G'day, is there any way to tell from the chart whether we are seeing a short term bounce or an actual, for real, bottom? My charting skills are still rudimentary (at least in my own mind).

I'm thinking the answer is no and that we will have to wait several days.

DOW dropping again but FRE holding pretty steady. I'm hoping that means we are near the bottom. The eod will be a better indicator IMO of whether we're still in FREefall or not.

OK but Scottrade's 1 min chart is clean as well as the T&S

I don't see those on Scottrade. /e

I notice that our spread is now 0.0001 - pretty amazing to me.

Sure does seem like the market is fighting to not go lower IMO.

If he sells at a loss -in this case fairly significant - and buys back in, he will not be able to take the loss on his taxes. The wash rule.

I stopped even looking at my balance. I'll peek again when and if this nonsense stops for reversal.

Er um, muzzle wasn't exactly what I had in mind. ;)

Too right and in the last few minutes of the day! It's like a bad TV show - (sound of horns) "Oh look Madge, it's the cavalry!"

Yeah but why did the idjits remove the ban in the first place? They must have known what would happen.

Unfortunately, we've been saying "capitulation" for too many days now. I won't believe it until I start seeing several green days in a row. We'll still be so oversold that there will be plenty of bargains IMO.

Gotta say ol'Freddie is sure fighting hard not to go sub-dollar despite the market. My stop loss is set at $1. Seven min to go - will I be stopped out or not??? LOL

At this rate I don't see the Dow holding even 8000 and below that there is no real support that I'm aware of.

And down we slide as the DJ is down ~ 290 /e

Watching the 5 min chart - B Bands tightening suggesting a break one way or the other - right now I'd guess the break will be down. The final hour is always interesting.

Actually faced with the slow decline in today's market, I'm a bit surprised and pleased that we've remained steady.

The 5 min chart is turning up nicely along with the indicators. Let's see how long this last.

Just remember shorts may still bring this down or the market in general might bring this down. FWIW I would advise setting yourself a stop loss. Either formally with your broker or mentally. If mentally, be dang sure to use it or if not have a really good reason not to.

PRESERVE YOUR SEED MONEY (CAPITAL)!

Hunches will kill you in trading IMO. Everytime I follow a hunch I lose money, but when I follow my own trading rules I do pretty well. If I had all the money I lost because I rode a stock down from profit to loss I'd be retired.

Wait a min - I am retired.

glty

How long we been saying "maybe that's the last of it". I'm thinking its time to pull out and circle the wagons for a while.

We busted another support. I think I'll be looking for a pop or something (hopefully) and pull out this market until I see some sort of recovery. I just can't afford this along with the losses in the IRA.

I already have a t-shirt that says "Will Work for Boat Parts"!

But dang all those intersections are going to be crowded. There'll be 10 of us for every car that comes through. ;)

I'm seriously considering something along the same lines. I'm watching what little profit I had be slowly whittled away.

Give it another 30 seconds and we might be green again. It seems that's how long it takes for a 100 - 200 pt shift.

On the 5 min chart I see resistance is at 1.25 and support at 1.23 and 1.22. Below that 1.19 is where I'd place the next support. Right now we appear to be consolidating. That started at about 2 pm. It'll be interesting to see how we close.

You really are depressingly uninformed. Time to call your therapist.

Naw - a bow and arrows, vacuum packed seeds, and a plentiful supply of ammunition in popular sizes for barter. ;)

I hope so - I don't think we can afford to keep dropping the market like this everyday. Something is going to break.

Actually how about one for the DOW - how many more 300 - 500 pt selloffs can we survive?

Ohh I don't know. I like being retired. We planned as best we could and in addition to the boat we also have 10 acres in SE Kentucky with its own natural gas well to power the house. There are always options. I would say that I agree with the general advice that for those with a long time window to retirement - don't muck about too much with the long term investments - they'll come back.

If they don't then I suggest watching Mad Max and Thunderdome! LOL

I wonder what strange and wonderful action the Feds have sitting on the sidelines for this one. As I write the DOW is at 9525 and falling.

Perhaps someone can explain the purpose in either "bashing" or "pumping" a stock with ZERO volume. Soooo like who's winning?

If it reaches that - I'll move on board our blue water sailboat and head for Costa Rica or Belize along with all the other refugees.

Tell me about it. I retired at the end of June. So far I've lost $150K out of my IRA - down 20% for the year. So far.

Fortunately my wife is a critical care RN - so the bills will be paid but just.

This is part of the document that Scottrade links you to if you go to the message portion.


Hard T+3 close-out requirement for naked short selling; penalties for violation include prohibition of further short sales without mandatory pre-borrow. The Commission adopted, on an emergency basis, a new rule requiring that short sellers and their broker-dealers deliver securities by the settlement date (three days after the sale transaction date, or T+3) and imposing penalties for failure to do so. If a short sale violates this close-out requirement, then any broker-dealer acting on the short seller's behalf will be prohibited from further short sales in the same security unless the shares are not only located but also pre-borrowed. The prohibition on the broker-dealer's activity applies not only to short sales for the particular naked short seller, but to all short sales for any customer.

The emergency order will be extended, and will now expire at 11:59 p.m. ET on Oct. 17, 2008, but the Commission intends that the order will continue in effect beyond that date without interruption in the form of an interim final rule. The Commission will seek comments on all aspects of the anticipated rulemaking.

I would have to agree with that. I'm making more money on the big boards than in the pinks and penny's. I've tripled in the last two months.

My shares here are worth almost nothing compared to what I paid for them. I'll hold here until the end of the year and use the loss against my big board gains.

If there is one thing I've learned, its that it is very dangerous to try and get in at the very bottom or get out at the very top. As you say, there will be a bunch of buying ops but at least for myself, I'll wait until I'm fairly certain they really are going back up.

My new mantra is "high probability". Relatively small gains add up quickly. I'll settle for smaller percentage gains if I don't have to take too much risk. So far its working. I'm up considerably in the last two months.

It's a tough market - no doubt. I hope it settles down a bit. Until then,

glta

Another alternative is that folks are going to come home from work - see the wild ride - and put in their sell orders. IMO today takes "risk" to a new level.

Personally, I pulled out. With a profit which I wished to ensure. Good luck to all, I'll be watching to decide if it is worth the risk to re-enter.

I guess your right. I've had the experience, more often than I should, of riding a stock down from profit to loss because I was hoping for a reversal that never came. I'm out, with a profit. Not as much as if I had stayed in, but ...

Tomorrow is another day.

Night all

I don't know if I should feel stupid for getting out or not. All these last minute gains can be gone again just as fast tomorrow a.m..

I'm not even going to look for another stock until this is over. I don't have enough of a grubstake to take that kind of risk. What I do have is in cash right now in order to take advantage of the bargain basement prices and hopeful rebound.

Thanks for all your help Nate and good luck. I would think that a lot of people went short at the beginning of the day and are doing alright.

APWR fizzled. I thought it was reversing. Still.. made a couple hundred bucks before stop loss kicked in.