Mark Austin FTSE Trading Update - 15th Dec 2010

Good morning

Fairly muted action FTSE trading this week with prices creeping higher but staying in a tight range. This action is typical leading up to expiry which is on Friday.  I pay particular attention to the quarterly expiry's as this is when options and futures expire at the same time. Also known as triple witching. For those of you who can watch your screens between 10am-10-20am (Friday), triple witching 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. You can also use one touch binaries which expire at 12pm. These are usually cheap given the time frame. If the FTSE is resting at for example 5900 you want to buy a cheap one touch at 5950 and 5850.  One of the binaries benefits during expiry due to  volatility creating your profit.