Markets slide further into the red on US housing fears

Where do we invest ?, i invest mainly for dividend with large caps I maintain a good cash flow ,but how low will the market go. ie FTSE

We don’t sit tight and let deflation take its toll then buy

Old British maxim says keep your powder dry. If you've got any powder stowed away that is. This is a dip but it's not a double dip. Just think you might be in that mine in Colombia...not seeing the sky till Christmas. This dip will dop and this time next month things should be looking better....but then I always was an optimist.....

only dead fish go with the flow, sell everything and live in Barbados

Kay Stewart,

Optimist maybe? Geographical scholar you are not!

The mine to which you refer is in Chile, not Colombia, thousands of miles to the south.

Also, for what it is worth, I think you are very wrong and by October it will be nasty. Watch out for the winter of discontent mark II. The armies are gathering. You can smell em!

There hasn't really been a dip yet or rather the first dip in 2008 was reversed by smoke and mirrors which made a few mostly non retail investors a lot of money from April 2009 to May this year. What we may be looking at is the first real dip if Mr Market is allowed to have his gruesome way which he will sooner or later anyway, unless of course the central bankers and politicians (fearful of their voters) on both sides of the atlantic engineer yet another bout of "stimulous" measures of various kinds which seems quite likely in which case we will still have to wait for a real "dip". Meanwhile the market will "recover". Those brave enough to invest short term may make a profit. When there is no longer any stimulous to inject because of the effect on the Dollar et al, interest rates will rise then there will be a "dip" and the true value of the market will be discovered - i.e. around 3500 for the FTSE 100 and 5000 for the Dow. The fundamentals of falling demand, rising unemployment, continued downward pressure on housing prices etc etc have to prevail...eventually, perhaps as soon as this autumn. Who knows? Alternatively think Japan...and the effect of deflation with a stock market hugely reduced and remaining so for 20 years despite endless fiscal stimuli. Very bleak I know and the solution - let Mr Market do his work, pay our bills (otherwise our children and grandchildren will) or default as the case may be, buy gold or loaves of bread and start all over again with a new credit cycle since the one which started in 1945 in reality ended in 2007.

Sheer guesswork aka speculation by all concerned...article writer and pundits alike.

Reckoner -with you all the way on that. Hope you have lots of powder.

Pat - Speculation? Of course it was ever thus.We're all speculators. But the history of the 1930s and the more recent experience of Japan seems to me to be quite instructive.Unfortunately. Further debt is debt is debt and a recovery based on yet more debt seems to me to resemble a house built on foundations of sand. Would you consider a surveyors Report on such a structure speculation?

Elaine - Yes I still have plenty of powder and want to hang on to it and eventually increase it but I'm as bemused as the rest of us. I suspect such universal bemusement, including those who rule us, is quite unique post 1945 which is so very dangerous. Batten down the hatches I say!

I intend to sue Obama for the loss on my BP shares over the last three days.

Excellent assessment Reckoner you should be running the country

With British gilt yields at 3.9% and the yield on the FTSE100 at 3.5% shares, with the potential for capital growth, seem relatively cheap at the present time. In a number of cases Companies have been excceding profit expectations in the last quarter. Costs have been reduced and we have a low interest rate environment. All positive aspects for the share market to move forward.

However, the macro economics do not look so good. Bank lending still seems restricted. Economic growth is forecast to be slow, particularly taking into account the October spending round . The housing market is undoubtedly slowing. Unemployment will increase. Sovereign debt concerns.

George Soros has recently withdrawn significant sums from equity markets and invested the proceeds in gold and bonds. The investment house Paulson & Co has recently been buying shares with the expectation of an upturn.

The future? We do not know. I suppose the old adage of having a wide spread portfolio is more appropriate today than ever.

Sell everything and spend the money on rentboys...

Your opening comment about the US market dipping below 10k, at time of writing, it is c 18 points up on the opening figure.

As a I private investor, I, like my private investor compatriates know the market has a set of the jitters, with justification. However, if everyone says how bad it is, hey-ho, it will be.

Perhaps I am too optimistic, given George Soros has pulled back from the market. Suffice to say, I don't have his knowledge or wisdom. However, I do wonder what drives the market makers to comment the way they do, at times.

Bought some BP today...............silly boy?!

We're all doomed; doomed I tell you!

LANDLORD X - good suggestion for some . . . . . but what on earth should us heterosesuals do ?

Remember this?...........When others are fearful be brave, and when others are brave be fearful. This recent sell off is a sign that more investors are becoming fearful, but still not everyone is fearful .........yet! Wait a bit longer, do nothing, and when the market dips again, and everyone is tearing their hair out, be brave and pile in to equities. You can never get the timing exactly right, but others fear is a very reliable indicator of when to move. However, being brave is never easy.

Yes...I apologise to the miners of Chile but it could just as easily have been the miners of Colombia...China....S Africa or anywhere else where people put their lives on the line for a loaf of bread. The point being........????

What have we got to lose really? It's a journey...we choose to get on this train and we can get off anytime we wish. The train will still keep going...sometimes it'll chug chug and sometimes it'll whizz along.....So it's chugging at the moment and some of the passangers are worried it'll break down and they'll never get to the promised land. Well it's not going to break down ...at least permanently....Stop worrying about the train and enjoy the journey...There is no promised land.....but the journey...well that's something else......Bon chance to all on board...........

Why are we all still so focussed on the performance of the American economy? They have only 400 million people. In China there are 1200 million people and their government is intent on building up consumerism, and reducing reliance on overseas markets like America. They are buying up mines and other supplies of raw materials at source to become independent of the rest of the world. Get real - buy China funds. Then look at India, another 1000 million people, a good education system and speaking English and also rapidly growing their business base and with good demographics (lots of well-educated younger people entering the labour market). Don't be so fixated on our and the American economy, the world is changing.

We could be a Muslim country in 100 years anyway unless our government sees the writing on the wall in time and do something about it, and the gilt markets may be closed down (interest paying instruments being forbidden by Islam). That will cause the collapse of our deficit economy! What fun to speculate on our distant future....