FTSE100 dips below 6000

An awful start to 2008, an awful day yesterday and an awful start to trading this morning. As I write at 9.00am, the FTSE100 is down 1% at 5960. Although the FTSE100 closed <6000 for one fateful day in Aug 07, you really have to track back the trend line back to Oct 06.

There is a wide-spread belief that tech has been hit hardest. But, in the UK at least, the figures don't support that. Techmark is down 4.3% in 2008 to date compared to a 6.7% fall (to last night) in the FTSE100. The FTSE SCS Index is down 7.4%.

However, US tech stocks have been hit hard with NASDAQ down 8.9% YTD. There is every expectation of further US falls today as Intel fell around 15% in after hours trading last night. See Intel shares slide as profits and sales miss targets in today's FT. Actually, I thought the Intel results were pretty good. But it is almost as if investors want to find reasons for selling/marking stock down. So every nuance is picked over. In Intel's case a Q4 £100m revenue shortfall (on a $10.8b analyst expectation!) was taken as a sign of slowing PC sales and 'troubles ahead'.

My problem is that I am firmly in the bear's camp - have been for some time as readers will know. I do see problems ahead and 'commodity PC' sales would be the first and hardest hit. But I really can't find the evidence for that in Intel's statement. But investors rarely let evidence get in the way of sentiment.