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

but it is of possible concern that dow is now only +26 ..... fingers crossed i guess

Sell in May and go away, come back next Easter may be the right call.

I see gold breached $1910 late on - currently @$1903

Fear and speculation skinny. The gold bubble is getting bigger. The bigger the bubble the bigger the bang.

.

German ZEW August current conditions 53.5 vs 90.6 in July

all very skittish, which is no great surprise ..... very glad i had the sense to pocket a reasonable profit from dow longs first thing this morning when cash dow was about 11025

Eyes down for 3pm!

Shorting ATM is so easy it's scary..

Manufacturing index -10 against -1 for July.

New homes sales drop for the 3rd month.

Crap figures, Dow/S&P/Nasdaq rallies. What was that about easy? :0

The regional manufacturing indexes all seem to be pointing to some fairly negative US PMI figures for next month.

Just gone short DOW @10,979

I have a spreadbet to short the DOW to 9899

UBS downgrades Autonomy Corporation from buy to neutral, target price raised from 2100p to 2550p.

LOL.

I assume your 'short DOW' got stopped out pdq?

Well mine did -30. I was tempted to go in higher, but my younger daughter turned up and informed me I'm going to be a grandad - so I was somewhat distracted!

at 14?

cynic ?

Dow up nearly 300 pips, mental those yanks :O)

closed 11162 - am quite tempted to short o'night but shall resist