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

Spanish 10-y Bond Auction 5.74|2.4 previous 5.34|3.0

The first number is the average interest rate of the bonds sold, and the second number is the bid-to-cover ratio (number of bids made per bid accepted).

Spain's borrowing costs increase at bond auction

Spain's borrowing costs rose at a debt auction on Thursday, but it managed to sell all of the bonds it was offering.

The 10-year bonds were sold at a yield of 5.743%, up from 5.403% when the bonds were last sold in February.

The rate for two-year bonds dropped slightly to 3.463% from 3.495% in October.

Spain sold all the 2.54bn euros ($3.33bn; £2.08bn) of bonds it was offering, with demand higher than at the previous sale.

"Overall, then, a reasonable set of results which will go some way to allaying fears the domestic bid [demand] for Spanish bonds has dried up," said Richard McGuire, rate strategist at Rabobank.

But he added that: "This support does come at a price".

There had been worries about this week's bond auctions after the interest rates on existing 10-year bonds rose above 6% on Monday.

Borrowing costs above 6% are considered by many analysts to be unaffordable in the long run.

LONDON (Dow Jones)--European stock markets pared gains and Spain's 10-year government bond yield rose on continued concerns about the country's ongoing debt problems, despite initial relief at the auction results.

Spain sold EUR2.54 billion bonds, just above the upper end of the target range though the Spanish Treasury confirmed it paid a higher yield on the 10-year bond than previously.

Although Spain didn't do too badly, the auction size was small and markets had largely priced in that it would be well bid.

Just after the eagerly anticipated auction results, the 10-year Spanish bond yield was 2 basis points higher at 5.82% while June bunds came well off their lows, indicating that investors remain risk averse. In addition, Spain's IBEX-35 index fell to a fresh three-year low of 7027.90 while other stock markets rose sharply and then pared gains as investors fell out of favor with equities.

Jeremy Batstone-Carr chief economist and strategist at Charles Stanley said the initial sigh of relief after the auction results was short lived.

"We assume the majority of the take-up was by Spanish banks and that the latter may have insufficient resource to meet all the remaining debt rolling this year," he said. "Investors note that elevated nervousness ahead of auctions such as today's is likely to remain a feature of the market through 2012 and beyond."

At 0920 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 index was up 0.4% at 258.83. Immediately after the auction, the index rose to around 0.7% but then slid. Spain's IBEX-35 was down 0.4% at 7049.20. Other regional indexes pared gains. London's FTSE 100 was up 0.4% at 5768.79, Frankfurt's DAX increased 0.4% to 6761.21 and Paris's CAC-40 was also 0.4% higher, at 3254.25.

EUR German Ifo Business Climate 109.9 v consensus 109.6 previous 109.8

GBP Retail Sales m/m 1.8% v consensus 0.4% previous -0.8%

Looks like both indices have ended their upward trend.

Are you short HC? FTSE has a very different pattern to the Dow...

Who is the dog?

I favour a lot more upside yet, for the rest of the year, but not until after another reasonable corrective leg down...

AAPL
looks as though Luck Alphonse here has undeservedly got out of jail following last night results - sp +$43 (7.75%) after hours means there'll be some bears with 3rd degree burns

So maybe back to the recent highs.

i wouldn't be at all surprised to see bears fighting for the lifeboats this morning which could see sp a fair bit more above the after-hours price of $603

GB Prelim GDP q/q -0.2% v consensus 0.1% previous -0.3%

USD Pending Home Sales m/m 4.1% v consensus 1.2% previous 0.4%

ftse long is quite a good bet at these levels

Posted this earlier Rich;

Is only an opinion, but have just got a primary reversal signal. Lets see if it carries through tomorrow, but i was looking for a reversal tonight and think we may have quite a way to go (sub 12,700 Dow) to complete a wave 'C' of current correction;



Dax also at resistance;

A higher high (Dow) this morning invalidates the current set-up, so; as you were (for the moment!)

my guru chappy who is pretty good on these things reckons
DOW - stay neutral until impetus break above 13265 or fall to 12189
FTSE - stay long with target of 6491 but stop at impetus fall below 5600

Well its a bit complex to explain why, but i have a set-up for both directions occuring right now, so need the market to show its hand and present me a bit more evidence yet. Will post a chart as and when it occurs, but for starters, (as above), this yielded in excess of 100 points by the morning!

Just a couple of ideas;



In closer detail, i believe we are currently in an irregular wave 'B' corrective;