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

looking very nasty indeed ...... so much for half expecting a decent week!

Although I still expect thursday to be a decent day (FTSE), it looks as though we will just recover lost ground, rather than surging forward, which is a bit of a drag! Are we expecting an Obama bounce, assuming he stays in, or a Romney reaction up or down? Back to the Doves & Hawks as far as those two are concerned!

personally, i don't think obama has done a bad job ..... like cameron, he picked up a poisoned chalice ...... unfortunately, such is the confrontational nature of us politics, that expecting senators and congressmen to vote for what is best for the country, is like expecting the lions not to eat the christians in the colisseum (because they are on diet that month)

cynic do you mean the lions are left with the jews for supper!

they were far too stringy to make a decent meal

stingy more like

wouldn't feed their wives for sure; always went home to their mother's cooking :-)

pretty bearish day today cynic, you forcasting more to come this week.,.

Summary from Digitallook:
"US stocks were firmly in retreat on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones taking a plunge following weaker-than-expected earnings and ongoing concern over Spain and the wider economy.

The Dow Jones fell 243 points, its biggest one-day loss since June.

There was a bevy of weak company results out Stateside last night and earlier today. Chief amongst these has been chemicals maker DuPont, after which industrial conglomerate 3M and Xerox have lowered their earnings per share guidance for the year.

DuPont unveiled plans to slash 1,500 employees from its workforce after its most recent quarter delivered profit below expectations.

Results out of Texas Instruments, United Technologies and Regions Financial also came in below forecasts.

Also weighing on markets in today's session may have been comments from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble regarding how his government will not back any aid for Greece that it might deem unsustainable. Likewise, weak data out today in France is thought to be a factor behind the more negative market tone, as was the negative market chatter surrounding Spain and the Eurozone periphery more generally.

The US dollar was performing well, as is to be expected, with the ICE dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, climbed from 79.653 late Monday to 79.964 on Tuesday evening.

It was not all is bad news however, at least on the corporate front, amongst the exceptions out there today were Coach, Lexmark, Whirlpool, Harley Davidson and Yahoo - shares in which rose 5% after the close of trading last night."

sorry BB, but i've lost the rhythm and feel at the moment .... i await guru's latest dow review, but i suspect he'll reiterate that a momentum fall through 12900 on dow is the real concern

'Manufacturing data from China suggested that a recovery in the world's second-biggest economy was strengthening.
The HSBC Flash Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for China climbed to a three-month high of 49.1 in October and new orders and output rose, pointing to a turnaround in the economy. But the recovery is likely to be slow as the PMI stayed below the 50-point level separating expansion from contraction.'

If the miners rise, then we should have a more positive day on the FTSE - perhaps??

good morning mistress ..... it would certainly be nice to have a few positive days on the trot instead of the recent doom and gloom ...... i wonder how unsettling the us elections will be ...... it will clearly be a close run thing, but i would hope that obama is re-elected, even if it is for the negative reason that i think romney appears totally ignorant about anything international ...... of course we will then run through the usual cliff-hanging crap of the president, whoever he is, putting through his budget in the face of the storm of self-serving, confrontational opposition

AAPL - though the market stripped off all the previous day's rise following the price announcement of the new mini i-pad, the investment community sounded pretty positive about it all - see CNN for the various fund comments ...... with the sp having tumbled so significantly over the last week or two, there is certainly a tenable argument that any disappointment in the numbers to be announced tomorrow have already been discounted .... we shall see

I do believe the DOW is likely to be a bit down in the dumps until the election is over. But if there's encouraging data out of China then there's money to be made elsewhere to offset any horrid positions on the DOW

Hmm - rather short-lived optimism on the FTSE this morning - and I'd closed my short yesterday thinking it surely must stop falling! Gone long this morning from 5800... not sure what'll happen next...

Someone loves me, AAPL didn't close yesterday at stop loss of 635 which is pretty amazing. 615 it is then..

well done m8y

Cynic, I must say at this moment it doesn't much feel like my doing, early night last night so expected to rise this morning and see the position closed. Another 20 pips so can't complain. My eyes are now turning towards the Euro, with this weekends elections in Spain I'm expecting some weakness as the vote could tip a bailout request.

Gone back to shorting the FTSE - at least for now

you were long at 5800 this am. did you close it?