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

placed a small long on limit on dow earlier with 30 point stop loss. got hit and now in long at 12388. spread bet with guaranteed stop as i wouldnt normally do such a trade on a friday evening. bit bored so thought id give it a go. had to give up a few points on the spread to get guaranteed but then it is friday and who knows what might happen in next 2 days.
or even in next 10 mins with dow.i did calculate the risk reward potential and having a guaranteed stop thought it worth the risk.current price , as i post 12366. oh dear!
good luck and regards to all
jkd

well since my last post i did actually manage to recover into a profit .
price moving up to 12406 and now falling back again, currently at 12359 as i post and i have been stopped out at a loss. it happens.
regards
jkd

Boy !...does that facebook float look like a short or what ?....never used it...and can't imagine who would want to ? and yet millions do.....companies say find us on facebook so ... massive company...amazing.....

i don't know what other papers say, but FT is unremittingly bleak

having contemplated my portfolio carefully, have decided that it is "tight" enough so all things being relatively equal, i shall just sit out this current horror story - and try very hard not to get tempted to buy by the inevitable sharp DCBs, as this morning

===========

i think RBS gives a good example as to why great caution is still the order of the day ..... though sp has risen nicely this morning, the order book shows that the buying is all from small PIs in lots of (significantly) less than 100,000 = only £20,000

GBP Public Sector Net Borrowing -18.8B v consensus -8.5B previous 15.9B

So which companies benefit?

Energy bill to boost clean energy production

The government's draft energy bill due out later, designed to encourage major investment in clean energy generation, could result in higher consumer bills, critics have said.

The bill is expected to outline long-term contracts to encourage investment in nuclear and renewable energy.

wonder if it will also mention LNG, as that is one of the cleanest

bit of a miserable finish in usa ..... pullback in london almost inevitable

Should reverse Cynners, expecting a day or two more up yet before the next proper drop.

Yesterday's gains wiped out! I thought someone said it should be going up today? ;o)

glad i missed the gloom though suspected it was under way as was playing golf in the hot sunshine

Looking for some previous last LH's to be breached for confirmation, but reckon its up from here...

well called as one hell of a recovery under way on Dow ..... with 30 minutes of trading left, only -40 after -180

looks like there were some vaguely positive mumblings from the greeks about staying in the eurozone ...... just shows how brittle the markets are

=============

chart guru reckoned ftse was a buy at 5240, which was the level it hit and is now 5315 and dow a buy at 12189, but it hasn't been that low (yet) - currently 12469 after 12309

My pointers this time were the NzdUsd and the UsdCad both hitting 5wave targets simultaneously. Will expect 3 wave (abc) pullbacks and thus some decent ground retraced on the markets before lower to come...

Not sure as to timeframes just yet, also don't know what form the pullbacks will take (flat/zigzag etc), but up we will go... Right now we are getting near the tops of some minor 5w advances, thus expect some downside soon, retracing some of this evenings gains...

Kind of like this, (and presuming its a 5w, not 3w of a flat);

So the above chart now appears to look like a 3move 'A' instead of the 5w (as suggested), this means a 3move 'B' back down for either a flat or irregular, before a 5w 'C' taking us somewhere higher than last nights high...

try that in english - you're sounding like tomasz!

Sorry Rich! My theory is that it no longer looks like a 5wave move for 'A', it looks more like an abc 3wave move (as per chart below), this means that the whole larger ABC move will be either flat or irregular (a 3-3-5). 'B' must retrace at least 61.8% of 'A' in 3 moves, (it can even make a fresh low, if irregular), before we get a 5wave 'C' to take us higher...

There, clear as mud?!



There's still a chance of the original chart, but it does appear that the 4th wave is disproportionate to the 1&2, (although overnight action could cause this)...
If so, we have a zigzag and much higher to come by early next week...

badbakht shodam agah, bala mire?