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

Italy at breaking point, Merkel calls for "new Europe"

Philip Pullella and Andreas Rinke, 16:02, Wednesday 9 November 2011

ROME/BERLIN (Reuters) - Italian borrowing costs reached breaking point on Wednesday after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's insistence on elections instead of an interim government opened the way to prolonged instability and delays to economic reform.

Italian 10-year bond yields shot above the 7 percent level that is widely deemed unsustainable, reflecting investors' concerns that they may not get their money back and prompting German Chancellor Angela Merkel to issue a call to arms.

Italian bonds rise past 'unsustainable' 7pc barrier and there are fears the contagion is spreading to Spain and France, as the ECB reportedly buys Italy's debt and Germany is under pressure to act to save monetary union.

what a nasty day - rkh excepted - and not looking much better for tomorrow as dow slips away again (-252 @ 11916)

Hope no one took any notice of my FX comments, typically the exact opposite happened to what I expected. Having said that there was safety in waiting for confirmation of the break out.

All well Ricardo? You've been unusally quite for a while!

thanks peter .... yes i'm fine and was trundling along quite well until today, which turned out very tiresome indeed ..... not many threads on here requiring an acid retort, so have been keeping occupied with other things ..... far too many actually, but all now sorting itself i think

Good o, I must admit this whole Eurozone thing is becoming a real pain and with no real solution. It seems the big boys with billions are moving the markets to their own entire satisfaction and creating this mega volatility. Paranoia is never far away!

11800 perhaps on the cards if we don't get a double bottom at 11860. Then maybe as far down as 11650 again.

Conversely, a rapid recovery and a finish of 12200!

In other words, who the feck knows??

This is getting stupid now :(

unfortunately we have line probs at the office and can't log in to the system there where i have my gurus prognostications ...... i know his trigger point USED TO BE 11780, but i have a nasty feeling it's nearer 11900 now due to time lines/angles

11797 as I type. Wondering if we'll see -500 for the day

The markets have have got hold of how serious the problems of Italy are. If Italy cannot pay its bills, how long will it be before thoughts of can Spain, Portugal etc.

.

DC the markets have known for a long time Italy is next on the list and that seems to be exactly what we have at the moment, a list. Just when I think we will have a period of stability, the next potential defaulter is ramped up and hey presto, off we go again.

Is it coincidence that just as Greece seems to be nearing some sort of solution, the Italian bond interest rates scoot up to an unsustainable level?

I have no idea, but I'm sure a lot of money is being made out of all this, whether that money will be worth anything in a few months time remains to be seen.

Conspiracy theory I guess.

11,771/75 atm - anyone hear those crazy yanks?

Italy prepares to sell 4.2bn of debt amid costs meltdown

Emma Rowley, 20:42, Wednesday 9 November 2011

Italy faces a major hurdle on Thursday as it attempts to sell up to 5bn (4.2bn) of fresh debt against the backdrop of record interest rates on its current stock of debt.

Italian sovereign bond yields yesterday soared above 7.4pc, well above the 7pc threshold that led smaller eurozone neighbours of Greece, Portugal and Ireland (Xetra: A0Q8L3 - news) to seek bailouts.

Analysts expect Rome will struggle to find buyers for its auction of one-year bills on Thursday morning, but that it will stick to the planned sale as well a sale of up to 3bn of five-year debt on Monday for fear of spooking investors still further.

The shares are the assets of the countries. How far can they fall without serious consequences?

The rating agencies rated BearSterns, etc , etc 3A up to bankruptcy, now they downgrade with prospect of ?xxx? which may not materialize at all. Who is behind these, apart from rating agencies?

fully expected ftse to open -120, and though opened -100, it is now only -47 ...... strangely resilient all things considered

Yes its certainly worrying - I amended limit buys on RBS and LLOY, fully expecting them to fall further. Tempted by MER & CIU, but nothing as yet bar a small contrarian long on the FTSE.

I fully expected a rout this morning and was ready to sell anything I had in profit (though probably should have done that yesterday), but seems that many stocks now turning blue again. The steadying influence of the FTSE versus the crazy DOW!

Lucas Papademos named as new Greek prime minister

Former European Central Bank vice-president Lucas Papademos has been named as Greece's new prime minister, following days of negotiations.

Confirmation of Mr Papademos's role came from the Greek president's office.

The news came after leaders of the three main parties making up a new government of national unity met the Greek president to try to reach a deal.

Italian borrowing costs ease as ECB wades in
Louise Armitstead, 21:00, Thursday 10 November 2011

Radical intervention by the European Central Bank (ECB) in the bond markets helped pull Italian borrowing costs backed from the brink - but also pushed up French, Austrian and Belgian yields to record highs.

The yield on 10-year Italian bonds returned to the relative safety of 6.94pc - below the 7pc "bail-out territory".

Traders said markets were calmer after the frantic dumping of Italian bonds on Wednesday, allowing the ECB buying efforts to impact.

Rome sold 5bn one-year bonds at an average yield of 6.087pc - a record high but it was still counted as a success.

But febrile traders turned on French bonds instead, pushing 10-year yields up 30 basis points to 3.47pc.