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

now then, now then, now then ...... don't let's get too carried away with ourselves, though it is indeed many a long day since all bar one of my stocks was blue - odd one out was VOD ...... dow reaction after Bernake's speech will be the thing to watch

.

i like the dow reaction to bernanke's speech .... after the initial and expected drop, a decent recovery as the brains get back into gear

wow!... and back through the level of 11160 which i am told is/was the critical number ..... another good day in prospect; and when could we last say that?

DOW UP 429points Thats worth a wow.

they're all effin lunatics in my considered view!

DOW futures starting to slip into negative territory which would imply either profit taking or poor inventory data at 15.00 hrs.

neither necessarily ..... perhaps just a bit of hesitation at 11160 level ..... closed my long of last night at a decent profit for the outlay

Here we go again.

Anyone for 5000?

what a very annoying and tiresome day ..... half expected a bit of consolidation, but this is just plain silly

Somebody called Nouriel Roubini. aka Dr Doom who has, apparently, got most of the financial turmoil right so far is predicting another recession. So say yahoo would post link but can't.

There you go - Nouriel Roubini: Big Crash Coming

edit - just noticed that despite todays date in the header, the article is 2 years old.

Thanks smarty, sorry, skinny :-)

They will talk us into a crash, scare mongering.

Looks like the U.S. are worried about Europe again, which is a bit bizarre as the situation hasn't really changed over the last few days in Europe, yet the Yanks have rallied and then fallen, again! All a bit knee jerk to each bit of economic news. One final lurch into the abyss before normality is resumed, I hope.

maggie - this is probably the article to which you are referring -The Man Who Predicted This Crash

That's it Skinny I always like to share the doom & gloom no point of me being worried on my own! Agree with you Dreamy, talk about it for long enough and it becomes self fulfilling!

Looks like we got off quite lightly!

DAX -5.13%

CAC -5.45%

IBEX -5.49%

Gold currently $1786.

Newtons Law
an object(price ?) will continue in motion and in the same direction until an outside force acts upon it.
what that force was or is or will be i have no idea.as an example it might seem that with the dow 11160 representing that force level we then have to account for momentum +/- that level before Newtons law of gravity comes into play and eventually after much pulling and pushing that oblject will become stationary which is when the forces are each equal and neutralised.that takes a great deal of time,but, it never happens of course because that object just keeps on moving.its either the bulls or the bears who have it.
nonetheless eventually the major long term force will win out.
trouble is we are all of us just minor short term players in a long term outcome.
if 11160 falls outside its major gravitational pull up then it falls into the gravitational pull down of the next major lower level. that being the case then nothing can stop it from going there until or unless another outside force acts upon it.
if it moves up thro the 11160 level then that level will act as its gravitational pull i.e. to pull it back. for it to fail it must be interacting with another level higher up that is trying to influence price by attracting it upwards.if that level succeeds then price will not fall back into the 11160 gravitational influence.
that is using horizontal support /resistance levels as an example. which may be why price trades in a range, i.e. sideways. it is treading water and going nowhere because the gravitational pull from above is being countered by the gravitational pull from below. they are cancelling each other out,neither is sufficiently strong to move price above or below the other.the movement between the ranges is simply diminishing momentum. that is horizontal supprt / resistance.
to move price out of the trading range requires an outside force to act upon it, in accordance with Newtons law of motion.
that outside force is and can be but one thing.
regards
jkd