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.

go to FTSE thread .... lots of charts there for indices

done ?

and the target would be 12k but i am a sceptic of elliot

and heres a man in touch - NOT


WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. financial markets are "strong and solid," President Bush said Friday and urged Congress against raising taxes when it returns from its holiday break. Raising taxes would be "the worst thing" lawmakers could do for the economy, Bush said. Bush also said U.S. gasoline refineries should expand their output if Americans are concerned about rising gasoline prices. He also reiterated a White House plan to help keep homeowners in their houses.

Marketwatch:

Kevin Giddis, Morgan Keegan & Co.
"That stink you may smell was the jobs number; the December employment report failed at almost all levels to convince traders that the U.S. economy isn't headed for a recession," said Kevin Giddis, managing director, fixed income trading, Morgan Keegan & Co.
"Since 1949 the unemployment rate has never risen by this magnitude without the economy being in recession," said John Ryding, chief U.S. economist, Bear Stearns.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Just when you thought it was over, trouble in the $2.3 trillion bond-insurance business could trigger another wave of big write-downs from banks and brokerage firms, experts said Friday.

Looks like your elliott wave pattern came out spot on with 12k being almost hit, thanks for the info last month by the way, didn't see the thread again until today.

Shouldn't this thread now be called not so dubious sell off, how about fairly obvious sell off?

Black Tuesday" redirects here. For other uses, see Black Tuesday (disambiguation).


Crowd gathering on Wall Street.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Crash of 29, was - taking into consideration the full scope and longevity of its fallout - the most devastating stock market crash in American history. Two catchphrases, Black Thursday and Black Tuesday, evoke this collapse of stock values. Both are authentic, for the crash was no one-day affair. The initial crash occurred on Black Thursday (October 24, 1929), but it was the catastrophic downturn of Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929) five days later that precipitated widespread panic and the onset of unprecedented and long-lasting consequences for the United States. The collapse continued for a month. Economists and historians disagree as to what role the crash played in subsequent economic, social, and political events. Some consider it to be the beginning of the Great Depression, but most believe it was just one symptom.[citation needed]
It occasioned the institution of landmark financial reforms and new trading regulations.
At the time of the crash, New York City had grown to be a major metropolis and its Wall Street district one of the world's leading financial centers. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was the largest stock market in the world. The roaring twenties was a time of prosperity and excess in the city, and, despite warnings of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Irving Fisher proclaimed shortly before the crash, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."[1] The euphoria and financial gains of that great bull market were shattered on October 24, 1929, Black Thursday, when share prices on the NYSE collapsed. Stock prices fell on that day and they continued to fall, at an unprecedented rate, for a full month.
In the days leading up to Black Thursday the market was unstable. Periods of panic selling and high volumes of trading were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. After the crash the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) recovered early in 1930, only to reverse again, reaching a low point of the great bear market in 1932. The market did not return to pre-1929 levels until late 1954,[2] and was lower at its July 8, 1932 level than it had been since the 1800s.[3]
Anyone who bought stocks in mid-1929 and held onto them saw most of his adult life pass by before getting back to even.

steveo , don,t think now that elliot is the new wonder method , they called it wrong for 4 years!!!!

and no i did not take advantage of the forecast for that very reason

but we should all have paid attention to the charts! ..... i'm an arsehole and allowed the emotion of thinking a bounce had to happen instead of obeying the rules and shorting at least modestly to protect

to reiterate what i have written in FTSE thread, i think it is very likley that we will now see a (significant) bounce, certainly in Dow and prob FTSE too when the Fed mades its pronouncements on Tuesday ..... what no one knows is whether or not that will be sustainable to any degree at all, or whether, after the 10 minute euphoria, we shall see a drop straight through the Dow 12000

If only we could use a time machine, Falcothou, you've really cheered me up !

It's a possible scenario required field, $250-500 billion and counting is quite a lot of cash to lose. However all the corrections over the last 18 months have been great buying opportunities. Who is to say this will be any different? Will the Sovereign wealth funds save the day and the bull be restored? I'm shifting from equites to soft commodities long wise as they historically seem to do well in equity bear markets especially with a plummeting dollar

Im still quite new to investing and do not understand how shares fall so much with so little volume being sold. If its a mass sell off you could understand it but its not. Could it be the market makers making a killing?????? Can they buy low and wait for better conditions and sell high or doesn't it work like that??

suspect there is a lot more being sold than you realise, but has yet to show through .... basically MMs are saying they don't want stock, so if you want to sell, then inevitably it will be at a horrid price .... indeed, i suspect share in many of the minnows will be effectively unsaleable at any price

The main reason for a market to fall is a buyers strike. Wait for the rebound.

I agree. I tried to sell some BIOQUELL this morning & the on line quantity was so small that it was not worth the bother.

On another topic, to follow the Dubious sell off header, the following appeared in the weekend FT:
"ACA Capital, which has deals with more than 30 banks to guarantee payments on some $60bn worth of bonds & derivatives, last night faced a deadline to pay close to $2bn or face insolvency."
What started as just the main banking institutions is now filtering down to the bond insurance business.
The FT concludes by saying "The falure to spot the problems at ACA just weeks before they emerged is a salutary reminder of the potential for further credit storms".

Starting to see just silly prices now, are we near the bottom ? really hope so...

certainly looking very weak, I have put in some silly buy orders just in case we see a silly dip towards close of play. The idea would be if triggered today to sell if we have a bounce tomorrow. If not these companies are a hold long term.

As for predicting the bottom, I would think the bottom would be lower. (At some time)

The City: Is the Party Over?

Tuesday 22 January 2008 9:00-9:45 (Radio 4 FM)

Repeated: Tuesday 22 January 2008 21:30-21:58 (Radio 4 FM)

Greg Wood reports on the effect of the credit crunch on the City. From the trading floors of Canary Wharf to the private equity Houses of the West End, he hears tales of fear, greed and the most serious convulsion to hit the City in a generation as bonuses are cancelled and jobs cut. Is the party over for one of Britain's major industries, and is the rest of the nation going to have to pick up the bill?

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They don't seem to interested on the Traders side about these informative radio programmes, so thought I'd put this on here as well.

Don't you just love it? ;-))))