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

I can't afford another day like today without closing a few daft longs of mine....and that's in gold producers...crazy.... non ?....

Now I realise why I don't trade on margin. I am sure lots of you are skilled in that department, but when things go wrong................!
Looks like the Italians are to blame at the moment!

Gold off the highs @1663

Richard, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the DOW at 11100 :-)

rf - Not in Cey, down -5 HGM, stopped out of Dom long yesterday -7, up on MTO short. Tightened stop on HGM volume isn't as great as CEY today but of course that could change tomorrow.

Dow not looking good.

I have a very nasty position in POG....I hate to admit it.....now I can either pray for a rebound .....close it or close another nasty.....not doing well this year at all......last year did fine on these, but it's going horribly wrong at the mo.....

take solace that POG is actually a very good company with real assets etc etc and not just some blue sky miner ...... i'ld be inclined to stay with them if you can, just i shall do; ditch the garbage in preference, some of which i did today

This market is taking no prisoners. Does it matter what assets it has. A prodcer should come out of this quicker then an explorer.

When I mean nasty. I mean another bad position as if I support it with funds I might get stretched so tomorrow morning is crucial so I'll probably stay in POG and close something else if the market decides to plunge further...(heavens forbid)....the crazy thing is that it might be a long in Afren.....got this market badly wrong...got rid of other bad underperformers to top up in one or two things RRL and Afren...

something to make you chuckled i hope ..... dow is now down 265, but the knock-on effect is that "cash ftse" is +24 from the close

Need a rebound in dow before closing....otherwise my axe will fall tomorrow morning on at least one position....

This so bad I'm nearly pulling my tea shirt over my head so I can't see the screen.....

RF - i've had the t-shirt (please note!) too, but try to remain logical though it can be damn difficult at times

Dow extends loss to 400 points as market decline worsens on global economic fears.
says it all i'm afraid

This has been coming for a few months and the sooner it happened the sooner we get it over with.

When the real panic sets in is precisely the time to stay calm and go agaist the grain and get back in. As traders give up and sell will be the time the market may start to recover. Psychologically it is very difficult to do but that is the time real money can be made.

Warren must be feeling greedy!

Just closed some of my GOLD for +31

Nice one skinny, Dollar Index on fire today. Has to be some serious buying opportunities coming up for stocks but not quite yet though me thinks.

i'm happy to be short dow, ftse and asc but it won't remotely offset losses on the balance of my portfolio