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

CC, this is EK:
"Evil Knievil
Fresh from making 1 million shorting Northern Rock, the man the Daily Mail dubbed The King of the Short Sellers (otherwise known as Simon Cawkwell) is Britain's most feared bear-raider. A trained accountant, he made his name exposing the fiction that were Bob Maxwell's accounts. Evil does not give investment advice on this website but three times a week he chats to his faithful diarist - Tom Winnifrith. His diarist then writes and takes full responsibility for the Evil Knievil diaries." (T1ps.com)

Cheers Harry,aye well aware of him.

talk about mixed signals!!
U.S. economy lost 95,000 jobs in September, but private sector gained 64,000 jobs, U.S. says. Unemployment rate stays at 9.6%.

no idea what was predicted

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The job market suffered another blow last month, as business hiring dwindled, and the government continued to shed workers.

Overall, the economy lost a total of 95,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department reported Friday, far worse than expected and down from the previous month, when employers shed 57,000 jobs.

But while government cuts, especially related to the end of the 2010 census, have dragged down the overall number for several months, businesses have added jobs for nine months in a row.

Private businesses added 64,000 workers in September, while the government shed 159,000 workers, mostly because of temporary census jobs ending and strapped local government scaling back.

Overall, the jobs number disappointed economists, who were expecting a flat month, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.6%. Economists had forecast a slight increase to 9.7%.

DOW at 11096. This has got to run out of steam soon, surely?
Cynic, may I ask what your Guru is predicting as to the upper (R) pivot point? Or anything that is going to be remotely useful as to the correction level!
I am sitting on cash now as I sell & take profit, but the damn thing still keeps going up!

I went short Dow earlier @ 11,148 and will stick it out for a while. All seems overblown to me, but hey, wtfdik!
The usual view states that the trend is your friend 'til the bend at the end as we all know, and there isn't much of a bend yet!
Also long a little RKH @ 387 - ouch! :) Rachel is key

Good results from GOOGLE apparently.

As highlighted in the w/e FT, next few weeks may see the start of a DOW drop.- U.S. third quarter earning reporting, which have to be as good as expected - U.S. mid term elections and worry as to who will control Congress (2nd Nov) - U.S. FOMC meeting to set interest rates and decide on QEII (3rd Nov) - U.S. payroll figures (5th Nov)

EK's view today:
"Finally, I am continuing to be exterminated by my index shorts and that of gold. So far, my latest chart update advises that S&P should drop 8% from 1170. I do wish it would get on with it."

my guru, he say

DOW
stay neutral
buy on pullback 10815

FTSE
stay neutral
buy on pullback to 5410

Flippin' 'eck! What happened to the DOW -145!!!!

bad BoA numbers i believe

Apparently it's China's fault:
"(Reuters) - China's central bank surprised on Tuesday with its first increase of interest rates in nearly three years, a move that reflects concern about resurgent asset prices and could mark the start of a more aggressive phase of monetary tightening in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

The People's Bank of China said it was raising benchmark rates by 25 basis points, taking one-year deposit rates to 2.5 percent and one-year lending rates to 5.56 percent.

If there was ever any doubt about China's role in driving the stuttering global economic recovery, the impact was felt by markets across the board. Oil and gold prices tumbled, stocks turned negative in Europe and the U.S. and the dollar jumped."

torrid day in london ahead - dow currently down 187

was expecting a bloodbath this morning, so am more than pleasantly surprised.
indeed, once GO's cuts are actually in the open, market may well move smartly north.
fwiw, i am delighted the gov't has had the balls the cut hard and fast as i think that is the only sensible way ...... time will tell if it is indeed so, though for sure it will very tough for some in the meantime

Hello, I'm in need of help!

Does anybody know where I can find the FTSE level at 08:01 each day? I've found that trying to trade from the official open us useless and watching the live market changing so that I can note the figure is subject to human error (my human error)

Thanks for any help you can give me.

There's a horrible look to the market atm.

Bar the falkies, everything seems marooned I guess through a lack of buying/selling and no credit. I have wondered a few times recently whether we are on the verge of another credit crunch. Hopefully not, but we shall see.

Not sure you are correct dd. Some sectors doing very well comparatively, especially the cyclical stocks (GKN, IMI and other engineering firms.) plus many have bounced from their post recession lows. Much, much better than putting your money in to savings @ 2.5% gross. Airlines are reporting good growth on their business class & insurance companies are reporting steady growth with hardening premiums.
Your 'horrible look' may be due to a too far, too fast for some stocks, so as posted above, I suspect a correction isn't far away.

I meant over the past 2/3 weeks Harry

Errrrr. The footsie's pretty close to its high for the year and about 20% higher than its low for the year. I'm not exactly sure how it can have a horrible look to it.

That said, I've been short for the last couple of hours.