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.

not exactly but certainly much much happier than many

Having seen the Nikkei & the Dow fall over 300 points, I was expecting a big sell off first thing this morning. Dow futures are currently only 20 points down, so maybe the FTSE can ride out this particular storm.

I'm viewing the market with the expectation of sideways tracking for the foreseeable future, it has remained bullish overall this year, but every time it gets a head of steam now, events on the other side of the Atlantic peg it back, and long term holds aside, it appears a good time, currently to take profits as and when and buy back in on dips...

am glad to have been hedging with shorts ..... Dow saved me a bundle last night and am now making a modest profit on FTSE short ..... but do wish $ would strengthen, though took out 50% last night with a very small profit

Mixed day for dow with strong recovery at end of play, ftse future well up due to...

On the data front, the Labor Department reported the economy created 166,000 jobs in October, helping investors brush aside lingering fears over weakness in the housing and credit sectors. The growth in nonfarm payrolls marked the best showing since May, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.7%.

These figures are likely to be revised at some point as usual. I expect reasonable start to week. Next economics from states on tues with redbook on retail sales, job vacancies and public debt.

Monday looks to be heading for another horror with news that Citigroup is in a real mess ...... i am currently long both FTSE and Dow but shall be closing those PDQ and quite probably reversing same.

Leeson's losses were small change compared with the current ones irrespective on inflation .
As the losses grew, Leeson requested extra funds to continue trading, hoping to extricate himself from the mess by more deals. Over three months he bought more than 20,000 futures contracts worth about $180,000 each in a vain attempt to move the market. Some three quarters of the $1.3 billion he lost Barrings resulted from these trades. When Barings executives discovered what had happened, they informed the Bank of England that Barings was effectively bust. In his wake Nick Leeson had wiped out the 233 year old Baring investment Bank, who proudly counted HM The Queen as a client. The $1.3 billion dollars of liabilities he had run up was more than the entire capital and reserves of the bank.

Just heard on BBC news that Mervyn King has said that it will take months for all of the U.K. banks to report on their exposure to sub-prime debt. It will be intersting to see if the FTSE falls dramatically each time they produce their figures. I can't personally see any of them coming out with good figures; only either 'better or worse than expected'. Each piece of news should see a broker revaluation which should make for intersting times!

interesting quote on marketwatch about US yesterday "plunge prtection team did not want to step in front of a train"

for those calling a bear market the number is 12850 , below will be the bear

nasty reversal this morning and with Dow indications suddenlt dumping 100+ points ...... have heard, but can find no confirmation, that yet another US bank has horrid results due to sub-prime

curiously, $ has suddenly found some strength, but then it could not keep tanking for ever without at least pausing

cynic , wachovia

thanks ..... and that's a big bank too ...... had a nice profit running on FTSE long earlier and only a minor loss on Dow ditto ...... chopped both at a beastly loss, but hey ho ...... have also dumped some other dross from my portfolio, which at best were going nowhere and on balance were much more likely to fall

growl

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sentiment among consumers continued to slide downhill in November, as views on current conditions sunk to the level since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, according to a survey released Friday by Reuters and the University of Michigan.
Both the consumer sentiment and current conditions indexes reached their second lowest levels in 15 years.
Monthly consumer sentiment hit 75.0 -- below Wall Street's expectations of 79.5 and the prior month's reading of 80.9.
The consumer expectations index for November reached 64.7 -- the lowest level since Hurricane Katrina -- down from 70.1 in October.

bank of america restarted the rot towards the close

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- More warnings from the nation's largest banks of additional losses on mortgage assets Friday had investors worrying that more shoes have yet to drop in the credit crunch.
Wachovia Corp. (WB:Wachovia Corp
News, chart, profile, more
Last: 41.75+1.45+3.60
WB 41.75, +1.45, +3.6%) said in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it's anticipating loan losses between $500 million and $600 million in the fourth quarter, citing anticipated loan growth and the impact of continuing credit deterioration in its loan portfolio. The company said its asset-backed CDO portfolio saw a loss of $1.1 billion before taxes in October. See full story.
Bank of America Corp.
BAC 44.81, +1.31, +3.0%) said on Friday that dislocations in the market for collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, will knock the bank's fourth-quarter results.

.......... \"dislocations in the market for collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs,\" .........


What they really mean is they ain\'t, and probably never will be, worth what they paid for them. Most CDOs were AAA-rated earlier this year. ;-))

Not too much in the way of economic data next week, so may possibly see a bit of upward movement.
Tuesday/wednesday sees figures from the U.S. including housing starts, petroleum status report & initial jobless claims.
Quite a few U.K. companies reporting interim & final results, but can't see any of the big financials on the list, so no big shocks to be revealed hopefully.

"but can't see any of the big financials on the list, so no big shocks to be revealed hopefully."

I"ll believe that when I don't see it -):

The message now is SELL off the banks....


$2 trillion lending crunch seen. Goldman Sachs economist says mounting credit losses could force banks to significantly scale back their lending.

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- The mortgage wipeout could result in a $2 trillion cutback in lending and have dramatic implications for the U.S. economy, according to Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.

The housing slump is expected to end up costing banks, hedge funds and other lenders an estimated $400 billion as defaults on home loans rise, according to Goldman economist Jan Hatzius.

A $400 billion loss is equal to just about 2.5 percent of U.S. stock market capitalization - or a bad day on Wall Street, he wrote in a commentary on Thursday.

But most stock investors don't react aggressively to capital losses the way banks and other lenders do. A bank that aims to maintain a capital ratio of 10 percent would need to shrink its balance sheet by $10 for every $1 in credit losses, the note said.

That means that if lenders end up suffering just half of the $400 billion in potential credit losses, they could be forced to reduce the amount they loan by $2 trillion. Such a drastic credit crunch could have dire consequences for the economy.

"Even if this occurs gradually, and even if there are some offsets from reduced credit demand and increased lending by other sectors, the drag on economic activity could be substantial," Hatzius wrote.

Wall Street banks and brokerages face pain on two fronts. They hold home loans, as well as securities backed by mortgages. Losses on these holdings are expected to deepen as falling housing prices trigger more defaults.

There are a number of factors that could lessen the lending shock, Hatzius noted. Regulators could encourage financial institutions to keep lending, even in times of stress. Some players could raise additional capital by selling stakes in themselves.

But the overall outlook is bleak, as pressure on lending is likely to raise the risk of "significant weakness" in economic activity, the note said.

Jobless claims post surprising jump.
Newly filed claims for unemployment rose to 339,000 last week, the highest total in a month.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits rose by a larger-than-expected amount last week, partly reflecting the impact of the California wildfires and a writers' strike.

The Labor Department said that the number of applications for jobless benefits jumped by 20,000 to 339,000, the highest total in a month.

The increase was double what economists had been expecting.

Labor Department analysts said that the California wildfires boosted the number of jobless claims by about 2,000 layoffs and the writer's strike, which has shut down production on many television programs, was also having an impact.

Over the past three weeks, the wildfires have increased jobless claims by between 5,000 and 6,000, primarily reflecting businesses that have had to close or lay off workers because of disruptions caused by the fires.

The increase in claims occurred after three consecutive weekly declines. Because of that improvement, the four-week average for claims remained unchanged last week at 330,000.