  The electric-field response of a one-dimensional ring of interacting
fermions, where the interactions are described by the extended Hubbard model,
is investigated. By using an accurate real-time propagation scheme based on the
Chebyshev expansion of the evolution operator, we uncover various non-linear
regimes for a range of interaction parameters that allows modeling of metallic
and insulating (either charge density wave or spin density wave insulators)
rings. The metallic regime appears at the phase boundary between the two
insulating phases and provides the opportunity to describe either weakly or
strongly correlated metals. We find that the {\it fidelity susceptibility} of
the ground state as a function of magnetic flux piercing the ring provides a
very good measure of the short-time response. Even completely different
interacting regimes behave in a similar manner at short time-scales as long as
the fidelity susceptibility is the same. Depending on the strength of the
electric field we find various types of responses: persistent currents in the
insulating regime, dissipative regime or damped Bloch-like oscillations with
varying frequencies or even irregular in nature. Furthermore, we also consider
the dimerization of the ring and describe the response of a correlated band
insulator. In this case the distribution of the energy levels is more clustered
and the Bloch-like oscillations become even more irregular.
