FTSE 100

Wow, looks like FTSE 100 sliding into 5700s again........?Anybody shorting at this level or going long? Grateful for views .

Me again! Looks like I was right - FTSE at 5793...... where will this go from here?

well looks like we're in freefall mode ;0( Didn't put a short on as I was not sure which way things would go today!

TandH, the markets in caos at the moment, I think. Personally the overview of the market I think is for it to test new lows, but can't guarantee anything as I would be rich if it was that easy. As the FTSE is not to far from it's last low, I have decided to go long and then scalp with shorts to cover the long positions if the FTSE falls further. If it will work I'm not sure, but hope it does. I've lost a good bit over the last month on stocks. With indices I've made some money, but lost it all and more due to my equities. So I've finished equities and will just do the indices now as they are much easier to daytrade than stocks and have a nice tight spread.

I think you might be right and I'm pondering going long on the FTSE today too perhaps on a July future, in case theres a bit of downside before it turns back up.... Not gone in yet though - I do ponder for rather a long time!

hey rodhull - glad you've joined us, we're a gang of three now lol! Yep I've got a long on a FTSE future at the mo, not mega quids in, but quids in :0)

Well done rod! Bloomin' oil speculators spoiled the the US rally by close ;0( Anyway, still left my FTSE long on as it's a future contract....we'll see what Asia Japan and all do tonight.

closed FTSE long for 28 points gain after about first 3 minutes of trading as a bit unsure how today will go what with the tanker drivers strike etc. etc. If oil starts to sky rocket again, I think stocks will take a hit, plus I'm out all this morning so don't like not being around when I'm playing the indices! :0)

Hiya all , well done TandH for setting this up. I will not post unless I feel that there is anything relevant... thought that the new rules of declaring shorts over 0.25% might have some interesting results. Whilst not comming into force until next Friday , that gives 4 days for institutions , hedge funds , big players , to get their house in order. The reason why I feel this to be relevant is that I would not be surprised if many large investors hedge their long term positions and whilst this is a natural undertaking to do so in my book , it could be very embarrassing to some , especially if they are shorting their own stock , influence board decisions, say one thing and do another , invest in stock for others , ie. pensions and then short and not declare those related positions that could cause a few raised eyebrows at shareholder meetings , etc.. it will , imo , change investment practice within the ftse 100 at the top end and as such , in my book , will only assist in lifting the ftse 100 in the short term as a result.

rodhull - jammy! I'm bloomin' short on the FTSE at 5820 (Aug Future though). Can't understand why our market is rallying following the US futures when our own CPI inflation data was dreadful!

Hi Mark Expat! Sorry, only just seen your post - lol! rodhull - me too. I'm tending to just spread bet the FTSE at the moment. It's been a strange day today! As you know I placed a short at 5820 and saw it drift to a 125 point loss at one point today but now it's back to a 55 point loss and I'm leaving it there as it's an August future. Got an idea though! I'm wondering about placing a small long too at a similar level to the short (but in a seperate bet obviously!). My idea is to catch profits as the FTSE swings either way. For example, if the long is in profit, I might take the cash and leave the short running......if the market drops back, take profits on the short! Errrr it all sounds far too simple of course, but I might try something like this out.......

agree rod. Not sure where the market will go tomorrow so at least these two best give me more thinking time. i.e. if the market has a strong start, I might close the short or vice versa.

Thank goodness for FTSE shorts! Made a 40 point gain on my short today :0) Would you believe I missed about a 40 point gain yesterday as I came out of the FTSE short with just a 6 point gain, thinking it was gonna go up!!! Arghhh! Anyway, just got the Sept Future Long on now - only a tiny bet with far away stop loss so I can forget about it for now....Looking for the next opportunity to pop the short back on!

Hope you took your profs Rod when the FTSE went down first early today :0) I stayed on the sidelines as I really wasn't sure....I was going to place a short late today at about the same level as you did but at that time the US seemed to be doing OK. Now their market has closed flat - I guess we're stuck waiting for the FED decision or at least that's what the US market is waiting for....and forever watching oil!!! Anyway, revisiting this tomorrow.

Errr no! I didn't get a short on! Looks like your timing was perfect today. Not sure the slide will continue though as there seemed to be resistance around that 5585 ish mark? Although having just said that, I can see the US futures are now pulling us down. Only think I have a different opinion to you on is oil - I believe oil is killing these markets and therefore if the oil price came crashing back down, I think the FTSE would go up :0)

just closed my latest short (ftse) at 5558 for 94 points! Not sure if I should have left it a bit longer but I'm thinking, surely we can't slit our throats for much longer???? Anyway, waiting for a little lift then back in a short again. Still got the weeny long on ;0(............

hi rodhull. oil up 314 now. ftse and dow actually defying oil a little today considering they usually move more on oil sentiment. I just have a hunch feeling that ftse and dow will fall alot further when dow opens after 3pm. whats your feeling?

Thanks heavens for FTSE short hedge positions on days like this..........

Hi TandH at what level do you think the run on ftse 100 will end. i believe support is at 5350. If it breaks 5350 then anything is possible. We have to remember though shell, bp,hsbc, gsk, rio tinto, anglo american,bg group, bats are 9 of the 10 most capitalized shares in the ftse 100 which have not been affected really by the downturn. which makes me think all the others esp banks & retail and any others that use oil have been seriously killed already and if they are killed even more then then they pose too much of an oppurtunity. We know now that there is a large shift in weighting (capitalization) in stocks e.g bp being worth 108 bill whereas lloy only being worth 16bill. That wealth will need to be distributed back over time, the ftse is too uneven at the moment. BP, shell etc are worth too much whereas others are worth too less! back to the days where we have to light a candle lol.

looks like ECB will increase rates hence oil up, dow down, ftse down. People think ECB is doing the wrong thing but Ben is the stupid one cutting interest rates to save the banks when he should let them fail. He didnt take the example from Japan and now they are in 20 year stagflation. Possible it could happen to US because of debt burden. What my hunch is now is the wider the discrepency is between ECB and FOMC rates, the larger falls in the dow hence the ftse will follow. Until FED plans to raise rates we wont see any strengthening of the dollar which means there will be continued speculation in oil meaning he is putting the DOW in a worser position. So until we see dollar strengthened, oil wont come down. He has a big decision to make, it would be best for him to allow the economy to fail in order to start the next cycle by raising interest rates rather than increasing the debt burden on the economy by throwing more cash at already failed banks causing a long tiring stagflation.

Hi Ramborai - sorry I've only just seen your posts today! I've basically been trading the FTSE every day this last few days, taking a few quid here and then always on short positions. I judge how the day is going, then when theres been a decent rally, I'll stick a short on and take small profits. Not been a bad strategy!

rod - think your first description could be right! "Not gone".....but I hope not of course! US equities taking a right pasting again tonight :0(

rodhull-read your predictions from june - you were predicting the ftse to be at 6200 in july! in 2003 the ftse was in the 3000's and personally i think its worse this time round and only going to get worse for the next year at least. oil has slid back from previous highs but will go up in the long run causing chaos to the shares that have recovered slightly and banks/retail/manufacturing have a fair bit further to fall. don't you think the only way is to go short on the ftse till it is at least in the 4800's if not lower?

Not posted on here for a bit because I've been mulling over which way I think the FTSE is going! Up until 2 days ago, I thought we had quite a bit of upside left.....but my current thoughts are that 5470 ish looks like a bit of a technical resistance level as I've seen quite a severe bounce back off from this point a couple of times now. I have not checked a chart but just observed the levels by watching each day :0) Now wondering whether to go back to my original strategy of waiting for blips up, then shorting the FTSE again for small profs on the way down, then wait for the blip up again and so on and so forth!

We're not posting much in here at the mo are we? I guess we're all completely consfused by this market - for every one person you talk too who thinks it's bottomed and we're on the way up, there will be an opposite view that we've further down to go. We've pulled back sharply these last coupla days from the latest rally and I agree with Rod about the sub 5000 level - I think it would take another major bank failure to go through this point, soooo......waiting... watching.... trying to guage the current trading levels at not really getting anywhere at the mo! Lol

hello guys & girls. I dont think we have seen the end yet. Problems have not been solved yet, but markets have been eased. Ive been confused also, trends are changing too fast. Consensus i can see from all credible articles that i've read is that oppurtunities are showing but capitulation is still yet to arrive. IMO we will not see a large upwards rally to 6000 until fannie & freddie saga has been sorted. It is still a daytraders market at the mo. One thing i have found interesting in the newspapers recently is the changing demographics in UK, too many pensioners will bring us down lol! One to watch for a future uk stagnation in 10 - 20 years time.

this deflationary recession is causing demand for all goods to fall recently, even oil and gold. Although gold is seen as safe haven, the strengthening dollar has brought it down and it will also be the demise of the djia. US weakened the dollar in the past decades to make people feel artificially rich, this pushed up the djia. If you actually compare the djia in value of gold (inflation proof) or even say the british pound, the djia is hugely down overall. We are seeing a huge correction occur, especially today.

Hi all We really should use this more....I set the bloomin' thing up but I keep forgetting it's here - lol! Anyway just checking in to give my ten pennenth as obviously the Dow, S&P and FTSE have all slid last coupla days......watching non-farm payrolls data today, thinking if the numbers are bad, the markets may freefall again and might be a good time to go long! Not sure yet as ya have to watch these markets every minute as any bit of news sways 'em. Think the falling oil price is no longer helping the indices as folk pile out of the oil shares and also out of commodity and mining plays as they fall along with oil, so don't feel oil etc. is so much of a factor now as it was a few weeks ago :0)

all signals in the mid-term are suggesting down to me however i may be totally wrong. the line of companies expecting a government bail-out is growing further, with lehman now in the queue joining a host of others such as GM. Market is totally underestimating the pain at which the previous F&F bailout will cause, they have taken on an extra 9 trillion dollars of debt. The ball is with the asian economies. although they are also affected by the current economic woes, if they were to pull the plug on the US dollar and trasuries due to lack of confidence or even political means they would send the US into economic collapse. What i am expecting in the next few months is for the dollar to devalue and US treasuries to weaken harshly on lack of confidence (including all fannie & freddie debt). I do not expect to see oil to rally on a weak dollar due to demand destruction. although oil and gas prices have dropped, do not expect the energy providers to reduce the burden to the consumers which is why i believe inflation will be here to stay for a while. articles have suggested that inflation should vastly drop, but they are taking into account spot prices rather than the willingness of energy providers to reduce costs to the consumer. They will play the wholesale cost card for a long while forward. Dont be suprised to see gold 2.0 though, i can see another bull run coming taking up with it any other valuable commodities. This will come at the expense of the DJIA which i can see going to 9000 to 10000 levels. This is just my opinion but im currently feeling like a grizzly bear which has swayed my decision to the negative. Whatever happens there will be a breakout from the trading range we have seen in the djia and ftse since july soon enough, just be equipped for it.

It seems that US may possibly cut rates further 50/50 has been priced in, it is said they may be looking to inflate themselves out of this problem but this will only halt the pain for later on in time. From what i understand, the main reason for dollar rally in the first place was due to the fact that europe and UK economies etc were weaker than expected and was assumed that they would be cutting rates in order to shore up their economies. However since inflation looks to stay a while longer (energy providers may boycott against UK stance on energy), i would be surprised if UK or EU decides to cut rates before inflation indicators show a fall. If US were to cut rates further before the UK and EU then possibly lack of confidence may kick into the majority of people who have parked their cash into US currency and treasuries. Currently that is the area where all the smart money is flocking. Regarding the strong dollar, it may be in US best interests to weaken it on purpose to increase export-led growth since they will perform poor on import-led growth. I am a strong believer of capitulation and believe that a strong dollar may actually be the demise of the Dow. Its actually a catch 22 at the moment, strong dollar = cheaper oil, commodities. benefit to consumer. weak dollar = gdp growth/exports. If GBP falls below 160 against USD and EUR falls below 130 against USD, it may end up as a serious disadvantage for the US. There was a good report on CNBC regarding technicals on S&P 500 which probably tracks the same as most global indices. Bottom support is at 1200, if it was to test and break through this then it is possible it could go to anywhere between 1000 - 1100. Possibly something may spur it on? Such as lehman if it doesnt get taken over and may force nationalisation hand? we'll see