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

Will be playing Wall St also tonight Cynic, I think I'm set for a very bumpy evening..... Because of volitility though will trade without stop losses in place as I've experienced plenty of times when the downward/upwards peak touched my stop loss and sold/bought, very annoying spikes like these.....

Big Ted, I use a spreadbetting account to play longs/shorts, unfortunatly never placed a CFD and don't hold this type of account.

may i suggest that the only safe way to do this is with guaranteed stops - IG charges an extra 4 points in and ditto out, + usual $15 commission x 2 per contract - contract = $10 per point.

without guaranteed stops, market move could easily miss your "ordinary" stop by miles.

are you looking to go long for now?

Hi Big Ted I believe you must have 10% of the position in your account when dealing with shares, but 5% with indices. Example if you take position of 10 points on DOW this would be $120,000 worth, but the required in the account is I think 5% eg $6,000. Minimum points to place starts at 3.

i am shocked , he has done what they told him again

just in time for the punters to rush out and buy their 50 inch flat screen tvs for the superbowl on cheap credit

Market likes it, atm
2517

not rabidly enthusiastic, but sufficiently so for me to bank a little profit on Dow.
as it looks to me that Dow will stay ahead until close, have now open FTSE long

damn fool .... serves me right ..... gave back my Dow profit on FTSE (now closed) as did not think i needed to watch

Dow has created a needle shaped graph this evening...urgh

commentators do not like it - again citing pandering to Wall St

im not surprised the Dow fell back yesterday as some people are never happy but I did expect the FTSE to take the lead and bounce back in the short term, especially with the fairly positive earnings out today. Hopefully the US will rebound and give the FTSE a lead as it appears to have lost its own ability to act

FTSE was trying to break into positive area at 08:15 but the DAX wasn't playing ball, so FTSE followed it lower. I will try for a short position this morning, but will make sure it's closed before Dow opens.

DOW is not expected to open up, spitfire. (yet. That may change).

were predicting a 9 point rise about 45 mins ago but now pointing to 69 points down. Fluid to say the least. I know you guy like trading the indices but far to much excitement for me.

Luckly couldn't get my short away, looks like FTSE may pull back now towards 5800. Would expect DOW to try another rally later, yesterdays seems to have been stoped by sellers off loading positions. Could happen again.

Morning all, looks like I missed all the action last night, had a house viewing which I forgot about and by the time I got in the US had minutes to run.... DOW to me looks like its going for another rally on the open but as of yet only looked at charts, need to confirm the spread price also...

Dow Futures currently -90 give or take... anyones guess, but yes could see a rally shortly after open...

Wall St spread bet buy @ 12344 at the moment, check again around 12

Now 12355, very difficult to call whats going to happen on the open. think I'll stick today out also. No point gambeling profits made against hunches.

Indeed, dying to have a play with a deal on indices, but having done an imaginary short on Dow last night at 12442, it would have been stopped out at a (small) loss when they rose... would i have had enough foresight to re-open one later when they were hundred points up? not sure! shame though cos that would be very nicely in the money now...

Dow (and FTSE) have now plummeted and extra 80+ points .... only cause i can find is ....... Personal income and spending up slightly more than expected in December. Details soon.