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

Dead Cat bounce!

Dead Cat Bounce ..... unlike JCB which just digs a bigger hole

DOW and NASDAQ charts are interesting (S&P is worse than dire!) in that both a just nudging potential support levels, DOW at 200 dam and NASDAQ on 50 dma

DOW testing the 200 DMA again at 13135. Could be another difficult day for the FTSE tomorrow, imo.

When FTSE closed down 3.2 at 6381 Friday, the DOW was down 60, but then went on to finnish 223 down at 13042. If FTSE follows DOW as usual Monday morning it should open 110 down at 6271, if so I may take a small long on FTSE looking for a 50 point gain in the morning. Notwithstanding any adverse news.

I have noticed this pattern with FTSE before, it seems to drift before the DOW opens.

Any thought's...........

Ignore preceding thread, I was working on wrong data, FTSE closed 77 points down at 6304, not 3.2 points down. Hence I have no long positioned planned.

I find that there is often a reversal after 10 to 15 minutes of trading, possibly due to widening bid offer spreads, digesting the futures. This was certainly in evidence for FTSE on Thursday and Friday and on Dow on Friday. Have to monitor carefully though or things can go very pear shaped, safest to use a trailing stop loss.

Falcothou

Thankyou, I will certainly be on the look out for a suitable entry point, I normally use a static stop/loss and adjust myself if I'm sat in front of computer. Will look into a trailling stop/loss as well. I'm fairly new to using CFDs so only taking small positions at the moment.

Spitfire .... if you are trading indices, be very aware that they can move very quickly indeed and are particularly unpredictable and volatile at the moment, so you really do need to be able to monitor throughout the trading day ..... as a general rule, it is brave to rash to leave index positions open overnight as you can never be sure what will happen while you are asleep.

Assuredly FTSE must start monday heavily down, but then what? ..... Dow is likely to have still further to fall and perhaps quite a long way too .... however, that will not happen in a straight line, so if you have a short running there, be ready to cut it and perhaps start a long, but again nimbleness is the key.

Thankyou Cynic for the advice, I will store it away and trade accordingly.

for anyone interested, i shall also be looking closely at shorting Cable again - i.e. backing $ to strengthen ..... the tables suddenly turned on friday, with $ closing about 20950 against a low of about 21130 ..... my own view, though i got it badly wrong last time, is that $ is now oversold

Noticed in shares mag that they are recommending shorting the big miners, which with banks already hammered could really affect the Dow and ftse 100 adversely as these 2 sectors are big constituents

Shares Mag is inevitably a bit behind, which usually would not matter, but times are now unusually volatile ...... it is certainly a tenable argument that commodities are due to dip, taking with them the mining stocks; however, the converse is the sudden M&A activity which could more than counter-balance at least in the short term.

December oil futures expire friday, so oil is tipped to reach $100 barrel, then fall back.
BLT still want to buy RIO, though they would prefer to do it through friendly negotiations. I feel sure they will launch a hostile takeover bid if the friendly approach fails.
Vedanta goes ex-divi this coming week as does Lonmin.
I still believe, however, that there is money to be made from the mining stocks, but my approach is to get in & out within a day or two & to keep locking in profit.

$ had already strengthened significantly by first thing this morning and is now about 20750, so left it alone - though glad to note my prediction was correct this time!

however, i have profitably closed and reversed my positions on Dow and also taken a long FTSE.

and at FTSE close, 20600 ...... unbelievable, and for sure some very singed fingers for those who forgot to duck! ..... with hindsight, i should have left my short open, but felt i had been foolish enough when i close it at 21025 ...... still, the debtors books are full of those who have kept hanging on in hopeless expectation - e.g. those in SEO and SUB and VOG and numerous others

Dow interesting today ..... climbs nicely and then falls back, but recovers again ..... my guess is that it will finish strongly, or at least that is my hope!

I'm currently showing the DOW down 61 points. Recovery looking slim unfortunately.

position back to break even, so no harm done, but got a little greedy

Bet it gave you the heebie geebies though cynic !