The wild market swings of late are most likely down to hedge funds says Keith Fitz-Gerald. These big money movers are liquidating assets to meet margin calls, causing chaos in the markets. Keith has four tips on how to dodge the worst of the damage.

He says it is essential to guard against today’s downside risks with trailing stops, inverse ETFs, and put options.

And every investor should have a plan to re-engage with the markets when this financial storm passes.

This from Money Morning:

As the worst financial crisis in recorded market history rocks Wall Street, millions of investors on Main Street keep asking a single question.

When will this end?

The market volatility is unprecedented: Where professional traders once ranked a day as “wild” if we witnessed a 300-point swing, in recent months we’ve seen 600- and 700-point swings on a regular basis. On Oct. 9, a Thursday, we rode out a

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As the worst financial crisis in recorded market history rocks Wall Street, millions of investors on Main Street keep asking a single question. When will this end? The market volatility is unprecedented: Where professional traders once ranked a day as “wild” if we witnessed a 300-point swing, in recent months we’ve seen 600- and 700-point swings on a regular basis. On Oct. 9, a Thursday, we rode out a record-setting swing of 1,000 points. That wild backdrop is bad enough. At the same time, however, the major market indices are heading lower – at times with a speed and ferocity never before seen. But the real killer is that there is seemingly nowhere to hide. This is what Wall Street’s Armani Army doesn’t tell you about traditional diversification: It doesn’t work when everything goes down at once. (The one exception is the specialized inverse investment vehicles ...