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

I didn't know I had such power.........BB

Lol!

Don't know what anybody else thinks but this feels like a lot of people have been burnt today and the rise is short covering

Looks like BB's words had a short lived effect. Lots of data out of the U.S. boosting DOW. AT&T, Xerox, Qualcomm & UPS all producing good quarterly figures. It all seems a bit knee jerk. Very fickle.

Too right Harrycat - I had my shorts on and am quite singed! Not at all sure whether to hope for a downturn tomorrow or admit defeat tonight and lose a load. Pity, cos I did so well last night while BB was talking...

decline to comment!

Such a gentleman cynic!
Think I'll keep the shorts on for a while - already feeling a bit looser than they were half an hour ago.

if you are going to remove them, you'ld better warn everyone to avert their eyes
heaven knows what they might see!!

a pair of french knickers i would think.,.

currently dow indicating london in for a bit of a bleak start tomorrow

Not SMDR Cynic hope you are still in for the big ride upwards.

Legal & General, RSA Group, Aviva, Old Mutual, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland all set to report figures next week. Might see a good week for all the financial stocks & FTSE (assuming the trend isn't to 'sell on fact'.). Looks like the banks are going to lead the way; just hope the insurers have good margins to report.

Non-farm payroll figures coming up from the U.S. Am expecting below expectations data. Short DOW?

hope you didn't harry as you'ld have got your fingers quite badly burnt

on a different matter, i'm amazed that there is no thread here (Traders' Room) on CNT ...... that stock is a godsend for traders even at the current very depressed level

EK has been shorting CNT big time.....I should have taken more notice.....the sp has gone from 400p down to 15p.....damn...another missed opportunity....

i was almost more stupid ..... i held them at a much higher level and sold at a small profit because i thought they might tumble .... but i did nothing about it until a few days ago - doh! ..... considering the small investment, i have banked some very nice profits already and still hold a 50% norm (short) at an cp average of 29.7 ..... depending on how things look, i may (try to) short some on monday, while remaining aware that the upside (downside!) is only about 15p whereas the upside (downside!) is theoretically limitless

DOW was down 150 points at midday (U.S. time). I think it would have been possible to close a short at a profit!

if you did so, yes, but if you hung on, then you would have lost 120 points from the high (low!)

only a couple of hours ago Dow looked set for a big sell off, but it has performed like lazarus yet again ..... still just over an hour's trading left, so any number of possibilities on the cards

see bp thread for sharp recover there too

Something to do with the FED interest rate staying the same, maybe, and soothing words from Ben B? (I usually put BB, but then Balerboy gets ideas beyond his station!)