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

Today you may well be right but a further interest rate cut by the fed next week might move things upwards especially if the so called "wall" of money comes back into the market.

a further interest cut in US may NOT be such a good thing and could easily scare the markets even more .... certainly it will put huge inflationary pressures on US a couple of years down the line

and i have still not worked out who will cover these give aways , who wants US paper?

With it being election year,imo all neccessary steps will be taken to appease the markets.
cyril

I suppose in some ways it's beneficial to the US if the dollar weakens in as much as their deficit will be $Trillions of mickey mouse money.
2517

Not surprised for a moment that profit taking kicked in today with everyone taking a beating prior to the RELIEF RALLY (CNBC Speak). But professionals close markets so lets see were we are at at close of play as looking like the FTSE is going up again, or atleast not down. Nothing wrong with the market taking a little breather before it pushes on again. As the market has fallen so much prior to the the bounce, albeit a quick one, it is still in negative territory for 2008 in hard numbers.

As the eternal optimist i just do not see a recession only depressed US housing because of bad bets by multiple home owner speculators, a screwed up banking system underpinned by greed and misappropriated governemnet US overspending on war-mongering. Despite all of this the consumer and the job market is still holding up, interest rates are coming down and if all else fails there are always the soverign wealth funds.

Anyway ill get off my soapbox as even im getting bored with my post :-).. Thanks for listening

and just how will rushing out buying more chinese tat help the US economy

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Retail shares rose Friday, bolstered by hopes that an economic-stimulus proposal will put money back into U.S. consumers' pockets and send shoppers flocking to stores.

meanwhile Dow continues to slip away from this morning's euphoric indications (goody goody!) and SOLA resumes its downward path

well shorted but only for the brave or foolhardy :-)))

Redirecting $'s from over inflated miltary contracts to the domestic economy would be a good start.

its not before time the US economy gets hit hard as credit lines eventually get maxed out. Unfortunately the rest of the world is still hung up on it being the centre of the universe and we all have to suffer with a bad hangover because one of the members of the team drank too much. Im not convinced decoupling will happen anytime soon but sooner are later arab states as well as the chinese are going to sick of importing inflation and the problems that come with it because of the US's mistakes. The mkts will be an even more unpredictible place

My stocks are still going up so what do I care. Volitility breathes opportunity

I've been both brave and foolhardy this week :-) .. :-(

Theres not even a decent range to trade on the DOW today, mind you the last couple of days have seen the action in the final hours...

matter of opinion! ..... i went short first thing this morning when indications were +90

Nothing fundamental seems to be moving it downwards other than an unsubstantiated rumour that a hedge fund is going under. Interesting this causes panic yet the Socgen affair appears to have been brushed over despite futures volumes being a third higher than they should have been. I don't know how much they pay these so called experts to say this had no material impact with respect to the sell off.

the charts on page 1 here will tell you quite a bit ..... also it is slightly concerning that FTSE did not manage to hold 1bove 5900/5910 albeit only a tad below

I think it was 12371 where I closed my position on wall st yesterday evening, have checked the prices a few times today and seen little movement, at that point the market was up just over 100 points.

i seem to have closed out long Dow at 12395 near the bell last night but went short this morning when indicator showed Dow at 12450, which i then closed at 12364

Cynic well called! E

Just been watching a market report on sky, and some analyst from the city (forget who) saying Mondays sell off partly caused by society General covering positions after the massive fraud. And more interesting, suspects that Bank of France hadn't informed the ECB or the FED of the fraud, and believes if the FED had known they may not have lowered rates by so much.

I wouldn't expect any rate cuts next week from the Fed. I think FTSE is high enough for now, with more uncertain weeks and months ahead.

Spitfire do you believe everything the little scribblers say? My bet is on .25% cut.