In the UK the FTSE 100 closed at its session lows today, weighed down by telecom and mining stocks, while a negative morning by Wall Street also hit sentiment.

By the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 18.1 points at 4,321.1, its worst level of the day, while the broader indices were also lower.

Volume was low with just 1.87 bln shares changing hands in 163,737 deals.

In the US in early trading the Dow industrials accelerated to the downside, and hit a low down of 10,063. The Dow had at this point had retraced 66 percent of its rally off the May 12 low of 9,852 to the June 25 high of 10,488.

Good old Fibonacci number that and when it then bounced back it looked like it was up and away. However in late trading the rally petered out for the Dow to close down 45.72 at 10094, the S&P closed down .49 at 1100.9 and the NASDAQ all but flat up .68 on the day at 1883.83

After-hours trading was expected to get off to a quiet start for the week, with few earnings announcements set for the evening session as investors and traders braced themselves for a deluge of corporate financial reports over the next three days.

So all eyes turn to those US earnings and young Alan Greenspan as he starts two days of testimony in Washington on Tuesday.
One thing is for sure he is one of the few men whose words can move Markets.

Good Hunting
Young Martini of Oxon

Melnibone - 19 Jul'04 - 22:00 - 17 of 17


Evening all.
I'm cream-crackered. I would say something else, but I believe there
are ladies present.:-)

I never knew you could fit so much stuff into one room until I came
to shift it all. I'm fed up with removing those 'orrible spikey
carpet grippers as well. It's like juggling with porcupines.

Market drifted a bit on lowish volume. Nothing to write home about
and we're still in the range.

US didn't exactly crash, either. Looks pretty flat to me.
Greenspan waffling for the next two days. I wonder if
he'll upset the apple cart again.

Banks still dropping.
LLOY down to 392p now. The yield must be over 9% on this little
devil. Bet you're glad you never bought at 414p, stockbunny, as you
were musing about. If you did, I'll never speak to you again after
sorting out all those warning charts for you!
Only joshing. You do what you want to do. :-)

GSK is making a meal of hitting 1000p. I'm getting tempted.
To give some percentage perspective at these level, it's the same
as saying I'd buy ARM at 100p but not 104p. I need to think about
that. I'm in danger of being pedantic here.

MRW holding support well at 180p. The Brandes buy on Friday stopped
the rot here, IMHO. Got the Bears worried, poor things.
Still got my eye on that big gap down open that is begging to be filled.

OOM getting more friendless every day. Bit concerned it was downgraded
by Brokers. Don't trust that lot as far as I can throw them. If they
want a stock to come down it's for a reason that will suit them, not us.
Watching for a buying opportunity. This one is starting to throw off
cash and will be snapped up one day by someone wanting a stake
in the European Mobile sector. There's no room for new players.

VOD just below resistance on the 1p close price P&F chart.
I'd like to see it close at 115p and bounce.
VOD is a quality cash cow with plenty of growth potential via organic
3G and aquisitions. Don't ignore its potential just because it's
the world and its dog favourite trading stock.

Try and catch you tomorrow sometime if my aching knees let me hobble
to the keyboard.
Feel free to shift this post to tomorrows thread if you want, Martini,
if you think it's appropriate.

Stay loose and don't play the range break until it happens guys and gals.
Don't want to get caught shorting at the bottom do you?
If it does break, it'll come back to have a quick retest anyway and
give you a safer entry point.

Melnibone.

Sorry to harp on but....close to breakout territory on Oil :-)

SAN FRANCISCO (AFX) -- Oil futures climbed near $42 a barrel to close at
their highest level in seven weeks, lifted by expectations of limited OPEC
output capacity and continued violence in Iraq. Prices ended less than 70 cents
short of $42.33, the loftiest crude futures level ever recorded on the New York
Mercantile Exchange. August crude closed at $41.64, up 39 cents for the session.
This story was supplied by CBSMarketWatch. For further information see
www.cbsmarketwatch.com.

Thanks from me to Martini and Mel.

Always useful commentry

Of course other regular contributers are also welcome.

Signed

One of the small fry.

xx

morning all

Morning all from a sunny North Wales. Will the good results from NRK help to stop the fall in the other UK banks ??

NRK were below expectations.



May not be at the bottom yet.

Morning.

Looks a bit slooooow!

Have a good day.

NRK dropping quickly BB. going down in sympathy.

I wonder when they will hit bottom.

BB. has been on the fall for months now.

A takeover may be the only way some people would recoup their losses. I bailed out in 2 lumps at 290 and 280, thankfully.

Funny really as these were flying at 325 just 6 months ago.

Yes I know the resons why they fell.

Sorry about the name its the dogs. Jack Russell very cute. New to investing.

Running Dry watchlist on LSE.Watched vernalis rise last week. very exiting

Waiting to here from broker (barclays) and considering CMC. Any advice on this before starting to trade.

frodo

There's no rush!!! Start small because you will lose at first, read all the trading/investing books you can get your hands on and try to get to some meetings/courses to learn all you can.

You must have a trading/investing strategy, be it charts, news or fundamentals, and understand why you took a position on. Set a stop immediately and stick with it. Stops save your dosh and the profits just roll along.

If you're heading the margined route, i.e. spreadbet or CFD, understand that losses and profits can multiply massively.

Best of luck!

Al
;-)

Morning all, welcome frodo.

CMC are good to learn about CFD's & Spread Betting - if you are prepared to
lose some money - as if you make money and they take it away from them (as I
did) - they will make sure you don't take anymore from them!

Personally I use E-trade as they also give you free L2 (from Moneyam),
Hoodless & Brennan as well as Comdirect. (I also have a mytrade account in the
US) I'm a great believer of spreading risk - that includes spreading between
brokers! (Its quite interesting to compare them against each other, and if I
have a problem with one, I can go to another! I must say my current spread of
brokers have given me no problems at all.)

Thanks for the above

LW,

"as if you make money and they take it away from them (as I
did) - they will make sure you don't take anymore from them"


Can you elaborate please?

Morning all,

Just a quick visit before I start crawling around on my knees again,
laying this flooring.

As already said above, in the absence of any other market moving
news, Greenspan will give the markets direction over the next 2 days.

Bears are fat on low volume. There will be a Bear squeeze that will
push stuff higher, but I don't know from what level. Greenspan will
decide that.

Haven't got time to watch every tick in the market at the moment, so
I've taken some modest position trades in GSK and MRW. They are already
near their March 2003 lows with loads of bad news already priced in.

If they go lower and don't break my stops, I've plenty of folding stuff
left to buy lower if the bottoms truly look to be in and the market trend
is reversed. If not, I maintain discipline and stop out.
As I type, GSK already in profit and MRW thinking about it.

Try and post something this evening again.
Good hunting all.

Melnibone.

Andy,

I had no problems with CMC, until after I transfered my original stake & part of my profit out of my account

We seem to be testing as resistance, the old short term support level around 4325....

MOSCOW (AFX) - Shares in Yukos plummeted in midafternoon trade after news
that the government is poised to sell the oil company's amin production asset,
dealers said.
At 2.50 pm, the stock was down 15.54 pct at 6.63 usd, its low for the day
and off an intraday high of 8.03.
newsdesk@afxnews.com
jms

Just a flying visit. Looked up at Bloomberg whilst laying some
flooring and saw GSK had jumped 3% in a morning on the back of
another company's news.
Seems a bit rich to me. Folk should be stock specific at the moment,
not sector specific, IMHO.

Happily took the profit and looking for some more Bulls to do the
same so that I can re-enter and take some of the same profit again.

God and Greenspan willing!
Is there a difference? :-))

Catch you later.

Melnibone.

Haven't posted much today as I've been trying to look at where we are and what's happening as well as dealing with a couple of other things.

Lobbed RPT, SBT for small losses.
Halved holdings in MRS and AQP for nice gain and small loss respecitvely.
Took new long on AHT with a tight stop.
Added to LAC short early and WBY long late.
Took MGCR long with tight stop late on.

For all the talk of reducing holdings, things got rather busy!!

Have a good evening all.

Evening all.

Looks like I made the right decision to take the GSK profit. Nice drop
this afternoon. Will wait to see what Greenspan has to say and the US
reaction before making a decision to buy them back again.

My MRW have dropped 0.75p including the spread. So not much
damage done there.

I see the alternate Telecoms, CTM and THUS, are still drifting down
as I suggested they would. 15p should give direction for THUS, if it
gets there to test it.
CTM could test the 28/30p lows unless it attracts some buyers soon.
Must be about time for someone to start yet another takeover rumour. :-)

The market looks like an oversold bounce off support to me. US will decide
how long and how far it goes. We aren't out of the woods yet.
Institutions, which move these markets, will probably wait to hear
what Greenspan has to say before commiting their funds. If they don't
like what they hear, the only buying pressure will come from Bears taking
profits and bottom fishers.

Still, range is still intact and we don't seem to be gurgling over
a cliff just yet.

Melnibone.