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

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!

futures chart will be the same as the ordinary dow chart, so it will be a case of which theory you want to follow that will indicate top/bottom of the trading range or whatever

Shorting the DOW well Wall St DFT Sell 13168.0

Euro-Zone Unemployment Strikes Fresh Record

The number of people out of work in the euro zone climbed to another record high in September, underscoring the damage the region's long-running fiscal and borrowing crisis is having on the real economy as governments continue to cut spending to try to control their debts. Eurostat, the European Union's official statistics agency, said Wednesday that 18.49 million people were unemployed in the euro zone in September, after 146,000 more people lost their job. The total is the highest on record for the 17 nations that now use the euro, based on data going back to 1995. The rise put the jobless rate at 11.6% of the workforce, up from 11.5% and also the highest on record. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected an 11.5% unemployment rate. The southern countries at the heart of the debt crisis reported the highest jobless rates, reflecting steep falls in economic activity as governments, consumers and businesses have all cut spending. Unemployment in Greece and Spain exceeds a quarter of those eligible to work, and accounts for more than half of the workforce aged under 25. For the euro zone as a whole, the youth unemployment rate climbed to 23.3%, another record. Eurostat also reported Wednesday a fall in the rate of growth in consumer prices that, if continued, could ease the strain on household incomes and make it easier for the European Central Bank to support the economy with further stimulus. The annual rate of consumer price inflation in the euro zone was 2.5% in October, a preliminary estimate from Eurostat showed, down from 2.6% in September and meeting economists' expectations. The inflation rate jumped to 2.6% in August due to an increase in energy prices.

http://rt8.it-finance.com/FinSpreadsFlash/showimage.phtml?id=89ca5fbbee9c6ac93cfe079381283f309c0c2bf255de5b9acb2a84bba6977ab3&type=png

Thanks Shortie

Thanks Skinny I couldn't figure out how to display it, not very techey with things like this.. The above isn't a future chart, but I can get them also if anyone wants one and Skinny does the tech thing.

http://rt8.it-finance.com/FinSpreadsFlash/showimage.phtml?id=0fa60c97ea2d517e1f56fd1c5368d914e38b16c04d4bd2c58e63be67d5f4cfcd&type=png

Wall St Dec Future Chart, skinny if you wouldn't mind doing you thing please.

http://rt8.it-finance.com/FinSpreadsFlash/showimage.phtml?id=c99c475f26255865639851405bcd555104de26f09b1c6fa02286f0acf34a482c&type=png

Apple March 13 Future chart..... have added trends and support/resistence

Are you using chrome Shortie?

Explorer at the moment Skinny, the above should interest Cynic if he's still in AAPL