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.

so glad i'm a 'glass half full' kinda bloke who topped up a bit. Now the the question is do i take the profit on azm. Also topped up on kmr and acc but only up a little at the mo.

Kivver, just read your profile!!! Awesome!!! With a profile like that you deserve.........well, good luck!
Half full is the way forward,........... I think. :o)

12300???????

not nearly as sanguine as ellio .... market certainly fell too far too fast, and is typically now performing the reverse trick

It doesn't seem to want to regain the gap

Weakish finish on Wall Street; pretty weak start to London; weekend about to start ..... down seems the obvious call, but by how much?

Think they're all waiting for non farm payrolls......which means it'll probably come in as expected and still leave everyone clueless....

Strawbs.

US employment data at 1.30 GMT will determine. I'm about to go away for a long weekend, so I'm staying out. So many different opinions, points of view - I can't believe I'm being so risk-averse!

IMO, we still have further to go down, but I will let the charts show me.

Good luck to those who dip their toes in today.

Steve

the employment data will be interpreted whicehver way the market feels inclined ..... if strong, the market could either decide that indicates more underlying inflation or that yippee the economy is still strong ..... if weak, proof that recessionary times are just around the corner or that yippee inflation and/or rate rises have been pushed back

Dull, Dull, Dull! Everyone watching & waiting for the DOW to open?

US employment data will be fundamental (1.30pm our time) IMHO.

...Could go either way.

Edit:
http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=1830111

Thanks to Kyoto In the Investor's Room

it will certainly affect the markets' direction, but as i postde above, whatever the figures say, they can be interpreted as good or bad depending on the prevailing mood

well well well ..... so far so wrong with Dow, but shall hold my Dow short open as a hedge against being long on stocks (apart from BFC) ..... and will Dow reconsider and go into reverse?

here is the transcript of the US employment figures ..... i have highlighted the bits i think are most interesting ..... it could be well argued that the severe slump in construction jobs is a reflection of a similar fall in house-building starts, which i would have thought was a firm indication of a creaking economy.

US February non-farm payrolls up 97,000, unemployment rate falls to 4.5 pct
AFX


WASHINGTON (AFX) - US employers added fewer employees to their payrolls last month than in each of the prior two months as construction hiring plummeted, the Labor Department said today. Still, the unemployment rate fell slightly in February.

The economy added 97,000 jobs in February, essentially in line with the 100,000 jobs economists had expected from the survey of employer payrolls.

It's the slowest payroll growth since January 2005, when 95,000 jobs were added. The unemployment rate, taken from a separate survey of households, fell slightly to 4.5 pct in the month from 4.6 pct.

The drop was led by a 62,000 drop in construction jobs, the sharpest decline in the sector since 1991.

In December and January, the number of jobs added was revised up by 55,000 to a cumulative two-month total of 372,000.

Average hourly wages rose 0.4 pct in February, or 0.06 usd, to 17.16 usd.

Average hourly earnings have risen 4.1 pct in the past year, unchanged from the 12 months leading up to January.

The average workweek fell slightly to 33.7 pct in February from 33.8 in the prior month.

In the past twelve months to February, non-farm payrolls rose by 2 mln. For all of 2006, non-farm payrolls rose a revised 2.26 mln.

cynic, in answer to post 551, I am still in at the mo and have had a bit of a spree adding to some stocks that in retrospect I should have sold and bought back, but I'm sure that applies to most of us. However the ones am picking are backed by legislation or expected increase in interest such as wng, chp, ptr, iph, pele,kmr,atcg

The market seems to have settled quicker than last May but there is certainly more fear in the air than a month ago, although risks have been well documented for a while.

The non-farm pay-rolls were quite benign, except construction which could be predicted considering US housing market. That has to be the key to future fluctuations but I generally see a mildly bullish outlook when looking at the global predictions. I think a period of slower rises or even static trend levels but with occasional volatility. I think ftse will end up about 6500 for year end at a complete guess, as there are just too many things that can happen.

So there are my colours, blue with a mild hint of green and the odd red spot that's hard to shift over the next 9 months. However that is my humble and probably wrong opinion, so I guess I could be one of the crowd. Any other thoughts?

i am incapable of sensible thought! .... however, as hoped rather than predicted, Wall Street is now having second thoughts about those figures ..... as for the markets settling down quickly, i suspect you are in the minority to believe that ..... my view is that there is still plenty of nastiness ahead

I think they sold the bounce at resistance? We'll see how the session ends.

All in all a reasonable result for those of us trading normal stocks.
Perhaps not so good for the spreadbetters, but in the short term confidence seems to be back, so hoping for a moderate rise next week.
My local broker is of the opinion that 6500 on the FTSE is about right. Over that figure & he thinks it will not be sustainable.

I agree about short term nastiness but it appears at this stage to be less volatile than May, tempting fate saying that!!

Caution still required.