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

Looks like the greeks will be dominating the news early next week. Banking stocks will either surge or fall back sharply (depending on their exposure to greek debt), depending on election result. Does anyone know how long it takes before they have finished counting and ready to announce?

would expect markets to have a strong indication at opening .... now you know why i banked my RBS profit yesterday!

Harry :-

Sunday's vote

Voting begins 04:00 GMT (07:00 local time)

Voting ends 16:00 GMT with exit polls released immediately afterwards

First official results expected after 18:30 GMT

Campaigning ends ahead of crucial Greek elections

Cheers skinny.

Expecting dem pounds to have a rest and revisit 15600 before trundling up to 16100. Yup

Greek exit polls neck and neck so far between New Democracy and Syriza - http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16248530

..Greek People 'Have Voted For The Euro'
Sky News – 24 minutes ago....Greek People 'Have Voted For The Euro'
....The Greek people have voted in favour of staying in the euro, New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras has told reporters after his party were projected to win the election.

it was still a very tight vote, but the markets will be mighty relieved .... that said, this result seemed to have been predicted by the markets last week and assuredly the greek and spanish problems remain far from resolved

Doesn't matter which party has won, Greece can never pay back the money they have borrowed, so default or leave the euro. I very much doubt the Greek people can take any more austerity either, which will be required, so more trouble ahead

Markets may be putting a positive spin on this in which case $ may weaken further in which case we've got a pound breakout. Will have a wee look see in the morrow.

I think there is bound to be a temporary feel good factor on monday. Chuckles is probably correct (#8416) but sometimes the markets defy logic. Yet another temporary patch, but happy to look for short term profit on the back of it. (Still awaiting Egyptian vote as CEY in the doldrums.)

Excellent morning and a bit of a no brainer - just closed FTSE short +82 and RBS short +10.

i was short dow over w/e but was unfortunately shut out of what was actually the correct call ...... very dull but no real damage

".......temporary feel good factor....." Considerably more temporary than I envisaged!

I'm short the DOW from @12,815 earlier - probably should have closed it with the others - time will tell.

On a slightly different note, I used to trade RBS daily when it was @£20. Since consolidation, it is again becoming quite tradeable intraday.

Out of DOW now also.

GBP CPI y/y 2.8% v consensus 3.0% previous 3.0%

GBP RPI y/y 3.1% v consensus 3.3% previous 3.5%

GBP Core CPI y/y 2.2% v consensus 2.3% v previous 2.1%

GBP HPI y/y 1.4% v consensus -0.1% v previous -0.4%

CAD Wholesale Sales m/m 1.5% consensus 0.4% previous 0.4%

USD Building Permits 0.78M consensus 0.73M previous 0.72M

USD Housing Starts 0.71M consensus 0.72M previous 0.72M

The 'surface' effect?