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

GBP Retail Sales m/m 1.4% consensus 1.1% previous -2.3%


On edit:- Ahoj - German Flash Manufacturing PMI 44.7 consensus 45.3 previous 45.2


Link here

Spain's borrowing costs hit fresh highs

Spanish bond yields hit a 16-year high on Thursday amid calls for eurozone ministers gathering in Luxembourg to back plans to reduce government borrowing costs.

Madrid sold 2.2bn euros (£1.7bn) of bonds repayable in two, three and five years.

The yield on 5-year bonds rose to 6.07% from 4.96% in May, and went up to 5.54% on three year bonds from 4.87%.

On Monday, the yield on benchmark ten year debt hit a record high of 7.3%.

CAD Core Retail Sales m/m -0.3% consensus 0.2% previous 0.1%

CAD Retail Sales m/m -0.5% consensus 0.3% previous 0.4%

USD Unemployment Claims 387k consensus 381K previous 386K

Spanish banks need up to 62bn euros

An independent audit of Spain's banks has found that they will need up to 62bn euros (£50bn) in extra funding.

15590-1.5600 probably a key level on the £/$. Markets softer than I expected today, haven't changed my bullish stance, but tomorrow is another day.

German Ifo Business Climate 105.3 consensus 106.1 previous 106.9

Something that might put oil prices up a bit : is the fact of the hurricane season approaching......nothing in sight yet, but seas warming up, with plenty of blue sky out there....

GBP Public Sector Net Borrowing 15.6B consensus 13.6B previous -18.8B

USD S&P/CS Composite-20 HPI y/y -1.9% consensus -2.4% previous -2.6%

And the same index is +1.3% month on month.

Robert Shiller on Bloomberg earlier saying he thought US house prices were bottoming out.

USD CB Consumer Confidence 62.0 consensus 63.8 previous 64.4

Government cancels planned 3p fuel duty increase

The government will not go ahead with a 3p-a-litre rise in fuel duty in August, Chancellor George Osborne has announced.

The move follows a campaign by road users' groups, who argued the change, announced in the Budget, would damage the economy.

Fuel duty will be frozen for the rest of the year, the chancellor told MPs.

Labour had threatened to force a House of Commons vote on the issue.

My last prediction on the Ftse was very badly timed (ok, crap) and unsure now ast o what direction the markets are going short term. Still confident £|$ has further upside, about 400 points upside.

The tablet market is getting interesting!

Google to unveil tablet at conference: report

(Reuters) - Google Inc plans to unveil a $199 tablet co-branded with Tawian's Asustek Computer Inc at its developer conference this week, taking direct aim at Apple Inc's iPad, Bloomberg reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Rumors that the search engine giant planned to launch a tablet at its annual developer conference have been doing the rounds in tech blog posts for weeks.

The 7-inch tablet, running Android mobile software, will showcase new features of Android, according to one person, who said the latest version of the software is named Jellybean, Bloomberg reported.

My wife surprised me this morning, she has noticed that practically every actor on the television programme 'Neighbours' and 'Home and Away' advertise 'Apple' blatently.i-pad, mac etc. Opened my eyes as to the strength of the brand, so good luck Google. :O)

Is that the old "I don't watch it - wife does it and tells me" :-)

Absolutely skinny, Wimbledon as you know has started this week and as an avid fan (my wife that is) takes priority over the soaps which are recorded (yippeee). So she has played catch up this morning. Just struck me that someone who has no interest in stocks and shares whatsoever should make the observation. :O)

:-)

Yes, and Apple don't pay for product placement either! http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-10/apple-the-other-cult-in-hollywood

Queen's jubilee boosts retail sales in June: CBI

(Reuters) - British retail sales rose at the fastest pace in 1-1/2 years in June as Britons splashed out for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, a survey by the

Confederation of British Industry showed on Wednesday.

The CBI distributive trades survey's sales balance jumped to +42 versus +21 in May, its highest since December 2010, confounding expectations for a sharp slowdown to +10.