rather than pick out individual stocks to trade, it can often be worthwhile to trade the indices themselves, especially in times of high volatility.

for those so inclined, i attach below charts for FTSE and FTSE 250, though one might equally be tempted to trade Dow or S&P, which is significantly broader in its coverage, or even NASDAQ

for ease of reading, i have attached 1 year and 3 month charts in each instance

Some of the spanish plonk tastes like oil !, yuck !.

mortgage interest rates will fall when the lending banks start to compete for new replacement business as their mortgage books run down, with property prices likely to slump over the next year lenders will not be in any hurry to compete for new business. imho.

Yes I think yr right Halifax, in Shares (today) a reader suggests that RBS not doing "repossessions" will help to extend the housing-fall . . . making it more painful for the rest of us.

I wonder if those that bought at the top ( without a property to sell, thereby negating the silly-prices)...should hand-back the keys?
It's very sad but the fact is most properties sold since 2004 are woefully overvalued....esp B2L where a small amount of ignorance oiled a fraud machine, even if the purputrators were seemingly straight.

There never was a future for folks that borrowed 6x salary, or 120% of valuation, since the valuations are by humans....who can be led astray.

My local paper is still advertising courses for Building Efficiency Inspectors ( Part of the HIP fiasco)....er, no thanks, I'd rather burn a peasant. I think houses are selling at the rate of 1-per-week...Oh deary.

memory tells me that house prices have fallen to around 2005/2006 levels

I read just recently that the banks are reluctant to lend until the new year, the reason being that they want to appear to have sound finances at the year end, I believe it also mentioned that the libor rate will come more in line with the base rate then.
2517

Until the government relax their punitive rules on money lent to banks for re-capilisation, it is very unlikely that banks will lend more freely. The priority will be to pay the government back as quickly as possible by hoarding money.

When the government says they want bank lending back to 2007 levels, isn't this part of the reason why we in this situation now.

Would houseowners with serious negative equity be better served by handing their keys over to the lending bank and declaring themselves bankrupt?

The interest rate cut looks like panic to me, not much room for any false manoevres now !, I prefer the bit by bit approach, down to 2% now......what they are saying ?: go out and spend ....get yourselves further in to debt ! what has happened to save up for something and then go and buy it !, encouraging the youth today into "buy now and pay later" is a recipe for disaster and should be stopped, parents and government alike should set an example !.

rf didn't the goverment change the bankrupcy laws and made it easier for borrowers to avoid their creditors and start borrowing again with a clean slate.

You know, I think they did !, it gets worse day by day.

Oil now under $45 heading south?

you would be a very brave man to back that hunch, as assuredly the price will turn, and when it does so, the move will be sharp ...... >$50 is not economical even for Saudi, which is, I think, the cheapest major producer, so though the shorters may be having their day, the wise ones will at least be starting to bank their profits ..... remember, it is the cold months that are now fast approaching and not the warm ones

Oil was uneconomical for many countries at $10, but it stayed there for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised to see the price overshoot on the downside in the same way as it did on the up. Remember, markets are sometimes irrational for longer than you might think.

Strawbs.

The yanks are talking about gasoline at $1 per gallon next year they need to revive their auto industry which up till now looked in terminal decline. One good thing has come out of the oil price spike is that the americans have been made aware that "gas guzzlers" are on the way out.

Merrill Lynch warns oil price could fall to $25 next year (source FT).

Gazprom was warning of $200 in July and Goldman's $175. However if the cost of production is $80 for Brazil and Iran approx. and $45 for Saudi and the price goes below that for a period of time they simply won't bother taking it out of the ground and then you get a supply crunch and the price goes up surely?May be the costs will drop with lower rig/ labour hire but there is no viable global substitute for oil, we love to drive!

Most oil producing countrys need cash to maintain their ever more costly infrastructure it is all about supply and demand. At the moment it looks as though buyers are going to regain the "high ground" after the greedy producers have nearly wrecked the world economy. As far as this winter is concerned the oil has been bought forward already. Production costs will be cut back after the excesses of 2007/8.

"after the greedy producers have nearly wrecked the world economy"
Not really sure that the World economy has been , erm, lets say "Subdued" by the producers of oil.
I agree that the high prices contributed greatly to the general downturn but the flames were fanned by the irrational thought that the economies of the world could only go up.
Demand for crude grew and grew withy countries such as china using as much oil as could be pumped from the ground and as we all know, supply and demand are the main factors that mould the market price, cost of houses in this country being a case in point........

halifax .... you are talking absolute crap! ..... "production costs will be cut back" - perhaps you could explain how? ..... "greedy producers ....." - again absolute rubbish ..... the world has changed since 1973 (or was it 1983) and world economies learnt to adapt to higher oil prices

strawbs ..... when oil was $10.00, gold was $30.00 ..... all sorts of radical things have changed in the world since those days ..... there is no doubt in my mind, that though the oil price is indeed market and supply/demand driven, if it stays too low too long, the likes of Aramco (Saudi to you) will just stop work on developing new wells etc and generally cut back supply until it becomes economic once more

I think the oil price was driven up by speculation and demand. Demand from the new emerging economies put pressure on supply, which struggled due to years of under investment. Investors/speculators jumped on the bandwagaon amidst reports of a new economic boom and the rapidly approaching "peak oil". Tight supply became squeezed and the only direction was up. Most oil producers suffered from years of under valued oil, so they can hardly be blamed for wishing to redress the balance.

Indeed the world has changed, and yet in many ways remained the same. I believe a number of oil sources are uneconomical at these prices, e.g. deep water oil, tar sands etc. Given a few years of unwinding speculation and balanced demand then the price should recover some lost ground.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.