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

They aren't delayed.

NFPs are released on the third Friday after the conclusion of the week which includes the 12th of the month. Most often this happens to be the first Friday of the new month, but not exclusively so.

glad i went short dow on friday, even if my timing for so doing was somewhat wonky .... reckon that will be about the only bit of cheer today

GBP Construction PMI 46.8 consensus 49.2 previous 48.7

EUR Sentix Investor Confidence -10.6 consensus -4.5 previous -3.9

EUR Spanish Services PMI 44.7 consensus 45.9 previous 47.0

EUR Italian Services PMI 43.6 consensus 43.6 previous 43.9

Short in @6398 - been tried twice this morning so far.

EUR Final Services PMI 47.9 consensus 47.3 previous 47.3

UK retail sales grew at fastest rate for years in February

UK retail sales grew at their fastest rate in more than three years in February, as the drier weather coaxed shoppers back out onto the High Street.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said like-for-like retail sales were up 2.7% on the previous year.

That is the fastest rate of like-for-like sales growth since December 2009, the group said.

GBP Services PMI 51.8 consensus 51.1 previous 51.5

just bought back into HG+HC Index again (9574) as it was barely up today, whereas C+M is zipping away (already in) ..... it's always a bit of a scary call as that index is very volatile indeed, but i always play both of those indices with a sensible stop in case i get it all wrong

Are we running on Premium BS?

the markets in general? .... not exactly; bonds are singularly less than exciting, and there is a huge wall of money (to use today's sexy phrase) that needs to be invested somewhere .... once there is momentum, it becomes almost self-fulfilling - until everyone says buy; and then it's time to sell :-)

Not the market is taking any notice of anything today :-

USD ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI 56.0 consensus 55.0 previous 55.2

cynic,

Sometimes forget it is about shifting money in a return chase.

Cheers,
KidA

is that the polite version of saying greed rules until fear sets in?

shorters getting burnt today.

i would hold my hand up, but no longer can :-) ....... however, i reversed that position and have made up a sizeable chunk (stump?) of that loss

I went short @6,398 this morning and closed +10. Short again @6,414 - still holding and have a limit in @6,444.

So I will be paying the ex dividend payment in the morning!!

FTSE dfb just spiked up to 6,451 - limit removed last night for now.

Merve the Swerve speaks this morning.

Venezuela enjoys the world's largest oil reserves.