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.

On Sunday I told you (post 845) how the DOW would crash this week and it did.

Today (post 933) whilst the DOW was well down I said I was going fishing for bargains tomorrow - the DOW has since rebounded.

So listen up!

Number one on the shopping list is Experian (expn). It's the only FTSE 100 stock you can trade without having to pay stamp duty
and came onto the market last October at 560p. Was over 630 a few weeks ago and has lost 15% of its share price over the past
week alone. Unjustly! Experian has an excellent management team, has interims out next month which will give the sp a timely boost
and is a stock that has attracted nothing but BUY recommendations from brokers.
Well oversold imo and a scorching -ney screaming- buy.

wrong about being the only stock where u do not pay STD.... the rest, hmmm..!

sned - it's the only FTSE 100 stock to trade without stamp duty.

BigTed you are probably right but does that suggest the Yanks are playing games with the markets-- get all the arabs, chinese etc to invest in US Dolllar assets stocks, property, hedge funds in a steadily rising market and then suddenly blow them out of the water with ashort sharp shock panicing them into selling. Its been done before.

Now lets see how the Nikkei responds after that rally from the DOW. Might be a reasonable day on the FTSE - Says he hopefully!

Cynic,

I have had to remove a word from your posting (911) which could be seen as personal.

Ian

no probs Ian; sorry about that!

meanwhile
much as Dow may have rushed back up late yesterday, clearly traders or whoever are very unimpressed and early indicators are for the Dow to open well down again (-150) ...... sure as hell hope they wrong; am fed up swimming in the red sea

Dollar/Yen sliiped through 112 but the market doesn't seem too bothered. It could be that the worst of the carry trade excesses are now over. But don't quote me on that... ;-)

Strawbs.

CWP
see post 923 and a couple earlier ...... no thread, though happy to start one if asked ...... could be interesting to watch or even to SHORT if EK is to be believed

CWP
currently 575/590 = -15p but that might be the end of the action at least for today as there are tiny indications that a bounce of unknown magnitude is underway .......

Dow indications now recovering well to only -38 after -150, but the immediate acid test will be Dow's performance this afternoon ...... opening is very likley to be strong after last night's rocket-recovery, but will it at lesat hold for this last day of the week? ....... probably is my guess, as those who are short will want to cover their arses (sorry; square their books) against further strong follow-through in F/E on Monday

I think the Far East was unimpressed by the intervention. All that happened was that trading curbs prevented a big daily fall. It does not mean similar cannot happen on consecutive days. For some reason it gave many the excuse to bounce, but surely only the relief of being able to bail at a better price?

I'm not convinced this is over by a long way yet. We still have no idea where all this debt is packaged away and I can't see the financial system being able to provide liquidity on all of it. Invariably the market always outdoes the politicians and the establishment. Remember Lamont?

"We still have no idea where all this debt is packaged away"

More worrying then that BA is that nor do "they" and thats the real crux of the situation (see post 858) the damaging reproecutions of which people fail to appreciate.

Interesting piece on Six O'clock news yesterday, "its the bankers who are trying to beat the "anticipated panic selling" setting into the the market that were responsible for yesterday's falls by selling early!" or something like that.

Now everyone - DON'T PANIC! (I just crystalised my losses in PRTY by off-loading 20,000 .....)

Self-fulfulling prophecy.

Just as I said, except I called it corrupt. But when market-makers mark prices down in anticipation of selling, even in the face of good news and buying, I call that corrupt, others may call it looking after their own interests. It's certainly not 'playing straight'.

But in many cases the forced mark-downs actually cause selling from nervous PI's, hence the self-fulfilling prophecy.

small oilers being killed _ wots going on?

More market 'irrationality', forced or otherwise. I say buy them while there is the most fear.

SE* - you're wrong, or at least you do not seem to understand the meaning of "corrupt" ....... but i can't be bothered.

generally ..... everyone is running scared, and not entirely without cause if the markets are going to continue to plummet ..... confess i was very very surprised to see early Dow indications showing -100 and more, but seemingly this is a reaction to a dire night in F/E ...... Dow actually finished unchanged last night, though it felt like a huge bounce! ...... whether there is any more spring left remains to be seen in the coming hours

if anybody is interested re the small oilers , drops are thought to be because the big boys are having to bail out but perhaps more importantly , should they need money they will not be able to raise it.

Maybe 'corrupt' was the wrong word. Maybe I should have used 'devious'. But at the end of the day I suppose it is the fault of the PI's who fall for it.

1. Market makers mark down the price of the small-cap stock with excellent prospects and very few or no institutional holders.
2. PI holder sees it and asks why?
3. He comes up with the answer "Must be connected to the general markets going down".
4. MM marks the small-cap down some more.
5. PI reads news reports about sub-prime credit crunch in the US. It sounds bad.
6. PI gets scared.
7. MM marks down the small-cap even more.
8. PI, full of fear, sells out in despair.
9. MM (a bit later) marks the stock back up.

thats the game and if you know how it works why are you so upset?

9. is not quite correct , they often mark up so they can get rid of stock and then will mark it down again