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

for once - I managed to make some cash on shorting the Ftse this evening - but closed too early again - still - I was satisfied with my gain. Closed all positions tonight

Been in London all day, so have not been able to watch a screen.
Having assumed we would mirror the DOW 400 pt rise of yesterday, things seem to have gone t*ts up today. Not sure why, but miners seems to have been hit pretty hard. Looks like profit taking, so hopefully a slow rise to follow.
Interesting that a totally unsubstantiated rumour that HBOS was seeking extra finance has been quashed, but moved the sp considerably. Dark forces at work!
Don't blame you guys for not holding your positions open. Quite a bit of data from the U.K. & U.S. thurs, so anything could happen.

Miners may have been affected by turn in the dollar, fears of recession and general drop in commodities. Market sentiment seems to swing manically at the moment and FTSE seems to have decoupled from DOW probably because of the miners and because US is still in post rate change euphoria still!

At the moment there is a partial meltdown of good stocks...really crazy...I hope this ends soon....because : as things drop ...people sell and the more people sell...and so forth ! at this rate shorting will be the only thing to do !

This is a time to either be out of the markets completely and just watching until such times as some order returns, or short anything that became overbought in the bull run and is trading with an overinflated PE ratio, or if you firmly believe in a certain company just buy them on the dips....

Agree BigTed...I reckon certain banks are in serious trouble and are liquidating positions in a big way (just guessing on that one) !

Its my belief we were heading for a mass sell off before the fed intervened and injected $200bn into financials, both Dow and Ftse were near january lows, the next event was the Bear saga, so they drop interbank rate by .25, they are doing whatever is needed to prevent the next big sell, however i think they are running out of plasters, if Citibank reveal bigger problems, are they going to effectively buy them out too...?

The Fed won't run out of ammunition. It might run out of bullets and end up throwing the cutlery and the kitchen sink, but either way they'll keep on going regardless. Even if they end up with 0% rates and a seriously broken economy, what choice do they have?

I suspect the interventions will have less and less effect (just like pain killers), and at some point (maybe never though) the crisis will be too big to stop. At the moment, despite the volatility, equities haven't really collapsed in the way I would've expected. I suppose a slide in the currency equates to a drop in real value anyway, even if the markets actually go nowhere. These are certainly interesting times.......

In my opinion.....

Strawbs.

Steady climb by the dow today - nothing dramatic - just steady. I managed to balance my books today - lost money early on then spent all day recovering it.

Happy Easter all

F/E was seemingly steady to better last night, and it is good to see Dow indicators showing +36 at 11364, having nudged over 11400 at some point.

with Europe shut today, trading in US should be quiet (thank goodness!) ...... however, if the positive mood is maintained, then London should open solidly better, especially bearing in mind that Dow was about 200 points lower at close of biz London on Thursday.

I was pondering to myself what the effect on the markets would be of a Dollar collapse ..let's say dropping to : $2.50 to the ....not so good I would say....I'm still surprised that it still is only $2 approx. to the pound after a year of minor ups and downs !

Positive news from the US today: JP Morgan have increased their offer for Bear Stearns to $10, and US existing home sales in February were up 2.9% which is more than was expected.

All good news for the Dow, and the FTSE has also broken above 5600. Having only recently started trading the indeces, I've taken out mini contracts on both.

rf ---- I wouldn't be surprised to see the $ rebound from here in the near term especially against the Yen and Euro, and to a lesser degree against the . Not that I know much about currencies, just my view that's all.
2517

if Dow can hold above 12500 (currently 12575) at the close, then the next test is around 12800

Evening Richard

hi peter .... "my man" in bahrain tells me your weather is distinctly wamer than ours!

unfortunately got back this morning, back in the cold :( Was a nice 28-30 degrees in Dubai with low humidity most of the time.

Just been looking at the DOW, interested to note that the chart lines I drew seven weeks ago are still holding true. Need a better chart package thought than the one I'm using.

my lines have res at 12860 and support at 12400 or thereabouts, they need some refining though.

Cant see any rally having serious legs, i also believe my portfolio should be weighted towards the short side, but somehow cant bring myself to do it...

There might be some blue tomorrow but like BigTed says : for how long...everybody is so negative now including myself !