception is that Fed will have to cut rates at least 0.5% and before the next meeting at end January

Apologies. On the CNN site the DOW futures are & were showing 0.00 but I think that is a glitch on their system.

currently -35 at 12465 .... that is cash prediction which may not be quite the same as futures

two to ponder .....
how high can a dead cat bounce?
will 6 dead cats bounce higher than 1?

No, but it will make a mess! :0)

at the moment all shit anyway!

Not if you are a sugar daddy about the only flier today!

Dow struggling to blue (+41) though techs still being whacked (GOOG -$13.00 after -$24.00)

I'm not surprised goog is falling. At its recent peak if it had been in the FTSE its earnings would have been equivalent to ITV's and it would have had the 3rd. largest market cap in the index. I know everyone uses it but people only tend to browse the first 2 pages and most of them have been paid for.

disppointing that Dow finished slightly down (about 35 points) especially as it had been +70 about 30 mins before close ..... however, this was far from dire especially considering early indications of another fall of >100 ..... techs finished very weak with GOOG (my arbitrary bellweather) being down another $22.00.

My guess is that London will open marginally higher and for myself, i hope that the miners stage a bit of or even a significant recovery after the last 2 days of total massacre

Due today:
"Merrill Lynch and a number of other financial services firms due to report quarterly results before the start of trade in the U.S.
The December housing starts and building permits reports are also due before the start of trade."
Don't get your hopes up too much!

"Merrill Lynch reported a quarterly operating loss of over $10 billion Thursday that was much worse than expected, and the company also announced an $11.5 billion writedown related to the subprime crisis."

DOW currently tipped to open down 33 points.

Shocking figures, after some initial weakness on the ML numbers, the uk banks have picked up the baton again, they aren't running though just a casual stroll atm. This morning the DOW was expected to open up around 80 points, so it's weakened from then. Good luck all.
2517

Very messy indeed!

damn chart update was 2/3 days late ...... since 20 mins ago modestly short both Dow and FTSE and almost sorry to say both already in the money

Dow stopped out at limit, so a little profit in the bank; FTSE left open and, i am almost frightened to say, also pretty well in the money ..... London could be very scary tomorrow

It would be a disaster.

closed london short .... Fed heavies clearly about to wade in very heavily to try to stop bloodshed ..... good news at least in the short term

Well, what a market we have here !, stockpicking and timing will be essential this coming 2008, very difficult.