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.

An interesting academic piece of history well explained, but as they say "past performance is no guide to the future" (or something like that).

Gave up trying to second guess the future trend after the 2003 summer turn down so tend now to react to events rather then try to predict them.

I think that explains the current market volatility......everyone reacting to events rather than following a slow/safe trend. High volatility I believe is another indicator of a possible market top. The final mad battle between bears and bulls I suppose.

Strawbs.

yer and everybody at the telegraph is up to their eyeballs in shorts!

looking at most large company earnings reports, the majority are all good with profits generally climbing... I thought most PE's were respectable and falling, or is the point that next years earnings are going to be hit with the current rate increases...
That would lead onto another subject about where we see rates going, my broker even suggested the next move will be a quarter cut just before Christmas, so the government can raise them a quarter in new year and shout at us all for spending too much... either way i think 6% will be enough...

"everyone reacting to events rather than following a slow/safe trend".

I'm in the "slow/safe trend" camp myself, playing the waiting game until things settle down and become clearer.

i agree that rates are likely to peak at 6%, but that will not in itself support a continuing bull market ...... for starters, there are and will be all sorts of stealth tax increases which are already hitting Joe Public in UK ..... USA clearly has its own problems ...... On the other hand, the economies in China, India and Pakistan continue to grow and grow ...... However, though much of that increased GDP will be absorbed internally, any significant slowdown in USA (particularly) must have a knock-on effect.

finally, i personally do believe that a bull market can keep running until the end of time ..... if there are enough muppets of similar mind, then the stock market(s) will fall anyway, almost regardless of underlying economies

Opinions wanted....
so if the all-share index doesn't hold its lower support line and falls through by 10%, lets hear some predictions on the sp of some (quality co's) ie HAWK or LEAD?
both companies still doing the same job they did 1 month ago before the volitility, but what would happen???

they would both tumble ...... you really cannot label either HAWK or LEAD as quality companies (i hold both) ...... share prices are driven by sentiment (aka fear and greed) and not true logic especially in times of panic

horrid opening looks in store for Dow thought here seems nothing specific to have triggered it ....... not brave enough (yet!) to take long on basis of (inevitable??) bounce during the course of day, even if not sustained

I think it's been triggered by BNP suspending 3 funds because (article) they can't get a valuation for them. Apparently earlier in the week they said they had little or no subprime issues..... How many other banks/funds etc out there think they have no problems....

The ECB has also just injected 95Bn Euros into the market because of liquidity issues (article).

Strawbs

Telegraph article

Strawbs

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - The liquidation of a big hedge fund or investment bank trading portfolio is causing havoc in some parts of the hedge fund business, according to managers and investors.
Black Mesa Capital, a hedge fund firm that uses computer models to track down investment ideas, has told investors that at least one very large hedge fund or investment bank is liquidating "massive" trading portfolios, according to a letter the Santa Fe, NM-based firm sent to investors on Wednesday.
That's causing disruptions and triggering big losses among other so-called market-neutral hedge funds, Black Mesa said in its letter, a copy of which was obtained by MarketWatch on Thursday.

How big is BIG in relation to the whole market?

phew! lucky alphonse!! .... went long and caught something of a cold, but made it virtually all back by reversing the position ...... however, all looks bleak for FTSE tomorrow ..... guess that will not hurt my SOLA short, but that's about it

grim day in prospect tomorrow, but just as market (Dow) fell too fast, and recovered too fast, it has prob fallen too fast again, but there is that sneaking fear that we could now see the truly big sell-off ...... have mentioned a number of times that these very volatile markets have a nasty habit of being the prelude to just that

No arguement from me.
Big correction now & plenty of opportunity to make money in the autumn would be fine with me.

This drop has been on the cards for ages.

Being covered on Newsnight BBC2 now!

The FTSE fell short yesterday of fully creating the right shoulder of the "head and shoulders" (long term trend reversal) pattern. Todays sell-off, and possibly tomorrows continued activity could send it through the kneck line and down to the key 6000 level. This could well be the fabled start of the bear market.......

In my opinion......

Strawbs

Lots of experts have said theres no systemic risk to the financial system and global growth from the sub prime mess. Ironically, could it be the fear of such a risk that actually causes a bigger problem, and not the risk itself?

Strawbs.

real things are happening strawbs

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- In the past two weeks, another 13 corporate loan or bond deals have been postponed or reduced, representing slightly less than $43 billion, according to new research released Thursday by Baring Asset Management.
That lifts the total number of deals pulled since June 22nd to 46, analysts at the firm said. They valued those at more than $60 billion. Last year, no pulled deals were counted by the firm's research staff.