Ouch...but patience is a virtue

Flash was glad that he took some profit on his Ford position ahead of yesterday's car crash. His GM position got stopped out for a £2 profit too. He made the mistake of going even more long the Dow just before it decided to turn tail, for a whopping loss, and some more of his more recent gold shorts got stopped out for losses overnight too.

However, nothing he's seen (Australian bank writedowns and grim, grim data on housing notwithstanding) have changed his fundamental view and today's action has borne that out well. In spite of being slightly underwater once again (from a monster profit at one point yesterday morning) flash is sticking to his guns and doing his best to hold his nerve. So he's still very short gold and broadly long consumer-based equities - took a hit with scottish and southern energy but it's recovered today as he expected; and Stanelco sputtered into life today somewhat surprisingly so he took the opportunity to buy some more. The spectacular meltdown in Crocs has also puzzled Flash: yes their results were crap but they're exactly the kind of cheap, cheerful, funky gear that recessionary shoppers are likely to go for. So he bought a few shares at $4.80 and thus far they are showing a modest profit. Flash's other intelligent act was to go long on United Airlines right at the bottom, late on yesterday, when they were trading below 700; as of late this afternoon they're healthily sitting at the 820 mark. A decent call. So long as oil continues to descend (and he is ever-alert to the possibility that it won't but he can't see any reason why it shouldn't), Flash will maintain his long equity view so he has kept the older long Dow and long FTSE positions in place, despite the fact that they went almost to zero yesterday.

The currency calls are working fine too - short AUD/USD, short EUR/USD, short NZD/USD and - a bit more ropey but he's convinced it's the right long term view (although he may well get stopped out before he's proved right or wrong) - long GBP/EUR.

So - a quick summary of positions at close of play today: Long the following stocks, all on December or March futures: Avis from 12, British Airways from 225, Barclays from 261, Crocs from 499, long D1 oils from 18.3, long Ford from 480, long Intel from 2018 (he wants to buy more of this but hasn't got the cash right now), long Kingfisher from 96, UAL Corp from 698.

The ones that are still underwater, but he's hanging on in there - ASOS, Axeon Holdings, China Eastern Airlines, Lonrho, Stanelco, Scottish and Southern Energy, Workspace Group.