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

Too many brokers and not enough players. The industry needs a good cull.

Dow
sitting on my hands
with 17300 now looking to be broken significantly, further movement south is quite possible, somewhat contradicting ftse

what do i know!
glad i've sat on my hands, not least because i would not have been able to give my undivided, which could have been fatal

The Dax looks to have set a new all time high..

QE on its way in Europe possibly the catalyst for the Dax?

Definitely its being priced in yes. The whole block is up.

wowee!
slightly foolishly went (further) long dow at 17425 hoping to make a couple of shekels before close but it's now now zipped through 17500
now wondering whether to allow greed to have its head

=============

prudence rules yah!
banked nice profit at 17502 but still have another one running at 17630

Ftse 100 up on the week and the US Indices are down.

Cant recall that happening in recent memory.

Going to stick my neck out and go for more upside next week.

The FTSE 100 rose on Monday, despite a plunge in Chinese shares. Investors are hoping that the European Central Bank will launch a quantitative easing programme following its meeting on Thursday.

Chinese shares plunged, with the Shanghai Composite share index closing down 7.7% the largest one-day percentage fall in in more than six-and-a-half years. This followed a crackdown on margin trading, which has been blamed for fuelling a wave of speculation over the past few months. On Tuesday morning, China releases its GDOP figure for 2014. It is expected to report its slowest expansion in 24 years.

Infrastructure investment group John Laing unveiled plans to float that could see it valued at up to £1bn.

Any idea when the greek elections take place? No one seems to be too worried about the leftists getting in and trashing the austerity deal.....yet.

25th from memory. with the Euro at 1.30 GBP/EUR I'd say the election leftists and QE have already been priced in. If the ECB this week fails to announce any QE then we could see a quick return to 1.27's all to watch for.

Martin Luther King day so a holiday in the States..

As such the fall in Chinese markets won't be reflected today.

my brain's not functioning very well today so doing nothing, but from a very jolly start, all is now heading south and looking quite ugly

Manuel,

Where and when did you find it?

8-}

Look reasonable now.

But will be up early.

Sharecast -US stocks edged slightly higher on Tuesday, amid better-than-expected data from China and gains from Apple and Netflix.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 3.66 points up to 17,515.23, while the Nasdaq rose 29.07 points to 4,171.21 and the S&P 500 ended the day 3.13 points higher at 2,022.55.

China's gross domestic product rose 7.3% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, more than the 7.2% growth that was expected.

However, it marked the slowest economic growth in 24 years, while the country's industrial production gained 8.3% year-on-year in December, compared to forecasts for a 8.2% increase.

difficult to impossible or what!!!???

DOW
between 14:30 and 14:40 it moved between a low of 17394 and a high of 17520!

if and only if i can find 15/30 minutes to concentrate, i may have a little play

ECB eyes €50bn a month in bond purchases
The European Central Bank is mulling buying around €50bn-worth of government bonds a month for between one and two years as part of its quantitative easing programme set to be unveiled on Thursday.
The central bank is yet to formally table the proposal to the 25-member governing council, but has discussed the idea of a target monthly amount in phone calls with policy makers, according to two people familiar with the matter. The council will meet for dinner late on Wednesday before voting on QE on Thursday.
More opposition has emerged to the ECB’s idea of asking the 19 national central banks of the eurozone to shoulder the risk for purchases of their government bonds. A decision on whether or not policy makers break with the tradition set by earlier bond-buying schemes and scrap commitments to sharing risks between central banks is expected to go down to the wire, with several national central bank governors set to voice objections.

==============

bet it's not pie and pint either!
an equally good bet is that ECB will push through the measures it wants with minimal watering-down to appease

At FTSE current levels I'm not one for going long, I suppose the correct course or action is to sit and await the correct lunar alignment for a short play!!

dow is now nudging and struggling to break through 17600
worth watching for a quick short at that sort of level, for it failed there just the other day too