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

Ah, slow & steady, just like the old days (according to my dad).
Mind you, 20% rise on WMH, 36% CTT. Still the odd volatile stock.

Yes it's good to have relative calm today.

Normally a major bottom is almost never a spike, they have two roots like a tooth. It's the same when the market is at the top of a bull run. Could we be at the first spike down, and close to the second final spike ?

At this time it is worth remembering that the second worse bear market in 1973-74 would have bottomed out at 4088, pro-rata. And the worse bear market in the 1930s would bottom out at 2669. I believe I have worked the figures out correctly, but always happy to be corrected.

but much volatility expected tomorrow when lehman insured defaults are exposed - can't remember the proper acronym for them

credit default swap?

Oil might turnaround...Opec meeting coming up....(wish it would !),....still can't understand how on earth did oil rocket up to $147 before dropping to $69 ?...quite unbelievable !,.....people have to drive to go about their normal lives...I for one even if oil was $300 would have to go by car no matter what !,....I would have to put on hold other luxuries in life...less booze or something else, but driving would go on , so why the massive drop ?.

I have tried in vain to find a website that gives the latest (credit default swap) for financials, anyone have any idea's. ???????

On 14th March 2008 I read that Bear Sterns had a CDS figure of 7.2 before the bail out, most Banks in Iceland had similar figures. Shame the so called finance directors (Town Clerks) in our councils missed this little snippet.

meanwhile a great finish in NY so have left my longs open with very tasty profit but with stops in place

Just noticed WS, DAX and especially futsie futures have made one of those double bottom W thingies.

theres 60 trillion dollars in CDS...........but i heard on radio that gangsters in usa have put 10 trillion dollars offshore........so until this financial corruption in usa is stopped then markets cant improve......well certainly not in usa

also, SEC organisation is quite corrupt too from what i heard on radio programme

another great conspiracy theorist hits the board!

Quite interesting programme on Radio 4 on Sunday discussing the growing legal machine to redress missold packages of debt. Most of theses were dreamt up in London and New york and subsequently sold on numerous times, great in a rising market with little or no regulation but when the sub prime started defaulting banks tried to off load these from their balance sheets with supposed AAA status last Summer. A British high st. bank was being accused of selling these off to a French investment company as suppposedly bullet proof only for them to be downgraded to worthless a month later, hence the legal action. There will be lots of finger pointing and ultimately they concluded that in the many cases where banks have been nationalised the tax payer will end up picking up the compensation bill and lawyers fees, another shining example of lack of accountability. It is a very complicated business whereby rating agencies were possibly colluding along with a myopic FSA and head in the clouds government who were doubtless happy to turn a bling eye with all those hefty corporate taxes coming in.

yip.......this aint going to stop just cos of some money being pumped into system..........as i say, usa people have lost 10 trillion already and dont even know. the organised criminals will not stop until politicians do something about it.

who needs to risk carrying drugs when u can sell bits of useless paper for trillions.

Love the typo, Falco - a bling eye, one to remember ;)

Funny how the subconscious works chocolat!

Looks like FTSE is waiting for wall street to open for direction, and the outcome of the cds exposure from Lehman.

The total figures are hard to comprehend, for example RBS & BARC are thought to have 2.4 trillion total worldwide exposure each. But at least the Lehman cds position which needs to be settled today is only about $400 billion.

Did I say ONLY....... MADNESS........

Spitfire, any idea what time the cds exposure info will be released?

See times below, bearing in mind these are USA time zones. So by 19:00 UK time we should see the results.

9:45 a.m.-10 a.m. Auction participants will submit bids and offers for the debt backing the credit default swaps, which will be used to determine the initial recovery rate of the swaps.

10:30 a.m. Auction administrators Creditex and Markit will publish the initial recovery price and the open interest for the contracts will be published. The open interest reflects the amount of bids and offers that have been made, and will show if there are more buyers than sellers, or vice versa.

12:45 p.m. -1 p.m. Participating dealers will submit limit orders for the debt on behalf of themselves and their clients to fill the open interest

2 p.m. The final price of the auction will be published. (Reporting by Karen Brettell; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

CHeers

bleak day in prospect as Nikkei crumbles by 6.5%

Maybe America will open higher, with news of Lehmans settlement going smoothly.