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

Apple,

Increased competition from Google, Microsoft etc. aside, the management change appears to be positive.

Cheers,
KidA

like i said, lots of conflicting views :-)

cynic,

What is your opinion about oil price? How much room to fall?

i'm afraid i haven't been following it of late, but i see US Light is just under $87.00 ..... i think that's the benchmark that the saudis use too, and they won't care for crude to be below $85.00 for long as that is the historic level at which they set their budget

meanwhile, saudi well development is rocking the moment, though Aramco, who control these things, are notoriously fickle and unpredictable, so it could just as easily be stopped in its tracks

Hurricane Sandy
i have just been talking to a friend of mine in CT who is now on his way home - he was evacuated yesterday ..... the wind and water damage is almost beyond belief, and though the financial markets may be open tomorrow, there will still be a huge number of businesses that are unable to operate, either because they have no power and/or flooding and/or other damage and/or a combination of all of those

i therefore remain amazed that cash dow is currently so strong

I've had a small short @13,120 - so time will tell.

hot pants perhaps :-)

Ftse has only risen today on the back of BP.....this cannot last as the devastation in the United States is terrible.....insurers will take a serious knock without a measure of doubt.....

Insurers will have laid off risk, pay out and icnrease premiums.

The Fed will print more money to help with the costs of the clean up.

Unless you've been personally inconvenienced by the damage Sandy has caused what's the financial downside?

Now let's think about this, who's going to be the beneficiary of the billions required to repair the damage. Hmmmm.

Looks like everyone is going to be busy from now on.

Forget to add, check out the Dow performance, the day after New Orleans nearly got wiped off the map.

I must say I'm amazed, too, by the strong performance today, and how the DOW has held up. Just can't believe it will stay up there

Chuckles - it hit on Monday 29th August.

1st Aug 2005 - 10th Sept 2005

Thanks for that Skinny. Looking at the devastation on the news and reading cynic's comment above, it's hard to imagine the DOW will zoom, but I chickened out of my short position there earlier - I'd rather wait and see what happens. I've got enough going on with the FTSE currently.

German Retail Sales m/m 1.5% consensus 0.4% previous 0.1%

French Consumer Spending m/m 0.1% consensus 0.2% previous -0.8%

Now out of UKX and DOW longs for now with good profit. Sitting on sidelines see what develops.

dow is likely to be very volatile indeed ..... i'll hide behind the sofa :-)

I expected ftse to drop but so far so good....

I've just gone short of the FTSE at 5862 but will hide away from the DOW unless I can sit and watch... and even then I'll probably get it wrong!

I've been looking for a DOW futures chart to post (if such a thing exists) without much success.

That would be interesting SKinny!