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

Not sure if this is a bit of a sucker's rally. U.S. are preparing to increase their debt ceiling and the Eurozone are still trying to figure out a way of ensuring members don't default (with possible fallout for U.K. banks). August is traditonally a bad month for equities, so wouldn't be surprised to see profit taking when the froth settles.

markets now recovered pretty well, implying a consensus that a reasonably acceptable fudge will be cobbled together in eurozone

Isn't hindsight easy!

Did the FTSE go low enough to trigger my buy order @ 5800?

I have the low as 5797.48 - but that's between you and your SB company :-)

Cap spreads Skinny.

Stopped out of a Ftse long (Limit) @5870.0 +40. Now short from 5872.0 which may well be a bad call :O)

surprised you didn't just run a trailing stop rather than a limit .... certainly think a short could be a dodgy call

Busy day cynic in and out so to speak.

Stopped out of a chunky BARC long +8

And out 5875.8 -3.80. Back later.

Still long, by the sounds of it.

Blimey - LLOY touched 10 bob at open.

if i'd had some spare csah, barc at 208p on wednesday was a good buy....

BB - absolute stonking bounce - I traded it Wednesday & yesterday - unfortunatley not today.

even RBS has been worth following!

Closed Ftse long @5917.8 + 34 that's me for the day away to play golf. Edit that was a futures bet with Worldspreads save any confusion.

Looks like the euphoria short lived as DOW losing ground atm:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks were poised for a lackluster open Friday, with futures losing momentum after Caterpillar released disappointing earnings (Also Honeywell and Verizon).

Premarkets have had a volatile morning, as investors weigh the latest batch of corporate earnings, along with the latest bailout plan for Greece and U.S. debt ceiling talks.

Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (COMP) futures hovered around breakeven ahead of the opening bell."

Short term, sharp dip on the DOW whilst they thrash out a debt ceiling deal, then a relief rally late next week?

politicians jockeying for mid-term election votes are so tiresome and irresponsible ...... it is 99.9% certain that some deal will be thrashed out in US, as failure to do so would lose these politicos an awful lot more than a few votes