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

Yes - not much in the way of big figures out tomorrow - GB Public Sector Net Borrowing and Canadian CPI being the main ones.

hairy scary week, but all things considered, has finished pretty well for me

GBP Public Sector Net Borrowing 12.1B consensus 11.8B previous 15.6B

greece and spain resume their roles as serial party-poopers with the market being hammered from the off ...... de facto, this will trigger a lot of forced sales and similar ..... let's hope a bit of sanity quickly returns

as an aside, for i know that few of you hold stocks in usa, but AAPL could be a good bet today ..... AAPL numbers are due out imminently and will almost certainly be very good ..... at friday's close, they were already about 5% off their high of a few months ago, and general market malaise is likely to see them weaken again, at least at the open

i knew the markets would be bashed today, but did not expect it to be quite so brutal .... very dull

Glad I took some profit on friday. Isn't aug what is called the silly season, with minimal City staff at their desks? More dull days could be on the way.

China's Cnooc buys Canadian energy firm Nexen in $15.1 bln deal
http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/32301/chinas-cnooc-buys-canadian-energy-firm-nexen-in-151-bln-deal-32301.html?

fall is looking heavily overdone, as is usually the case.


Nexen
i know these guys ...... they're not a bad bunch, and i work with them in M/E, particularly Yemen

what do you suggest to buy? TPL?

why on earth would you buy TPL? .... i was merely making an observation about Nexen

as for buying, i topped up with some more AAPL - numbers due after the close tomorrow

good to see at least a partial recovery in US ..... now dow ONLY 135 after about 200 - and AAPL showing blue now too! :-)

don't say i didn't tell you ..... meanwhile, dow recovers ever more and is now scarcely -100 .... not bad one way and another

serves me right .... AAPL's numbers are rubbish so have been bitten in the bum! .... unfortunately, those numbers are likely to affect dow's overall performance too

Bad luck cynic - "Net income jumped 21 percent from a year earlier to $8.8 billion, or $9.32 a share, about 10 percent below expectations."

Apple blames rare miss on new iPhone anticipation, economy

may bite at least some of the bullet later ..... i guess it will depend on how the market perceives the future

interesting to see that cash dow was off about 100 points, presumably on the back of those results, but now only down about half that

Really sorry you got burnt cynic.

I reckon the market will perceive the future as very dull indeed, until the Fed acts on its plans for further QE - and even that seems more like a short-term sugar rush.

good morning Mistress T
confess good figures were a much stronger racing bet than the likes of BOR and even FOGL finding oil!
anyway, it remains to be seen how badly the market reacts .... as far as i can see, it was more the analysts forecasts that were missed than AAPL's own guidance

by the way, will you be posting a pic of yourself her in full summer gardening attire?

I think the markets were also concerned last night about the result from UPS, which paint a rather gloomy outlook. The likes of UPS and FedEx are reckoned to give a pretty good indication of what is happening in business generally.

And then of course there's the continuing Europe Saga...

As for my gardening attire - I won't be needing too much of that, if the sun keeps shining!

you must show us all now that you have managed to abandon the galoshes at least