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.

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.

No gamble, no gains

Spreadbetters did OK HARRY. ;-))) Not so sure your broker is right though - they rarely are. LOL!

I've done nicely out of catching a few oversold stocks, but it may not be long before I take the quick easy short term cash. Less than 2 months 'til May, when they sell and go away.

be interesting to if that dictum holds true this year ...... if the market has still not recovered its poise, then it may well not be the case

Fun, isn't it, trying to second guess the moves of the masses? Required reading below. ;-0

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

the euphoria evaporates .... Wall Street now down on the day having been up by about 60 at one point ..... watch out!

It didn't last did it. How will asia react come monday? Could be a rocky week ahead.

Re May, will there be a rally until then followed by a more bearish market or will it trade sideways for a while as an average with regular volatility as last summer? Or down then up or just down? Wish I knew..gonna sit on the fence on that one.

Keeps your brain active this game doesn't it?

so glad im a glass half-full type at this time, made a nice profit topping up thanks to all the bears with negative sentiments, thanks guys.

worked in both directions depending on your timing

Don't rule the bears out just yet. The original sell off appeared from nowhere and the next one might just do the same.

Strawbs.
Who's glass is totally empty. :-)

It would seem that cynic's forecast of "up & down like a whore's knickers" is coming true. Many stocks seem to be taking a hit for no particular reason.
Does anyone know if the first week in april is a sell-off time prior to the end of the tax year?

Sometimes, although often you see a bounce as all the end of year ISA / pension / fund money pours in. The whole thing could fly until April 6th in that case.

Toss a coin? ;-))

Probably has something to do with the Yen strengthening again......carry trade fears added to yesterday's "sub prime" problems....

Strawbs.

Iceberg, of, tip, the

Please re-arrange for the financial nuclear scenario with regards carry trade. ;-))

Think I saw somewhere that 114 on the $/Yen is the level where things start to get very interesting. By interesting I mean bad.......

Strawbs

could be fun tomorrow morning, dow currently down 200ish...

Hmmm... Nasdaq volume tracking over 25% higher today, NYSE volume up over 20%. Nasdaq rose yesterday but on lowest volume day since December 29. Indicates attempted rally will fail, and that the correction has plenty to run. FTSE to test 6,000 by the end of the week?

Steve

and Dow quite likely to test 12000