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'm expecting a down day today, if that should happen then next week will all depend on where it finishes. A small sell off would perhaps favour more downside on Monday, but overall, it's going to keep going up until after the US election. Just my thoughts, probably way off.

I would think it will end the session up - can't say the same for Microsoft!

FTSE is refusing to sell off though so thoughts above entirely irrelevant unless it does

'U.S. stocks opened lower on Friday following disappointing results from Microsoft and McDonald's, while General Electric reported revenue that fell short of estimates.'

Not looking too promising to me - staying short FTSE for now

USD Existing Home Sales 4.75M consensus 4.73M previous 4.82M

Good thinking Toya, FTSE isn't really playing the game today, but if the Dow keeps going down it will cacth up after the London close.

Yes I reckon so Chuckles. Everything seems in the red today, on all the European indices too. I think we're due a bit of a pullback

Also: US existing-home sales fall 1.7% - but it's really the results that are dragging down the market today imo

Will probably be influenced by the Dow's performance to some extent, but could also be some profit taking before the close. worth keeping any eye on.

.

Worth keeping an eye on Dollar Index, just hit some resistance retracing a wee bit, Dow bounces, vice versa.

Well I'm out the FTSE 250 now, broken even..

Resistance broken on Dollar Index, down goes the Dow.

yet another very ugly day ..... perhaps i should have shorted GOOG at the open, but that would just have been foolhardy - easy and most profitable with hindsight though :-)

.

heading back to 13300 yet again ..... hope it holds

Hip Hip Hooray!

GDP figures to show Britain's double-dip recession is over

The double-dip recession will be officially declared over this week when the Office for National Statistics reveals that the economy grew by around 0.7pc in the months to September.

i saw that too, so let's hope we see some decent northerly action in the coming week on both sides of the atlantic

good positive article on AAPL in ST too, but glad i bit the bullet on GOOG .... indeed the latter is looking more and more like shorting play, despite its recent plummet

Food for thought for fellow yield nerds :-

Soaring UK dividends expected to slow

UK-quoted companies paid out £64.6bn in dividends in the first nine months of this year, a greater amount than in each of the past two full years.
But analysis by Capita Registrars shows that the pace of growth is slowing, and the sharp rises over the past couple of years are unlikely to be repeated in the near future.
More

The division of the outsourcing specialist raised its estimate for payouts, for the third time this year – to £78.6bn for 2012 as a whole. But at the same time it forecast an increase of just 3 per cent for 2013, to £81bn.

Debating shorting Nikkei, I see Japanese exports to China have fallen with the territorial dispute. DOW down also so it should follow suite...

Tough call Shortie - DOW is showing slightly above its Friday low (13,312.26) and @5 below its close as I type - a day fairly devoid of major news.