Mark Austin FTSE Trading Update - 17th Dec 2010

Good morning

Another quiet evening across global markets means the FTSE will open flat again and provide no opening opportunities.

Today is triple witching for the FTSE and this is when options and futures expire. As I mentioned a few days ago, this event will take place between 10am-10.15am and usually creates a large buying or selling spike which is then almost always retraced. These spikes are far more obvious than normal expiry as futures are included. Its also worth noting that trading activity is far more volatile on the days after expiry as opposed to the days leading up to expiry. With that said we do have Christmas around the corner which will result in quiet activity but I do expect a couple more high volume days. The volume this week has been non existent.