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

cameron
personally, i am delighted he took a lesson from mrs t and stood up to the brussels gravy-train, and seemingly a decent majority of the country also agree ..... labour and lib-dem politicians can whine and worse as much as they like, but clearly they do not read the electorate properly.

if brussels ultimately backs down re cameron's demands, then he is at liberty to reconsider the position .... however, if he had kow-towed, there would be no such option

12,000 looking decidedly vulnerable.

all looking very ugly and just possibly 11700 will be challenged once more

Evening Standard. 12 Dec.(Bloomberg Markets Mag)
Standard Chartered economist team of four came first
for accuracy in a Bloomberg survey of 354 in 11 countries.
They made the most accurate forecasts in 13 categories,
including GDP,consumer prices and personal spending.

Their latest release on Friday:-
World growth will shrink to 2.2% in 2012.
and the UK contracting by minus 1.3%

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) unchanged.

.

cash ftse indicating -40 for the morrow

FTSE currently 5,446 - DOW 11,967

on edit.

Tomorrow's key announcements.

I wonder who is most likely to benefit. Transport schemes given 854m in government funding

The government has announced 854m in funding for 21 transport schemes across England.

It said 82.6m would be provided for a River Wear bridge in Sunderland and 76.2m for an extension of the Metropolitan Tube line to Watford.

Also included are improvements to buses in north Bristol and enhancements for the Nottingham ring road.

Many of the projects are dependent on local councils and other bodies providing extra funding.

The funding is in addition to 574m announced for 20 projects in the Autumn Statement in November.

Transport Secretary Justine Greening said the funding would "strengthen local economies".

i see the baboons in washington are playing stupid political games yet again

Where are they?

U.S. stocks slide for third day (2:46)

lol.,.

London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), Swiss National Bank (SNB); rate unchanged <0.25%

US Unemployment Claims 366k v consensus 389k previous 385k.

Just gone short DOW @11,950

Get out, I suggest. RUssia has 40% interest in Europe. We will see a big change in the equation, IMO.

Philly Fed Manufacturing Index 10.3 v consensus 5.1 previous 3.6

Is that good then?

Well apparently it is - unless it isn't!