The market seems to be selling-off on the back of limited bad news imo, apart from the dollar that is.

If you can hold your nerve and apart from any short term requirements to offload poor performing stocks, I have a couple!!, my advice would be sit tight. This does not have the feel of the tech(mining!) bubble at all. Difference being there are a lot of good fundamentals, unlike in 2000 when there were a lot of over rated nothing companies.

I'm generally a long term investor, but do go overweight when I see the potential for extra returns. I try to buy when the market is on the floor and sell before the market is done, rather than chase the money. I sold my entire portfolio 6 weeks before the tech bubble crash and didn't invest again for nearly 2 years. I've done very well out of a bull market that's now been running for 3 years, and I'm expecting a downturn before too long, so for me it's time to lock in my profits and sit things out until the dust settles. I sold my mining portfollio 2 weeks ago, and now hold only a handful of oil and gas stocks. If I feel the time is right, I'll sell them too and walk away. If history is a guide to the future, there will be another major correction. Maybe not today or even this year, but it will come. With options expiry in the US today, don't be surprised if things get choppy again this afternoon. As ever though. Just my opinion. Good luck with your investments.

Strawbs.

ellio , i go along with Strawbs sentiment, i don't know where we are going next ,if not down then maybe sideways ,so thats why i'm happy to wait ,if the market looks like its going to pick up then i'll start looking to get back in .

Good points, Strawbs.

I too would like to be able to ride the ups succesfully and either take some profits inorder to ride out the downs. Good point by Ellio about betting on a falling market, though.

I have to agree with Ellio about the fundamentals, however I feel that part of the game is about being able to anticipate the crowd, certainly over the longer term, which is what Strawbs seems to have done successfully.

Given that there has already been a massive fallout, my gut feeling without knowledgeable logic, tells me that the expiry of options in NY will not have a negative influence - i.e. any damage is already done.

Lots of you are far more knowledgeable than me (not hard!), so please correct me if my comment is typical codswallop!

Well done Strawbs you are a canny investor!!

Good points by all? have your shorts ready strawb and then you can win both ways??

Ellio, what would you short though? as I actually TRADE both ways but my investment portfolio long is for the long term.

I can see no compelling reason to short (because of this correction)any small caps/aim stocks that are trading on underdemanding P/E ratios in general and consistantly not only meeting forecasts but beating them.

If we were to go back to 2000 and the start of the Bear market not only were techs trading in silly P/Es well over 50 but stocks in general had been pulled up.

Obviously their is the one off situations, but these were their before this correction.

In short I feel we will be back to positive ways in a few weeks time.

I still though think the MMs get away with murder in times like this.

where's there's volatility there's money to be made

snappy .... and if you can make money, you can also lose it!

However, I would love some retort or comment to my post 103 (above)

I'm sure I could've been in and out of the market either sooner or later. Same with buying or selling. If I was that good I'd make a living out of it. :-)

When I sold off ahead of the tech bubble it was more fear of losing some very big profits, rather than any massive insight. It felt right to be out. A gut feeling thing I guess. The same feeling hit me recently. Watching my BHP shares going wildly up and down in a range all day, just gave me that sinking feeling again. So I did the same as last time. In fact after writing my last post, I decided to take advantage of the current rally and sell my remaining stock. I suddenly remembered the hand of history again. Maybe the market will continue to rise, or maybe the fall is already upon us. Who knows. I guess I'll just sleep better at night knowing I'm out of the action for now.

As for shorting, I've never been much of a "trader". My system works well for me, and I fear trying to learn a new technique now just means giving back all my profits. Something I don't want to do.

I'll continue to keep an eye on the market, and if I can see some genuine bargains then I'll be back. At the moment though, my fear is more dominant than my greed. Maybe I scare too easy. Only time will tell. Good luck with your investments.

Stawbs.

I think posters should have a look at the BA results on the front page here.

lets not forget they have had massive increases in fuel costs, but as it hurt them, I think not.

Theres just too much panic around.

In fact Ill post it here.........

BA tops expectations
MoneyAM
British Airways has reported a better-than-expected 21% increase in full year pretax profit.

The numbers were driven by growth in passengers travelling in premium price seats.

For the year to March 31st 2006, BA made a pretax profit of 620m, compared to analyst expectations of 548m-602m and 513m last time.

Full year operating profit also topped hopes, increasing 27% to 705m compared to analyst expectations of 666m-704m.

Pretax profit for the fourth quarter was 91m, ahead of analysts' consensus hopes of 51m and versus a 6m loss last time.

Fourth quarter operating profit was 93m compared to analysts consensus expectations of 77m and 46m last time.

Full year operating margin was 8.3%, up from 7.2% and was 4.4% in the fourth quarter, versus 2.5%.

Group turnover for the year was 8.52bn, up 9.6% on a flying programme 2.4% bigger in available tonne kilometers (ATKs).

For the fourth quarter, group turnover was up 13.2% at 2.12bn on a flying programme 2.2% higher in ATKs.

'These are good results with revenue performance driven by improvements in seat factors and yield,' said CEO, Willie Walsh.

'We achieved an operating margin of 8.3% and as a result all our staff will share in a 48m bonus. We remain committed to our goal of reaching a 10% margin by 2008. Our shorthaul business is now in profit for the first time in 10 years but we have still more to do.'

Net debt at 1.6bn fell by 1.3bn during the year, a 5bn reduction since its December 2001 peak. Operating cashflow was 1.3bn, an increase of 334m.

BA's total costs increased 8.2%. The annual fuel bill rose 44.7% to 1.6bn, while employee costs were up 5%.

The airline revealed the accounting deficit in the New Airways Pension Scheme (NAPS) is up by 101m to 2.1bn, despite the company's increased contributions and equity markets at a five year high.

'We have announced our proposal to tackle the pension deficit and I am pleased with the dialogue we have had with staff, trustees and trade unions on this vital issue,' said Walsh.

Looks OK. Although it's not one of my sectors, so I don't really know. The question I would be asking is how much will the debt repayments cost next year with maybe another 1/2 % or more on interest rates. Continued high oil and energy prices, possibly slowing consumer demand due to the same factors on industry and consumers (e.g higher personal/company debt repayments, energy costs). These things are cummulative. Maybe my thinking is different because of my investment stratergy. I look for improving prospects to be "in" when the crowd get interested, rather that "in" when things look rosey. Who knows. Investing is a personal choice, and people need to go with their own instincts. Just my point of view at the end of the day.

Strawbs.

Strawbs - you may like to check out Mark Shipman who has recently written a very interesting book on investing in commodities

Thanks. I'll take a look. Can you give me an overview?

Strawbs.

He is an active trader who actually makes his living trading commodities. He argues that straight commdities, rather than shares in mining etc, will always in the long term go up, though he agree with me, when I e-mailed him last week that commodities - e.g. copper and gold - were well overdue for a substantial correction; why did I not take my own advice? ..... He highlights in particular the growing needs for commodities in the developing economies, especially China (of course) and India .

He has a web page trend-follower.com

OK. Sounds interesting. I'll take a look.

Strawbs.

Conspiracy theory???

Artificially created sell-off, warning shot to lots of small investors, don't want too many private investors making too much money. There has been alot of money pumped back into the markets recently, they don't want to kill the investment flat again.

The theory is that investments are best left to the profesionals, I think thats what they were trying to do. The mm's just go and make it look worse by marking everything down ridulously and making it look worse than it actually is.

Still time will tell.

Worked with me. :-) But as you say. Only time will tell.

Strawbs.

Ellio .... what a load of rubbish!

Putting it more diplomatically, Ellio, that's an interesting thought, but it may indicate that you've been thinking about the issue a little too much.