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

ouch!! .... serves me right ... gave back what i made last night
still, should not complain, as am still fractionally ahead (until Monday open perhaps!) today vs yesterday and certainly a good week overall

Just closed my short position, looks like a retrace is in order.

Agree, today is not the day... and the pound wont give up yet either!

dow below 12200 level and holding below. with so many people concentrating on this triangle, I wonder if it is really relevant. Because with so many investors using cfd or sb, and many taking short positions once support is broken, like now. wouldn't be at all surprised to see market spike up to take out the stops. Could the market not be manipulated in this way, falsing people to cover their shorts or being stopped out.

Or could I be talking B*L%*"KS

I noticed that gold and oil started going south when the Dow tumbled earlier on which may be of note when the BIG drop comes!

Gotta admit, expected it to bounce back by now, certainly looking comfortable under 12200 at present, although i dont think there is sufficient bad news today to cause a big drop, i'm well aware the triangle has closed up, and 12200 prior to today was considered the bottom of the consolidating zone, when it goes i think it will go quickly but prob not today....

I have heard that the S&P manipulates false break outs to trigger stop losses spitfire so probably the Dow too!

So would it work if you opened a position say long on Dow by CFD and hedged with short by spreadbet, then when direction clear, close the losing option...?!

Been playing the range over 12200 down to 12175 and back up, seams to have really narrowed now, anyones guess which way this will go..

Just got another short on at 12201.....

while 12200 is certainly important, it would be a fall below 12000 that would really get the alarm bells ringing

*nods head*

Closed out 12163.... Debating on a long

*Damn* its addictive, cant believe its the weekend... *Damn*...!

12219 gone short again

chocks away... 12230+

very strong rally, may regret that last one..

A good illustration of the wonders of the market, i cant reproduce the graph, but to follwers, (but non traders), its like a rocket just took off... 12311 and that was two minutes ago now...

Tell me about it, went short...... oooouuuucccchhhh...

Just shorted 12386...