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

Who knows DC, it is but my opinion and has every chance of being proven wrong, have a nice weekend :)

Good weekend ptholden

Merkel expects euro zone breakthrough on Wednesday

U.S. rating likely to be downgraded again - Merrill

Walter Brandimarte, 17:57, Sunday 23 October 2011

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States will likely suffer the loss of its triple-A credit rating from another major rating agency by the end of this year due to concerns over the deficit, Bank of America Merrill Lynch forecasts

As stated above - Out of the range.

DOW toying with 11,900.

Thus far post 7228 proving to be on the money. Now will the DOW retrace back to old resistance at 11700 (or thereabouts)? I sort of hope it does as it should prove to be a good level to go long, assuming it doesn't drop through.

have banked some profits on ftse, aapl and goog, purely because a correction now feels overdue

Markets can remain irrationally overbought for irrationally long periods Richard!

true indeed, but as we have seen of late, they can also collapse in an untidy heap without warning and much logic too ..... some profits banked can never harm

And right to do so Ricardo.

though i have back into ftse this morning a whopping(!!) 20 points below my closing level last night

US Consumer confidence 39.8 v 46.4

Good to hear that,

With such a low confidence companies are making so much money.

WOwww what is going to happen if their confidence goes up.

Another days wait!

EU officials to look at fund plan details

Sources have told RTNews that tomorrow's planned meeting of EU finance ministers has been postponed until after the summit meeting in Brussels tomorrow night.

is there a big dispute there?
or they want to finalize everything before the meeting!

NO problem I think, the world will survive without cash injection.

The BBC take on it. Eurozone rescue plan hits new hitch

There has been another major hiccup in the eurozone's plans to announce a final rescue deal in Brussels to try to end the turmoil in the euro area.

The Polish presidency of the EU has confirmed to the BBC that key meetings have been postponed.

You can see where their priorities lie :-)

The full emergency summit and dinner involving the 17 eurozone nations afterwards will still go ahead as planned.

IBM Buyback Helps Steady Stocks

Thats been enough to stabilize the S&P and Dow, helping spark a bounce in EUR/USD.

They work much better than most CEOs, who just milk us.

they cannot even be with their wife for the first child, we shouldn't complain.

ahoj - if you are talking to me - I was referring to the fact that at least the dinner goes ahead as planned! :-)