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

Yes, I agree with you. March may be the time for a big correction when the Greeks may well default. Am intending to lock in profits before that.

I've just had a word with Barclays about them taking a 70% haircut on my mortgage debt, and asked if they could just re-categorise it as Greek debt because I did go there once. Something then went wrong with the telephone line so I expect they'll call me back.

seymour yes lol - i am sure they were impressed with your 'out of the box thinking', but i think you will find that you will only qualify if you visited the mainland, not the islands such as crete, rhodes, euboea, corfu, lesbos, icaria etc which dont count as they are all up for sale lol!! i am sure they will get back to you with an offer of sorts! ; let me know when the court date is i'll be a witness for you :-))))

GBP Construction PMI 51.4 v consensus 52.8 previous 53.2

could be ftse in a process of triple toping

tomasz - see post 7809 - also looks like a potential H&S.

h&s could be too

and then back to 5000, i dont mind :)

More like 4800.

i mean i wouldnt mind give away last 200 points to the charity :))

at the moment, shorting the indices is a mug's game .... of course they won't rise in a straight line, but upward momentum remains strong ..... +/-5700 is n ow the obvious support

Lets hope so cynic - I remember pointing out a triple top last year on this thread...

that support you said is giving small range to the much stronger previous long term neck line resisstance wich i think should be broken up after bottom conformation first..

So what's it to be??

tomasz - as i have said before, do what you like; i really don't care ...... upward trend remains in place as long as 5575 is not breached with impetus ...... short term upside target is just below 6000

US Unemployment Claims 367k v consensus 373K previous 377K

cynic view may be the case here too, hey.. its a bedlam out there , anything possible... but.. i think to get there short therm is first to pass strong unloading 5800 area coming from left shoulder some Q1 2010...

Bernanke Testifies That The Recovery Has Been 'Frustratingly Slow' And The Recovery Remains Vulnerable

In other words.. Stating the bleeding obvious

Exactly! - My thoughts were no sh*t sherlock - but I thought better of posting as such :-)