have some major indices charts in my current market analyst work books now.
dont know why you would get involved with the FTSE when its general o/a trend is only very slightly up . and as you say its sharply choppy.
compare that with the SPY which has a VERY strong upward trend and less chopy. the US economy is going gang busters and they seem to have thrown of concerns about the little taper.
currently it is at 1830 i have put my MA linear regression band on the SPY over about a 2 mnth time span, the lower band line is at 1800 and the upper band line is 1860 the same band over a 5 month period gives a lower reading 1760 and an upper of 1875 volumes have dropped off over the holiday period although i do not know how many hols they have in the north hem. - so ignore. so thats the price range - its currently a bit high within the 5 month band, but only in the middle of the 2 month band
so a bid of say 1820 would give the potential of a 40 pip (if thas what you call it ) profit + a bit more due to the strong upward trend.
you could stay in the trade over a longer period to profit from the long term trend, so long as you were prepared to accept the ossilation within the 2 month band - but i dont think thats the way it works for this area of trading ?
with the SPY there is the benefit of a very strong tail wind.
hope you dont mind the comment, one of themes strong in mind now is looking for strong tail winds in price action - the financial fundamentals seem to have slipped down a little bit in priority.
