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

The Greece conundrum :-

Trouble is when you give an opinion, you have to back it up everytime you change your mind!
My current thoughts are with my original chart of last night. We have just played out an abc 4th, which was far longer in timescale due to overnight futures. We head up for a 5th and then back down in an abc corrective (probably tonight), this would mean much higher early next week, (as suggested above);

Really interesting stuff and way beyond my comprehension of TA, but am I correct in saying that these basically ignore the day to day news and only reflect a charting perspective? If the answer is yes, then surely the chart will follow the news. If no, then I am even more out of my depth than I first thought!

Yep Harry, true chartists believe that the market must adhere to certain rules. Of course there is massive scope within those rules for patterns to morph into something else etc, but with enough experience (and i'm not pretending i possess enough yet!), its possible to predict the likely course of action... I had forgotten about this thread when i started my FX/Index trading header, but i really only use that as a diary.
I find that news events will only take PA (price action) to the max it is allowed to under a particular set-up... this is why bad news seems to do nothing (aside from a minor setback) when the market is bullish and yet is the kiss of death in the opposite scenario... The market already knows where it has to get too...

In a charting program I use I've acquired some pre-built algorithmic trading systems. Of them all, when backtesting (on UK shares) the Elliot Wave systems come out as one of the most profitable overall. This is in contrast to things like the famous 'Turtle trader' system which in my testing seems to perform very poorly on shares. I don't really understand it and don't know why it works but maybe there's something in it... ;-)

testing week ahead think i will continue shorting gla

From Dow Jones newswire:

DJ Kansas City Fed May Manufacturing Composite Index Rebounds To 9

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Manufacturing activity in the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's district this month recovered all the ground lost in April, according to a report released by the bank Thursday.

The Kansas City Fed's manufacturing composite index--an average of the indexes covering production, new orders, employment, delivery times and raw-materials inventories--rebounded to 9 in May after falling to 3 in April from 9 in March.

Readings above zero denote expansion.

On a year-over-year comparison, the composite index increased to 27 from 24.

Recent readings on manufacturing have been mixed. The Kansas City Fed survey follows results from other regional Fed banks. The New York Fed reported an acceleration in its region's factory activity, but the Richmond Fed and Philadelphia Fed reported weakness.

On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported total U.S. orders for durable goods edged up 0.2% in April. But the category covering capital spending--new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft--decreased a large 1.9% last month.

Within the Kansas City report, the new orders index, in a month-over-month comparison, jumped to 10 from -8 in April. The production index increased to 17 from zero.

The employment index slowed to 8 in May from 12 but the workweek index improved to -2 from -10.

Businesses found further relief on costs. The prices-paid index dropped to 11 from 19 in April. The prices-received index fell to zero from 7.

Expectations about the next six months also improved this month.

The composite expectations index rebounded to 17 from 12. The production expectations index jumped to 40 from 26. The future employment index improved to 18 from 15.

The Kansas City Fed district includes Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, northern New Mexico and western Missouri.

oops not just uk gl

24 May 2012 Last updated at 11:29 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page

1KShareFacebookTwitter.UK economy shrank more than thought

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18187354

I've found a way of wrecking the Euro : everybody votes for Spain in the Eurovision Song contest,...they can't afford to host it as it would cost millions and would probably have to leave the Euro if they won so....there you go if you don't want the euro any longer just vote for the Spanish entry on saturday ! ole !...

lol rf cant be worse than our entry and make a change from nil point specialist norway the euro is finished imo though did you know 1 in 3 people unemployed in the euro zone are spaniards

It's a bit like the chaos theory ;.....a butterfly flaps his wings in Africa but it's the tipping point for a hurricane in North America....same with the Eurovision songcontest.....vote for Spain and it's the same thing....seriously...it seems that a lot of Spanish people are coming to Britain and working hard....good for them....Norway is a very prosperous country....with a huge national fund...I think that after China and Saudi Arabia it's the third in the world......they are savers not spenders.....(buy a few Faroe Petroleum shares)....much involved in that part of the world.....Spain has overborrowed.....so have we....but they have way overdone it.....perhaps bit by bit economies will come back.....the thing is not to go back to the massive overborrowing days again....

rf i agree i was in oslo a few days ago - all their revune well virtually all they have saved unlike for instance uk plc under labour for 10 odd years - let the chaos commence in these difficult euro times in fact it has already started
gl

Gibby ; a northern Euro currency would make far more sense than Euro for every European country,.....might sound good but it's crazy......how can small countries in eastern europe be put on a par with the likes of France and Germany with same values...rights to jobs...health..etc.....it's blinkin' nuts.......

Hope this is close enough for you Harry?!

Davai - 24 May 2012 10:11 - 8240 of 8251

'My current thoughts are with my original chart of last night. We have just played out an abc 4th, which was far longer in timescale due to overnight futures. We head up for a 5th and then back down in an abc corrective...'



Update, so far so good?

rf i would rather be with the scandics who look after their own population than the idiot eurocrats who filfth money away through waste eg euro legislation, brussels, health and safety, various do gooders immigrants awful welfare system and people who milk it lets get out think of the cost immediate saving

dav good one sorry for delay just ate

Bankia shares suspended amid bailout request reports

Trading in shares in the Spanish lender Bankia has been suspended in Madrid.

The market regulator CNMV said it was "due to circumstances that may affect the normal share trading".

Bankia is reported to be due to ask the government for a bailout of more than 15bn euros ($19bn; £12bn) after a board meeting later on Friday.

It looks like a diagonal triangle on SPX/Dow, for our 5wave move. Could be something like this...

Look how easily the pattern changes hinged on the length of the (iv)th, its now likely to be an expanding diagonal;



I do have a system target of 1348, but watching with interest as we are in an ABC counter-trend move and thus i don't have enough evidence yet to call that with conviction... If it does reach that level, it will surely reverse thereabouts...

Markets are going to gap up on open...