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

John Chambers, chairman of S&P's sovereign ratings committee, said it could have been avoided if the political stalemate over the US debt ceiling had been resolved earlier.
"The first thing it could have done is raise the debt ceiling in a timely matter so the debate would have been avoided to begin with," he said.

exactly so, and all one can add is that the american politicians (i think primarily the republicans) have portrayed themselves as the typical irresponsible, self-seekers that is the hallmark of most of their ilk

Cynic - That US downgrade, was it announced prior to US close 9.30pm Friday or overnight, this morning?

this morning

New Fears Of Market Chaos After Downgrade





Sky News 2011, 14:39, Saturday 6 August 2011

G7 finance ministers are to speak this weekend amid concerns of further turmoil in the global financial markets in the wake of the US credit rating downgrade.

Credit ratings agency Standard and Poor's said early on Saturday it had downgraded the country from its top AAA rating to AA+.

The loss of the top-notch rating could reignite panic on the markets with traders fearing the world's biggest economy may be heading back to recession.

Markets around the globe have suffered huge falls this week, although the US Dow Jones ended higher on Friday after better-than-expected employment figures.

In London, the FTSE 100 index of leading UK shares closed the day at 5246.99, down 146 points or 2.71%.

More than 148bn was wiped off the FTSE's value last week - a plunge of 568.2 points or 10.15% - caused by the eurozone debt crisis and fears the UK economy is stalling.

In other European markets, Germany's DAX (Xetra: ^GDAXI - news) ended Friday down 2.8% and the CAC (Xetra: 924169 - news) in France fell 1.2%. Italy was 1.7% lower and Spain dipped by 0.2%.

But in the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.54% at the close following volatile trading. The broader S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC - news) dipped 0.06%, while the technology-based Nasdaq Composite (Nasdaq: ^IXIC - news) fell 0.94%.

Over the week - the worst for American markets in more than two years - the Dow (NYSE: DPD - news) fell by a total of 5.8%, the S&P 500 was down 7.2% and the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^NDX - news) was off 8.1%.

The Nikkei index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange has slumped by 5.4% since last Monday.

Worries that Italy and Spain may need a bailout have sparked a new crisis in the eurozone.

In a bid to restore confidence Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to balance the country's budget in 2013, a year earlier than planned.

But he has ruled our early elections in 2012 to stem panic in the markets, saying this was not an option.

"This has absolutely not been talked about," he told reporters in Rome. "This has never been an option."

Spain says its prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have agreed on the need for a co-ordinated response from eurozone members to global concerns about its future.

News that 117,000 new jobs were created in the US last month brought some comfort to investors there on Friday before panic returned to the markets amid concerns of slower global growth.

US analysts said the sell-off was driven by fears over the European debt crisis and anxiety about slow growth, high unemployment and falling consumer confidence and spending.

IG Index analyst David Jones (Xetra: 898370 - news) said: "There is a growing sense that there is real confusion over how to deal with underlying problems... the slowing pace of recovery, threat of recession and eurozone contagion spreading.

"On 7 July, only 29 days ago, the FTSE 100 (Euronext: VFTSE.NX - news) was etching just north of the 6,000-point mark. This weekend, analysts, investors and traders will all be asking themselves what has happened since early July."

Prices of gold, which is traditionally seen as a safe haven in times of economic crisis, held firm as the dollar fell against the euro after the US jobs boost.

But Kingsview Financial head trader and strategist Matt Zeman said: "Even gold is susceptible. People are pretty much getting out of everything, except cash and bonds."

Investor confidence was hit on Thursday when EU president Jose Manuel Barroso wrote a letter to eurozone members, warning the debt crisis was spreading

As long as the USA do not get rated as junk. It seems once as a country hits the slippery slope the down grades move fast. Hope they prove me wrong.

Saudi stock market first to plunge on S&P downgrade




15:28, Saturday 6 August 2011

Saudi Arabia's stock market dropped 5.46pc on Saturday as it became the first exchange to react to the historic US credit downgrade.Not open on the Thurs and Fri before, may not be to bad. Just catching up .

Thanks cynic.

dreamboat - disturbing it's true, but it is the reaction of the larger f/e markets that will give the clue for monday, though i confess i find it hard to be sanguine about it ...... so glad i bit a very hard bullet (several actually) on friday morning, though i made a bit back on the indices in the evening, and of course banked a very nice profit on my asc short

Cynic, There is a lot of shi- stirring going on by these credit agencies. Buffet (not sure about spelling) thinks they have it wrong. The other two have stayed with the AAA
rating. Someone is right.

Warren Buffett

it doesn't matter who's right or wrong; it's market perception and sentiment that are the key ...... my own view is that the eurozone problems are very much more important

Sadly America will dictate to an extent, lets see. Not looking good for a few years+
I'm braced for Monday. It may hurt.

On tonights news China is livid with the USA. Sounds like china will have the whip and
America had better listen.

with eurozone problem looking worse by the hour, i really do fear the worst and am fast concluding that the only thing to do is to liquidate or go short

Some good news.



French AAA rating stable - S&P




8:22, Sunday 7 August 2011

PARIS (Reuters) - France's AAA rating is stable, ratings agency Standard and Poor's chief European economist Jean-Michel Six told France Inter radio.

"The French rating is stable," Six (SNP: ^SIXY - news) said.

Six said that political leadership and good governance are a major factor in ratings agencies' deliberations about rating reviews

All sounds like bad school reports to me....I thought that a pupil would be pretty chuffed with a AA+ plus or whatever you call it......myself I'm more used to a D minus or somewhere around that mark....by the way anybody have all the ratings that there are .....I think that it ranges from AAA down to C.....I've never seen the whole ratings board anywhere....

Quite a system required field.



Corporate credit ratingsMain article: Bond credit rating
The credit rating of a corporation is a financial indicator to potential investors of debt securities such as bonds. Credit rating is usually of a financial instrument such as a bond, rather than the whole corporation. These are assigned by credit rating agencies such as A.M. Best, Dun & Bradstreet, Standard & Poor's, Moody's or Fitch Ratings and have letter designations such as A, B, C. The Standard & Poor's rating scale is as follows, from excellent to poor: AAA, AA+, AA, AA-, A+, A, A-, BBB+, BBB, BBB-, BB+, BB, BB-, B+, B, B-, CCC+, CCC, CCC-, CC, C, D. Anything lower than a BBB- rating is considered a speculative or junk bond.[3] The Moody's rating system is similar in concept but the naming is a little different. It is as follows, from excellent to poor: Aaa, Aa1, Aa2, Aa3, A1, A2, A3, Baa1, Baa2, Baa3, Ba1, Ba2, Ba3, B1, B2, B3, Caa1, Caa2, Caa3, Ca, C. A.M. Best rates from excellent to poor in the following manner: A++, A+, A, A-, B++, B+, B, B-, C++, C+, C, C-, D, E, F, and S. The CTRISKS rating system is as follows: CT3A, CT2A, CT1A, CT3B, CT2B, CT1B, CT3C, CT2C and CT1C. All these CTRISKS grades are mapped to one-year probability of default.

I wonder if there will be a lift on Monday. Its been talked about for weeks, could it have been priced in the fall last week? Now its done.

USA has room for 8 more down grades before classed as junk.

i suspect that with some nerve, nimble fingers and lack of greed, there could be money to be made tomorrow, especially on the indices .... whether or not i shall have any of the above is another story