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

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.

Dow has Yahoo and Caterpillar reporting, can't see Yahoo reporting anything but disappointment. Aggreko suffered a broker downgrade also. There are no major data releases until Thursday (UK GDP) and Friday (US GDP) so the indicies will struggle for direction. Lets see if the DOW drifts lower later today which I expect it will. If so I'll look to short the Nikkei which I think has been bucking the trend.

I would agree that the indices are more likely to drift downwards than up, in the absence of any major news. It'll be interesting to see those two results later today - not sure when they'll be released. If they're at all positive, then the DOW will surely want to move up again.

Aapl 557 to me looks like the shorting target.

ah yes; i know you fancy shorting this one too, and you were certainly proved right with GOOG and as you have posted, you already hold a short position in AAPL - we shall see ...... of course, it may be that as a prudent precaution you may close at least part of this (very) profitable position before the numbers are announced

In for a penny, in for a pound at the moment...

As Shortie has pointed out, thurs UK GDP figures are expected to show growth, albeit in a small way. I expect a 'feel good' bounce on thurs, assuming the figures are as good as expected. U.S. figures might be a bit overshadowed by the presidential election charade.

Harry, 0.7% is expected (see the link in post 9142)

Amazing how such a small %age can look so good! (If only my bank manager took the same stance when it comes to interest on my current a/c!). Lets just hope that figure is not just attributable to seasonal / Olympic factors.

Maybe we're out of recession, and some of its due to the extra bank holiday and Olympic factors, blah, blah blah.... But you cant get away from all the profit warnings we've seen...

From the Times
Despite the expected economic rebound, persistent weak growth has damaged companies’ profitability, analysis by accountants Ernst & Young has found.

The number of profit warnings in the third quarter hit its highest level for the three-month period since 2008 due to weak demand and economic uncertainty.

Companies quoted on London’s main market and smaller AIM issued 68 profit warnings in the three months to September, a third more than the same period last year.

Keith McGregor, head of restructuring for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa at Ernst & Young, said: “The underlying weakness of the UK economy and global growth concerns landed the heavier blows to profits and expectations. ”

He said profit warnings were generally lower than pre-crisis levels as market expectations have been set so low, but “when one does make a profit warning, it shows things are really out of step”.

U.S. Stock Futures Advance as Investors Watch Earnings.

By Rita Nazareth - Oct 22, 2012 1:53 PM GMT

U.S. stock futures advanced, following the biggest decline since June in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as investors watched corporate results.

Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU), the largest U.S. coal producer by
volume, gained 6.8 percent as results beat estimates. Ancestry.com Inc. (ACOM) surged 7.8 percent after Permira Advisers LLP agreed to buy the company in a transaction valued at about $1.6 billion, gaining the world’s largest family-history website. Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), the biggest maker of construction and mining equipment, slid 0.5 percent after forecasting sales growth that is the slowest in four years.

S&P 500 futures expiring in December rose 0.1 percent to 1,426 at 8:52 a.m. New York time. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures added 17 points, or 0.1 percent, to 13,269. The number of shares changing hands in Stoxx Europe 600 Index’s companies was 10 percent below the 30-day average at this time of day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“It really comes down to earnings at this point,” said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer for Oakbrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois, which manages more than $3 billion. He spoke in a telephone interview. “We’ve seen many companies beating earnings estimates. Yet investors are keeping an eye on their ability to grow revenue.”

Earnings at about 69 percent of S&P 500 companies which reported third-quarter results beat analysts estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales missed forecasts at 59 percent of companies, the data showed.

Caterpillar has "lowered its guidance for 2012" - I've not seen any further details.

Yahoo and Texas Instruments are reporting after the Bell apparently.