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'm very glad i have been away and thus not tempted by itchy fingers ..... objectively, i feel we should be very wary indeed of this current bounce

Every end of month or beginning it's the same.....rockets up only to come back a bit later.....the trend might be turning blue but there is no way we are going to have 100 points plus every day....just not on...

Low of the month (from memory) was 4791.

ISM manufacturing figures better than expected.

would guess heavy down day on wall street tomorrow with profit taking after recent strong rises and start of labour day hol, but am pretty sure i shan't bet on that

All depends on USA job report Friday.

A Labor Department report tomorrow may show payrolls climbed by 65,000 in August following a 117,000 increase in July, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Looks like the FTSE will open down 70 points Friday

Yep, non-farm payrolls. Make or break for friday p.m.

am i not right in thinking that +65k is pretty grim, though obviously better than a fall?

The consensus is for 75k v 117k last time.

and lots of excuses if below that like interruption by verizon workers + hurricane

Bank holiday w/e in the U.S. so another excuse for trades to slim down & the DOW to slide.

as at now, i see no reason to expect other than a drop in USA, and have banked a few profits as a precaution .... if by some chance the employment numbers come in ok, then i shall be more than happy to have "sold too early"

The market will do the opposite to what people think.

So I suggest it may well go up.

Gold steeply up this morning!

DD - it certainly will if the US employment num,bers are seen as at least adequate ..... there is also the argument that if they are poor, then QE3 will come into play, though i would rather that wasn't necessary

Interesting article re QE3 -

Should investors be careful of wishing for QE3?

I'll be not suprised if jobs not that bad anb all bounce back..or now bad news is good as a reason for qe3

I have a figure of zero.

Gold off the highs.

Back up on fear.