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 thought they already were!

Perhaps we've seen nuthin yet

We've seen bigger corrections than this over the last two years. Freefall means.......what? FTSE 100 is heavily weighted with miners which have been hard hit recently, particularly with the Oz mining tax. We've seen 800 point drops and then a recovery. I concede that a Eurozone breakup would see a much heavier drop than that, which I think is the main concern now.

And the US politicians playing brinkmanship with their own austerity measures leading to a will they won't they default debacle again.

I agree, but that will get sorted, imo, just like the previous political juggling when they had to agree to the previous package. They can't risk being accused of crippling the markets for long.

a bit of bear closing today has pushed the market up ...... at one point it was +34 but has clearly met renewed selling (into the rally) and cannot hold as now only +7

Unfortunately have'nt got the technical know how, how to copy and paste US Dollar Index Chart, this is the chart to keep an eye on imho. Think it was jonuk who obliged last time?

Gold seems to have settled around the $1700/oz level, which seems strange given the macro uncertainty.

Cheers skinny just scalped + 15.3. Long from 5155.5 out 5170.8 using 10min chart on UKX and DI. It does work but have to go out so that will do for now :O)

Chris - this one is a lot sexier.

aye that's obviously the one I wanted to post. If you go into 10 min chart it is a lot clearer. I'm actually using Charts from Caps (obviously) 10 mins 50 and 20 dma and MacD and RSI works a treat.

One step closer to a Federal Europe - EuroBonds now seriously on the cards.

Harry if the market wont buy Bunds why should they want to buy Eurobonds? Our cynical view is yesterdays lack of Bund buying was the market firing a shot across the germans bows if they persist in introducing a "tobin" tax.

'Cos the ECB is about the only credible player left. Collectively a EuroBond would have the strength that individual sovereign debt does not. Many of the current Bond issues are being partially written off or are at such a high interest rate that they are virtually unrepayable.

good job US is shut today and tomorrow

cynic - I believe its open tomorrow (black Friday).

Yep, Federer v Fish now more interesting than my stocks screen!

you could well be right skinny, but for sure biz will be very slack

Harry why is the ECB more credible than the German government?

Because it is a collective responsibilty rather than an individual one. Germany alone can't resolve Euro issues. Euro members collectively may be able to. ECB is not german owned, yet.
EDIT - Not brilliantly explained but you hopefully get my drift. ECB has collective power. Individual countries don't have that strength.