High oil prices, higher interest rates and inflation, high individual debt, institiutions pulling money from ftse250 to buy bonds, massive trade defecits. I have watched my smaller companies and high beta ftse 250 shares plunge this morn despite record figures from reporting this week. Can somebody give me some hope things will get better and not much worse over the next couple of months.

Open an account that allows you to play the down slopes as well as the up slopes. (A spreadbetting account for example). That way you don't get gloomy when everything's falling - you just switch sides ;o)

Cheers juzzle but isn't that easier said than done, if i was short a share i bet that would be the one that rose.

Just bet small until you feel more confident & your strike rate inproves, or even better just paper trade

Kivver - no more so than if you judge a share purchase wrong. I trade upslopes and downslopes, and I make more from the downslopes (mainly because whole-market shocks occur downwards, whereas upward shocks tend to be company-specific)(that is a gross over-generalisation, I know).

Risky times ? No

oh!

I agree with Abbie2 - you have pulled together a list of factors affecting the market today Kivver. But it is always possible to do so on any day and always has been. As someone more famous than me once said "Markets are the same as they've always been; everchanging."

;o)

Thanks for your replies but still no bull signs. How quickly will those Bear points change in this everchanging market? Not that quickly imho. I also notice an increase in violence in Iraq and the Dow going down quite a bit again. Lets hope Monday brings some better news.

sentiment Kivver , forget the news , trade what you see (as has been said so often)

Why buy and hold stocks when the general market is in a downtrend?it greatly reduces your chances of succsess imo.Why hold and hope have stops and cut your losses.

Kivver:

The trouble with news is, that once you know about it, so does everyone else, probably five minutes before you did. The thing is to read the map ahead.

A classic example occurred on Thursday when the MPC announced the 0.25% interest rate rise at 12:00 BST. The pound immediately fell (against the $), contrary to what might be expected. The rate rise had been expected and priced in days before by the markets, with a little speculation that it might be 0.5%. It was only 0.25%, so within seconds of the announcement, down went the pound.

Funny old world.

But if everybody sold we would not have a market?

Psychology largely controls stock markets i.e.peoples perception of events.