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

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

Not much going on except that the price of gold has gone up again.....the market (or whatever) can't hold the gold shares back much longer : the unhedged ones will just have to rocket sooner or later.

Out of my short -10 and reversed long @1601 - a bit clueless really - bloody yanks!

Just reversed @1618 - surely the yanks will sort something soon!

Some cheery reading about what might happen if they don't! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8659658/What-happens-if-the-US-defaults.html

Well Banks & Insurance companies severely under the cosh today.

soft targets for shorters, market has already discounted settlement in US.

We're all doomed.

.

muppets 6200 coming soon!

dull innit, but if you think a sharp bounce will come, i'm sure you're right for there's no way the idiot politicos will actually hazard US falling into default