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

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.

An update to the above post - U.S. Stocks Little Changed as Investors Watch Earnings

There are numerous reports on Apple (AAPL) this morning, discussing the fiscal Q4 report due Thursday afternoon and discussing the import of the expected introduction tomorrow in San Jose by the company of a smaller version of its iPad.

Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee raised estimates for last quarter, writing we “a modest revenue and EPS beat but believe guidance will likely be vintage conservative.” Wu thinks Apple may have beaten the consensus for 25 million to 26 million iPhone units last quarter, with perhaps 27 million, helped by improved iPhone supply conditions, based on his checks of the supply chain. iPad units may have been less than the consensus of 17 million to 18 million, at perhaps 16.5 million units, as the company prepares for the smaller unit.

And R.W Baird’s William Power writes that his firm’s survey of consumers in September revealed 46% of people would be interested in buying a smaller iPad, but, “Pricing remains the biggest unknown, with the starting sweet spot in the $249-299 range, based on our survey.” Apple’s cheapest iPad is $400. The cheapest iPod Touch sells for $300.

JP Morgan‘s hardware analyst Mark Moskowitz is holding a conference call at 10 am, Eastern, to discuss “the potential impact on Apple, the tablet market, the PC market, and the tech supply chain.”

Speaking of Apple, there are more signs the company is moving away from being a customer of Samsung Electronics (005930KS). The Korea Times’s Cho Mu-hyun and Kim Yoo-chul this morning report that Samsung is ending an LCD supply agreement with Apple, because “it believes its American partner is no longer a cash-generator due to the iPhone maker’s stiffer supply-chain management structure.”

“We are unable to supply our flat-screens to Apple with huge price discounts,” the authors quote Samsung as saying.

Shares of Apple are up $620, or 1%, at $616.04.

Shortie - I take it that last line is a typo :-)

It was a copy and paste jobby, yes, last line isn't correct. Share price doing the opposite to volume on your chart skinny, typical set the price high off the bell, now lets see if it fades as the day progresses. Can't see the Nikkei will be worth the hastle later now..

sharp turnaround at dow towards the death, so it has finished nicely back above 13300

Indeed cynic coming back to test 50DMA fingers crossed.

Anyone know anything about Texas Instruments and Yahoo results yet? - They were due to be published after the Bell, i.e. now

1.09 consensus 1.08 better than feared for Yahoo

EPS 0.35 Est. 0.25

Thanks Chris

Texas 3.39 vs 3.34
EPS 0.45 0.46 Est

635 stop loss set for aapl.

twitchy innit especially for dow, but am glad that obama seemingly smacked walter mitty romney last night

Having watched a lot of it, I'm not sure 'smacked' is the right term - Obama probably edged it - but Romney was more controlled than he has been previously.

Reuters Today: Polls say Obama, Romney now tied (4:00)

GBP BBA Mortgage Approvals 31.2K consensus 30.9K pevious 30.7K

No point watching profits being erroded like you always point out Cynic, twitchy yes a little plus I'm looking at Bunzl at the moment for a potential play. Aggreko and Bunzl both on downgrade as not much love for support services at the moment, the wagons rolling so I'm looking to jump on.

Apple's share price rises ahead of iPad mini launch

Apple is expected to launch a scaled-down version of its iPad device on Tuesday, as it attempts to fend off rivals and persuade devotees to part with even more of their money.

skinny - straw poll i read indicated 53% pro obama, but of course it's the real farce to follow that will dictate ..... uk election politics looks supremely intelligent compared to those in usa


shortie - if your aapl stop is indeed at 635, i am quite surprised your position is still running as i see aapl closed at 634.03 so perhaps was higher afterwards