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.

Actually small caps will probably do worse than large caps in a bear market. The main reason is that small caps are generally "one trick ponies". e.g. They could do really really well, if they strike oil (or whatever market they are in), but they could fall flat on their face if it goes wrong. Large caps have lots of diversity. One piece of bad news will only make a small dent in the overall prospects. Of course you won't get rich quick with large caps, but you won't (shouldn't) get poor quick either. Remember that "bear" and "bull" are sentiment indicators. Bulls are happy to take lots of risks with their money, so markets (particularly small caps) are generally over valued on the chance of some good news. The bulls will also stay invested, on the "hope" of better news if something slightly fails to meet expectations. e.g. Missed RNS, late drilling results. etc. Bears don't like taking risk, so money is pulled out of high risk, and switched into defensive plays. Remember too that market makers (who must buy the shares) don't like risk. Holding lots of shares is risky, so in a falling market, prices are marked down quicker than in a rising market (bescause they don't know when they'll get rid of them).

Strawbs.

Don't think anyone can blame Bernanke particularly. He will have far more facts, advisors and computer models on the state and direction of the economy (US and globally) than all of us. Probably better to have a few alarm bells now to slow things down, rather than suddenly falling off a cliff later.

Strawbs.

Good afternoon, everyone!

Who's still alive out there? Has everyone headed for the lifeboats, or are there a few stalwarts still sitting with the orchestra for a few more choruses of "Abide With Me"?

Phillip Coggan of the FT had this to say regarding forthcoming inflation news:

>>However, it is a good rule of thumb that the more worried investors are about a piece of data in advance, the greater the likelihood of a rebound in prices when their worst fears are not realised.

Ian Scott, a strategist at Lehman Brothers, says the sell-off in stock markets has been overdone. Global equities may now be close to a bottom. The large volumes traded over the last few days may indicate some squaring of positions. In other words, the deleveraging may be close to an end. < <

Read the full article here, but only if you have a subscription to FT.com

Maybe so, maybe not. Personally I'm inclined to take a sanguine view of things given that the one price that's really driving my portfolio is that of crude. Some companies that are being hammered now are just begging to be bought, or soon will be, IMO.

All together now, " . . . fast falls the eventide . . . ." (Remember when the Paratroopers all sing that at the end of "A Bridge too Far"? Magic.)

PS - sorry about all that text in the FT.com link. Have tried to correct it but I can't. Doesn't anything function properly around here ??!! ;o)

Ah Soul*, I think there is a lot of truth in the comment that, in this instance, the actuality will be a relatively pleasant surprise ...... however, such is the state of the market, that any recovery could well be very short-lived

I'm counting on it, Cynic. Just in the process of liquidating my MOG holding so I've got more cash with which to go bargain hunting with a big stick when the time comes.

You know me; I like to post inflammatory comment to see what comes of it :o)

having lightened quite a bit already and taken shorts on FTSE (lovely!) and DOW and S&P (both in the money), unsure whether to ditch some VOG purely on the basis that I ams till overweight there, but am reluctant to do so

Sounds like a good tactic Cynic.

VOG will come back, sooner or later. Why not try a binary bet or something if you think there's some downside to be exploited?

from what i hear, binary is far far too scary for muppets like me! ..... In fact, closed my short postions and went long Dow and FTSE ...... guess i'll just keep very close stops on them

I wonder if the Dow can keep up today ,,good start.

Spoke too soon .

wed should be key day for short term the cpi from the us is released this is the last big indicator before the rate meeting on 29/6.

This market f****** is b*******

It will turn at some point .Patience .

I'm slightly perturbed by news on FT.com that oil stocks have reached one billion barrels.

>> Oil inventories in the developed world rose to more than 1bn barrels, their highest level in more than 20 years, as high prices are weighing on consumption, according to the International Energy Agency, the energy watchdog for the developed world.

The oil inventories are higher than the levels seen in 1998, which triggered an oil price collapse to $10 as oil demand growth started to slow. < <

Full Article

Any views?

It's done it again with the links - apologies, will mention it to the website mechanic.

Normally when everything is looking like it can only get worse.....it does.......the opposite. I wonder if we might actually see a bear rally before the end of the week. The markets have been selling off ahead of the CPI numbers on Wednesday, but given that bulls over estimate the positive, bears also over estimate the negative. Even if the figures turn out to be rather bad, it wouldn't surprise me if we actually saw some kind of a rally afterwards.

Strawbs.

strawbs end of week is key as shorts have to be closed on friday in uk ,us & europe.with the cpi figs to many times they are a non-event as everybody is focused on them.

So as a guess where do we head tomorrow than.are we with a surprise,and a small rally to calm the downward trend.

My guess is that London will open quite sharply down on the back of Wall Street. However, the movements on Dow this evening seemed almost without impetus, notwithstanding that the index closed at its lows. I (wishfully) think that a good bounce could be imminent, though that depends on how bad the US CPI figures turn out tomorrow afternoon. If not too frightening, then we could see quite a sharp turn around, which may be short-lived ..... Or at least that is what I think at the moment, and without any proper logic other than markets cannot and do not keep falling headlong day after day.