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.

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.

Indeed. Just like most market tops. Fundamentals are good, there's nothing to worry about, it's different this time........ Years of excessive greed end in a short and messy rush for the exits, as fear takes over and the markets swing wildly. The question is have we reached the tipping point yet, where selling forces even more selling and forced liquidations......the domino effect?

Strawbs.

Nothing much on Newsnight, either wife (who said there was some coverage on the subject ) got it wrong or they pulled the story.

wish i could answer that as i would be piling on the sept and dec shorts but as i have said on the technical thread i believe we have to break 12k on the dow first and there seems to be plenty of money still in the markets from the number of peeps buying the dips

For the ECB to flood the markets with so much money there must be something going on out there, whether it's a real or a percieved risk. If the dominos start falling and the carry trade unwinds quickly then 12K could arrive pretty quickly....... Alternatively I suppose they could bounce 400 points tomorrow..... :-)

Strawbs.

the US punters are mad enough to drive the dow back the whole way tomorrow if there is no more bad news

Brace yourselves ! batten down the hatches ! Big market falls on the cards today!

most of portfolio appears to be at support levels now, although i have sold off more this morning, think this wont go away quickly, when this latest rally petered out, i fear confidence is dwindling more and more...
i think it is time to sit it out for a while and wait and see just how much the US problems are going to hit world markets.
My opinion being there will be plenty of time to buy some good co's at bargain prices later, or at the least i want to see something positive in the news and press before investing any serious amount, at the moment its all doom and gloom...

Always protect the downside isn't a bad motto.

from memory, and i'll try to check it out, there is an alleged(!) Dow support around 13200, which is where indicator now lies ..... can't say that encourages me take out a long pos though!

glad i took my profits in both ICI and RSA yesterday ...... BARC and PMO have taken a bit of bashing, but fortunately, most of my other holdings are relatively unaffected