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

So there is... forgot.

I'll bring popcorn.

There's a lot of Yen short squaring going on atm guys, ahead of the long weekend. Not too many folk want to be leaving risk on the table after a good run over the last few sessions.

I need to study alternatives - New Year's resolution. :)

Thanks for the popcorn KidA!

5297.5 closed out so small loss taken

good to see another "honest man" on here

Still holding FOGL futures at a loss which I'm not that optimistic about anymore...

Need more women on this board to show us how it's really done:

Rise of the female trader

SC - Respect, those ladies must be really, really good to earn that sort of money on that trading platform. Been a few years so may have improved, but my experience wasn't good on theire site at all. :O)

Enter Hils, stage left. :-)

German Ifo Business Climate 101.4 consensus 99.6 previous 100.0

Italian Retail Sales m/m 0.1% consensus 0.3% previous 0.0%

GBP BBA Mortgage Approvals 33.0K consensus 32.3K previous 31.2K

So this shortened trading day on the Dow, does anyone know the actual hours at all?

1pm EST I think.

On edit :- Holidays and hours

"*Each market will close early at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, November 23, 2012"

Stan: according to the IG website:
US Equity markets will close at 18:00 our time; and US Futures at 18:15.

SNAP Skinny!

SC: interesting to read about those female traders - there's hope for me yet then :)

So 1pm to 6pm, Thanks both.

Stan - 2:30 - 6pm our time!