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

Interestingly, the DOW is today responding to weak data from Japan - by actually going DOWN, not up!

The point is that no new company is coming to the market, so the current companies are forcing the workers to work well above their contract - higher productivity and access to cheap money.

Middle class people are in trouble, but not the companies as much.

but assuredly neither GOOG nor AAPL which continue to forge ahead :-))

Half a percent rise a day is not bad, is it?
I think both will continue forging ahead, nothing can stop them. They have the world, 7bln people.Even if 1bln in trouble, other 6bln have not got many options to choose from.

having been ramping (lol) these for ages, but none seem to listen ...... in fact, i trade them both quite regularly as they can be pretty volatile

French Prelim GDP q/q 0.0% consensus -0.1% previous 0.0%

German Prelim GDP q/q 0.3% consensus 0.2% previous 0.5%

GB CPI y/y 2.6% consensus 2.3% previous 2.4%

German ZEW Economic Sentiment -25.5 consensus -19.4 previous -19.6

USD Core Retail Sales m/m 0.8% consensus 0.4% previous -0.4%

USD PPI m/m 0.3% consensus 0.3% previous 0.1%

USD Retail Sales m/m 0.8% consensus 0.3% previous -0.5%

Got a small short running on the Dow from about 10 mins ago. Good job as it happen because I'd mistakenly gone long earlier. Spotted my mistake though and escaped with a £2.50 loss. Not sure this trade will come good either, but it's looking more short than long at the mo.

Dow short closed for 20 points, may well drop more before the close but hit the target so that's that for the night, wont be tempted back in

GBP Claimant Count Change -5.9k consensus 6.2K previous 6.1K

GBP Unemployment Rate 8% consensus 8.1% previous 8.1%

Investors awaiting a U.S. report on industrial production (14.15 hrs BST).

“If we see better economic data out of the U.S., it can’t be excluded that further Fed stimulus won’t come anytime soon, which could disappoint some investors,” said Christoph Riniker, head of strategy research at Julius Baer Group Ltd. in Zurich. “One must also say that after the positive price developments in recent weeks, a bit of a breather on the markets makes sense.”

USD Core CPI m/m 0.1%n consensus 0.2% previous 0.2%

USD CPI m/m 0% consensus 0.2% previous 0.0%

USD Empire State Manufacturing Index -5.9 consensus 6.6 previous 7.4

USD Industrial Production m/m 0.6% consensus 0.5% previous 0.4%

minor resistance for dow at 13200 ..... stalled there a few days ago, but may be having another crack at it ...... expect more strong action once that is breached

GBP Retail Sales m/m 0.3% consensus 0.0% previous 0.8%

USD Building Permits 0.81M consensus 0.77M previous 0.76M

USD Unemployment Claims 366K consensus 365K previous 361K

USD Philly Fed Manufacturing Index -7.1 consensus -4.7 previous -12.9