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

I have a short target of 5971 -55 for this morning, but believe the trading band will be narrow for next few hours. As for the afternoon, I haven't a clue.

Tricky one at the mo, 6000 is lending support and dow not really giving much away at mo, not sure we are awaiting any significant data from states later? If i followed my instinct, its only a matter of time before the next batch of horrible news takes the Dow to low 11,000's, but its how high it climbs first...

Eurozone retail at 10 am and USD ISM Non-Manufacturing (JAN) at 3pm seem to be the key events from the forex thread

I don't think 6000 will offer much support, the FTSE is down 29 at moment, the dow futures down 29 and dax 24. If dow and dax track lower, so will the FTSE.

Views on Tesco'S chart would be most wecome, doesn't look very pretty at the moment.

Should find support at 400, looks like a double head and shoulders no consolidation though at higher levels.... Halifax hope you didn't get in too high..!!

Explosive tks for that, I was thinking of a short.

halifax - I noticed tesco chart on 1 year view, the 50ma has just crossed down the 200ma which is also moving down ( dead cross ) a very negative sign, and normallt an ideal time to short. The problem is that many companies have shown this in last few months, with this volatile market. It comes down to where you think the general market is going now.

Good luck........

ps - 398 may offer resistence, a low point end of August..

Spitfire tks I agree if 395 is broken then it could move down fairly quickly to say 360p. I note share buy backs seem to have dried up and the general feeling is that supermarkets will find things tougher in 2008 with the cost of foodstuffs on the rise. I don't think TESCO's US adventure will pay off as it seems poorly timed with the likely downturn in their economy.

Also Tesco's has competition in the US with Wal Mart deciding to take them on head to head. Tesco weren't expecting that.

Surprisingly quiet on here considering todays turn of events, my dummy run would be doing well now... dare say i would have closed it much earlier though...

everyone is too busy making money shorting the dow :-)

Still expecting a short term bounce later this week with a cut in interest rates by the BOE so may be a few last minute day trade bargains before the next big sell off

Will make my trades tonight on Wall St.... Want to check out the volitality before placing a bet, we have seen the upwards draft before on low indicies, careful you don't get caught out by the 'looks cheap to me' investor....

Evening all, Dow -290 now an looks like its stabalised over the last few hours.... Bet all those shorting will be very happy, I suspect not many will hold their positions open into tomorrow..

where from here I wonder, may see a pull back if the bargain hunters come out. We seem to be yo yoing between sellers offloading positions, and the bargain hunters. Could FTSE range between 5500 to 6100.

First deal of the night done, buy at 12314 sell at 12339 - ok range +25 points and for moderate stakes, few more of these and my evens work is done.

More importantly though for those that think I'm mad with a buy trade 12300 seams to be offering good support...!

In on a wall st bet buy at 12381 small stake as high price but think a recovery/rally will come. We'll see, may have to leave open...... hope not.. Could very well prove to be a costly mistake misreading the charts... Fingers crossed

Need to investigate something... up until 9.00pm the DAX was getting hammered down 300+ at around 6700, then within seconds showed down 133.5 at about 6860ish for closing value... talk about gap up...?!

No sooner had i posted that its back running at 6710ish thought last dealing was 9.00!