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

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!

Thanks Skinny.

GOVERNMENT AGREEMENT ON ENERGY POLICY SENDS CLEAR, DURABLE SIGNAL TO INVESTORS

The Government has reached a landmark agreement on energy policy that will deliver a clear, durable signal to investors, Edward Davey announced today.

CAD Core CPI m/m 0.3% consensus 0.2% previous 0.2%

walmart said in early November it was broadening its investigation regarding allegations of potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations in Mexico to include India, China and Brazil.

corruption in those countries? .... isn't that just extraordinary - who would ever have thought it?

cynic they forgot to include UK (illegal payments to MOD officials springs to mind) and the rest of the world.

i'm not sure if us gov't or whoever it is, is naive or stupid or hypocritical - or perhaps all 3! ...... if you want to do biz in many regions, "commissions" are payable ..... you don't want to pay? .... fine, we'll give the biz to someone else

looks as though we may see some rock n roll from dow this afternoon :-))

sort of bugger - got stopped out of dow too early, limit up at 12930 but as i have a long ftse running, so real prob .... shall now watch to see whether or not dow can hold above 12940

http://rt16.it-finance.com/FinSpreadsFlash/showimage.phtml?id=9aab3ec8693f44957ed23dca6126675a945f120e926794c7c01de024a237b6ff&type=png

Wall St Daily with support and resistance, looks like the old bullish channel broken back in July is coming back into play as marked. However note this pullback could be nothing more than a correction as the newer July / August bear channel is still active and supported by moving average crosses.

http://rt16.it-finance.com/FinSpreadsFlash/showimage.phtml?id=329cface8c0544b606f23f01067e60c6c9467a1d2c447134603c198009c2e7e3&type=png

Wall St 2 Hr Chart above shows we're into overbought territory just above resistance, wise call Cynic to see if its going to hold...