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

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.

Harry - Roger has just changed up a gear - amazing player.

Harry get real the germans run the ECB.

I know what you mean, but actually they don't:
"The Governing Council is the main decision-making body of the ECB. It consists of
a)the six members of the Executive Board (2 of which are german), plus
b)the governors of the national central banks of the 17 euro area countries."

i fully expected ftse to be down 50/60 points at the open, which it patently was not ...... however, after a feeble rally to +34, it is now down 40

Harry the composition of the ECB's board is immaterial ..... which country calls the shots and pays the bills?

Not so long ago I was quite Bullish overall, I could see Cable continuing its upward trend and the DOW / FTSE doing likewise.

What a difference a few weeks makes :(

I've noticed that the EUR/USD cross has been in a long term downward channel since July 2008 and is now well into the next downward leg (the third). It's quite an easy channel to spot and also symmetrical in time and price. If the price movement follows previous performance, the pair could hit 1.15 very early next year (2000 pips in three months?).

Naturally, equities will spiral downwards in the same manner and I think we'd be quite lucky to see a low on the DOW of just 10,600 and I've only picked that number as the last major correction. I wonder if the 2008 sub prime low of 7000 ish could be re-visited?

As always just ruminating about the general state of affairs, but for sure it would appear that the enormous levels of debt worldwide have not yet played out in respect of banks, financial institutions, even countries going to the wall.