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

That's not good for you Stan ,sitting on your hands over the whole weekend .

Good point well made James.. so on reflection I shall see about moving about a bit.

Dow, Fts, Oilers, Gold and I assume Oil price up to date, so I guess going short might not be a bad idea. I remain on the fence.

Certainly been a roller coaster day with DOW/FTSE and Oil ..

DOW
16,450 is proving quite a stubborn hurdle, so anything around that number or even a bit above - it's been as high as 16,485 today i think - would be a tempting place to short

Dow. Gradually edging higher bit by bit since the low in January.

FTSE 100 is a "Dog with flea's" to quote Wall Street.

Certainly no appetite yet for me anyway to dabble in buying stocks. Sitting on hands till Dow opens this aft ahead of jobs report. Chinese New Year starts Monday. Guessing direction of Indices comes with a wealth warning, but opportunity to scalp swings (hitching a ride in both directions) is the game in town, but don't leave your screen. :0)

Nothıng runnıng currently. Wıll have a look tonıght to see the state of play after NFP.

NFP coming in 15 minutes.. stand by ya beds.

I've always wondered, are these jobs quality hirings or Xmas tree sellers and burger flippers?

told you so :-)
opened short ths morning at 16,448 and closed just now (about to board plane) with nearly 100 point profit

NFP +151k jobs.........below expectations.

and another very nice short opened and close for +80 :-))

DOW
so far, 16,200 is providing pretty good support, though it has now been challenged several times in recent days
if that level fails, then there could be at least a further 125 points on the downside

As I said yesterday fence standing was my preference till Monday but as soon as we had the NFP and Dow opened it was clear the fts was on it's way down. A very satisfying week all round.

Well done Stan. How about answering your starter for ten. Are you voting Yes or No to exit Europe?

Watch out CC, Harry will be after you.

16,200 has now failed and seems determined to stay below that level, at least for the rest of this evening

Not a good week. 16500 is the barrier. May be next week might get towards it. Then again what do I know!!!!!!!!!!!

Hard to see where the rot stops. Apart from the period between Sept and Dec where expectations possibly of a Santa rally were eventually crushed. Any approach to breach 50DMA (green line) has failed, as a result lower highs lower lows. This is reflected in stock charts. Eg STAN ditto hits 50DMA good night. ADN is an even bigger basket case stalls consistently at 25DMA (red line)