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

ecb scam 2.0...immediate sell off was nice but next uptick was scary, all in all come down and hopefully down continue

Big Ben at 3pm !

It's a mega slow day today on the markets! If it gets any slower I may be forced to go & do some gardening! Even the weeds are growing faster than my portfolio!

Isn't it just! All I want is for the CW. or MCHL bid to appear this afternoon.....

US ISM Manufacturing PMI 52.4 v consensus 54.6 previous 54.1

should have taken my modest profit this morning, but took a modest loss instead and have now gone long dow ..... 10940 is now building as a support rather than a resistance and economic news is at least fairly positive

For those interested in a punt and I mean a real small gamble : OXS on a positive update !.

Bernanke: Economic recovery 'uneven'

Before the Senate on Thursday, Bernanke repeated testimony he gave to members in the House the day before, calling the job market "far from normal" and referring to the the recovery as "uneven and modest by historical standards."
While he was far from upbeat about the recovery, he made no comments implying the Fed would be considering a third round of asset purchases as a way to stimulate the economy.

we await the results from "super tuesday" should determine the direction of wall street over the summer.

Morning all - just popped in to say hello.

I stopped trading the indices a while back as I was losing more bthan I was winning. But - i decided to have one more go and put a £10 sb on the FTSE at 5420 which I finally cashed in yesterday at 5920 (albeit by mistake) recovering all of my previous losses plus some.

I am determined now to stay out as I consider the last gain of over £5000 more luck than judgement.

Good luck to you all - I will pop in from time to time.

o/t - probably my best investment over the last 12 months has been in AMER - have been from the 2p days, now at 26p - with more to come imv - maybe worth having a look if you are into oilies.

You should write a book - well done :-)

Goldman Sachs posts its first loss in Asia since 2008

US investment bank Goldman Sachs swung to a loss in Asia for the first time since 2008 following declines in the Chinese stock market.

Goldman's Asia division posted a loss of $103m (£65m) in 2011, compared with a $2.1bn profit in 2010.

The firm was hit by a dip in the value of its holdings in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which generated a loss of $517m.

finally start correcting

cynic , as i said before , that short entry could start to be now hugely successful...but panic put you double red now...all of asc 1.45k gone ?

CAD Ivey PMI 66.5 v consensus 62.1 previous 64.1

DOW down over 150 certainly is super tuesday!

Not an index I look at often but the AIM All Share is getting a hammering today - over 5% at one point. A big "risk off" day for sure.

wish i'd had the balls to keep running my dow short, but completely screwed it up ..... only positive for me today was my BOR short

have now shorted dow again (a bit late as have been playing golf), as target down has now become 12250

Closed Ftse short @ 5750.3 + 145. Dollar Index may hit resistance @ 79.92 be interesting. If it doesn't I have closed to soon :O)

Well done Chris. A bit like Cynic, I "could have done better".