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

A lot of companies going ex-divi tomorrow, a few big ones amongst them (FGP, CHG etc) so that may drag on the index, plus DOW futures currently -110. Apart from NWG, everything on my screen in the red! (Even a few companies which have produced quite a good RNS this morning being dragged down).

Harry - I have MKLW +2.8% (42 shares traded) and COST +0.8% (1376 shares traded) :-)))

I'm waiting on a couple of gold producers....might make a profit for a change ....since march it's been terrible...

Nice one Skinny. I have a bit of spare cash so looking around for bargains.

Gees, I'm exhausted trying to scalp these indeces. just crazy and getting crazier.

Smugly profitable exhausted or suicidal exhausted?

At the moment out at break evenfor the day. Was going dizzy up 20 down 20, no clear direction but still watching has to break one way or the other.

Dollar Index at lows of the day Dow goes up, but just a flicker above the low Dow goes down.

That was one serious volatile day on the Dow all rumour and news driven. Managed to scalp 48 points at the end. Crazy Yanks!

Unemployment rate unchanged 7.7%

relative rubbish finish in usa albeit it was +46 ...... prob another unsettled day in london ahead ..... glad i made a good trade on GOOG .... not big profit, but welcome nevertheless

not big .. but you will need more of it soon...:)

dow was +70 at one point earlier but is now -20 ..... let's hope there isn't a general collapse again towards the close

cynic are running a FTSE short?

no, and unfortunately also closed out a goog long before i went out to dinner .... they've bolted after hours

I think you may have been lucky on google!

i would have been had i continued to hold!

I meant getting out - it closed -9.32 (-1.7%)!

after hours in usa (i had nasdaq stock) sp shot up by 10% following results!

Ok as long as you made a bit - my figs are Nasdaq btw - closed 528.94 -9.32 high 542 low 526.73. The only reason I mentioned them is because I used to trade them fairly often. I'm not sure where they are going from here on - development wise.