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

DOW
to reduce epxosure, just closed a small short position at an acceptable profit

DOW
gone long at 20,949, partly because i think there may some natural upside following the approval of the budget, but also a decent refuge of Europe strarts to go sour once more

good comments chris!

bit the bullet om 2/3 of my DAX short so am now now modestly long overall there and also modestly long DOW

DOW all over the place perhaps due to weak crude, but no real idea

fall in crude has really put the jitters on the markets
the apparent logic is that it indicates continuing worldwide economic weakness

if that is the case, it is even less clear why oceanfreight rates should be so strong
i know £ is clawing its way back to 1.30:$ but that scarcely indicates $ weakness, and indeed € is only just about back to 1.10
2/3 years ago € was at 1.35/1.40

very strong payroll numbers in USA (+211,000) which the market seems to like quite a lot

Really ? wall st's down ..

only a tad after a rather chunky cash opening this morning, but Dax up very nicely :-)

DAX & CAC futures showing positive on the back of Macron win. Seems Europe is breathing a sigh of relief!

Yes looking like an up day.

immediately after the news, the sunday indices were up hugely
the markets now realise not a great deal has changed

DAX remains amazingly strong, yet there are still the french parliamentary elections to come (as well as in uk of course)
it will be very unsettling to say the least if FN (le pen) has a strong showing and gets more seats than say lib/dems (or ukip!!) in uk

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for myself, and i may have traded in/out once or twice since 4th, i am currently modestly (as always!) long DOW, and that is nicely in the money, and modestly short DAX from previously, but of course that is currently nursing a loss

BoE base rate maintained at 0.25%.

DOW + DAX
both now tumbling fast .... am glad to be modestly short in both
perhaps this is the long overdue correction, triggered as so often, by nothing special

Trump's.

impeachment odds fall