As anticipated...

Just check out last paragraph of my previous post, go on, check it! You will notice that the expected fall has occured today, what's more it was a very volatile trading session again. The British Markets closed down with -4.46% loss of its value. The company that I've been tracking as an example (ANTO.L in the top UK 100 by capitalisation) experienced volatility of up to 10% today...
Wait, let me re-iterate that, the blue chip metal-mining company saw 10% volatility. Only reaction that comes to mind is, wow, because this is not a single case of such volatility, in blue chips these days.

To explain, the Asian markets started daily trading with a horrible nearly 7% drop on NIKKEI 225. Followed by other eastern markets doing rather badly and when western europe opened up the fall continued with now 6:30pm (Greenwich Time) the DowJones is craweling at 8600, meaning -3.65% loss.

A lot of these drops are attributed to some sort of realisation by the investors that eventhought credit markets are improving, everybody else is now going into recession.

See the following articles that will help summarise "events":
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081022/world_markets.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081022/wall_street.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7684216.stm
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081022/oil_prices.html
http://ekonomika.sme.sk/c/4135938/svetova-ekonomika-smeruje-do-recesie-euro-pada.html

I think we are now in vain looking for explanations, it is clear markets will be volatile and generally on the down side for big part of near time to come. Traders will still however try to make profits in short term, so we will see upswings and drops as investors take profits (or losses while they are still alive :-).

Volatility can be great & gloomy

As I wrote on October 14, 2008 it is becoming clear we are close to the bottom of largest market falls, but a recession is what we are just enterying. However as this is happening the worse falls are behind us and markets are now looking to find their bottoms. This means large volatility, and brings plenty of opportunity to make money, but also to loose some.

Caution is hence advised. I recently started day trading, and it was not uncommon to see in stocks that I traded, such as ANTO.L (a large in the top 100 by capitalisation in UK) moves that ranged over 10% during a trading session.

Anyway, a lot, really a lot, of chaotic trading seems to be going on at the moment. These are dangerous times and predicting market direction is hard, lets look at tomorrow. The previous 2 days have seen some growth of market prices again, and today there was slight drop, most of it starting on the Dow Jones after British markets closed at 4:30pm (Greenwich Time), hmm... I'm
thinking now tomorrow might be a negative roller coster as traders sell some of the growth they accumulated over the past up days. Let's just see what will happen tomorrow ;-) !