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

http://rt8.it-finance.com/FinSpreadsFlash/showimage.phtml?id=2f0df238ec4c2fde26620fa981652f8d0f392af75155b25fdc43892c22170baa&type=png

Harami off support I think today... No time to trade as I've lost/misplaced my wedding ring....

? :-)

lol, remember taking it off last night at home but can't think for the life of me where I put it.....

surely your ring is an integral part of you

Keep an eye on Facebook today as the lock-in period preventing employees from selling shares comes to an end. The shares have halved from flotation levels already. This is one share I've done very well out of shorting off the IPO.

Thats what the Mrs says Cynic however I do remove it for anything that envolves getting my hands dirty or wet.

TMI methinks!

shortie - agree that FB should be a good call to short, but curious that sp rose $2.50 (12.5%) last night ..... manipulated?

I seem to remember not being able to short it for the 1st few days.

Anything that bucks the trend 12.5% without any significant announcement has to be suspect I think. One to keep an eye on later though as there could well be some pennies in it.

Decided to short the FTSE from 5700 in the end, as it had been dithering around there.

CAD Manufacturing Sales m/m 0.4% consensus 0.3% previous 1.5%

USD Core CPI m/m 0.2% consensus 0.1% previous 0.1%

USD Unemployment Claims 439k consensus 372K previous 355K

USD CPI m/m 0.1% consensus 0.1% previous 0.6%

USD Empire State Manufacturing Index -5.2 consensus -7.2 previous -6.2

just shows how difficult the markets are ..... employment numbers are far worse than forecast, yet dow has moved very little

Thanks Skinny! Bit of a mixed picture. In the end we'll probably see the markets fretting about the same issues as it did yesterday

Using Sandy. Continuing claims up, emergency slightly down.

Asda's quarterly sales growth slows

LONDON | Thu Nov 15, 2012 12:50pm GMT

(Reuters) - Asda, the British arm of U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N), continued to outperform many rival UK supermarkets even though it posted a slight slowdown in quarterly like-for-like sales growth on Thursday.

Britain's second-biggest supermarket chain behind Tesco (TSCO.L) said sales at shops open more than a year, excluding fuel and VAT sales tax, were up 0.3 percent in the 13 weeks to September 30, its fiscal third quarter.

The rise is below the 0.7 percent sales uplift Asda recorded in its second quarter.

Wedding ring found and back where it belongs...

5690.8 bought FTSE

Found the ticket then! :-)

Just come across this - Who, What, Why: Who first called it a 'fiscal cliff'?

The phrase "fiscal cliff" is now part of the American lexicon, describing the looming deadline when tax cuts expire and spending cuts kick in. But where did the term come from and is the image a helpful one?