Ah, Davos week eh? The time and place where a whole load of the world's most arrogant numpties get together to tell us all how they propose to save the world from all its problems......conveniently forgetting who caused most of said problems in the first place. No invitation for IW however - surely they must simply have forgotten that too? Even St Tony was there - although he seemed remarkably quiet about his wee "Middle East Peace Envoy" part time job thingie. Seemingly this year's theme was "Ethics". Ho ho ho. "Economy related" highlights of the week left me pretty much agog with total indifference too - Broon's mobile going off in the middle of his own speech was amusing enough though. Presumably the caller got the blame. The director of the London School of Economics made an incredibly perceptive comment during his speech - "People will have to spend less than their income for a while.".....Duh. How about "spending less than your income ALWAYS"? Maybe that idea was just a step too far to contemplate? The real highlight however - of earth shattering importance to the world economy - was South Korea's assertion that dog cloning is to become less expensive. Well then.

Anyway, moving along rapidly - another somewhat strange assertion heard during the week, was wee Allie's claim that the UK economy will "grow by 1.75% in 2010." That would be "grow even smaller" presumably? (If you're not familiar with UK politics, "wee Allie" is chancellor of the exchequer - but in name only - everyone realises of course that the office is still held by the Broon one.)

On a more serious note, job losses are everywhere to be seen, whether in Blighty, mainland Europe, Oz, China, the USA or indeed anywhere else you care to think of. Job losses per se are bad enough, but the worst aspect is an onset of the protectionist attitudes that become so appealing to politicians during such recessionary times. Rarely (probably never, except this time?) could IW agree with Mandelson, prince of darkness, about anything under the sun - but the M one is not wrong to be warning about protectionism. "Protectionism" is the situation where the belief develops that (for example) the UK should put up economic and/or political "hurdles" so that British businesses are "protected" from foreign competition, such that jobs become more secure than they might be otherwise. Politicians generally love the idea because it plays on public emotions - but it is such a monumentally stupid concept that it hardly bears thinking about. It's a bit scary that although the Obama one is saying "no" to protectionism, at the same time he's trying to allocate bailout cash on the basis of "buying American". And Sarkozy in France is offering loadsamoney to airlines, to help fund the purchase of new planes - and I'm not speaking about Boeings here. Listen fellas - protectionism has never, ever worked to the benefit of the overall economy. History proves that fact beyond any shadow of doubt. All that happens is that EVERY country ends up with tariff barriers, and world trade (already moribund) freezes up completely, for an awful lot longer than it would do if politicians had both the brains and the guts to be sensible. MORE jobs end up being lost as a result. Sadly, methinks history (as always!) will be ignored and outright worldwide depression is now an absolute certainty. We're all doomed.......well, maybe as traders WE'RE not doomed....profit opportunities abound - and the bigger the drop, the cheaper everything will become in due course. Keep stashing the cash, in other words! (And as suggested in these ramblings more than once recently, the next big drop is going to be followed by a major bear market rally that will provide more than a few decent "buy" trades as this year progresses. "Investors" who are sucked in, may regret it however, because it will ONLY be a bear market rally and a massive drop will follow in due course! NEVER confuse "trading" and "investing". The latter is unlikely to be a good idea for a while yet - but its time WILL come around again - and IF you have available cash at that time, you may well be able to benefit.)

Moving along, it seems the governor of the Bank of England is going to buy £50bn of toxic waste, with taxpayers money, obviously. Did he remember to ask you if that would be OK, folks? It seems too that there is more than just financial toxic waste on the go in Blighty - the EU plans to fine the UK rather a lot of dosh for failing to control air pollution. Gosh, how will the fine be paid? Step forward once more, all you happy, compliant taxpayers......

Still on silly stuff, Xstrata (huge mining conglomerate) wants to raise a mere £4.1bn from shareholders, via a rights issue. IF it gets away with that wee idea, it will still be £8.8bn in debt. The head honcho says "The debt level was appropriate during the boom years but it is now too high...." Another "Duh!" for that remark surely?

Speaking of raising money, the Swiss have come up with a good wheeze - they plan to start levying fines on naked ramblers. That will hurt Germany's balance of payments no end then......

On to "booming" sectors of the economy as a result of several emails asking me for comment thereon - insolvency practitioners? Pawnbrokers? Pizza restaurants? Bailiffs? Financial services enforcers? Tax collectors? Doubtless you can think of many others - seemingly bank robbers are doing pretty well in New York at the moment, as the city cuts back on policing costs.......and in the UK it appears that the supermarket sector is looking at hiring around 30000 people this year - so it's not all doom and gloom. (Clearly a lot of the positions will be part time and probably mainly at the lower end of the market - but they're still jobs.)

As for scams this weekend - not a lot to report really, although the UK's House of Lords seems to have unearthed a few (a lot more still hidden?) within its ranks. And maybe the NHS huge (£12.7bn!) IT scheme was more "scam" than "scheme" from day one? It is in "complete tatters" according to someone well connected therein. And a nice wee scam has surfaced whereby local councils charge people for protesting against "things" - witness Salford's £2500 bill to a group that was protesting against the closure of a primary school. Nice work if you can get it eh?

Next, Lloyds bank directors seemingly want a pay rise. Poor dears - it's so hard to make ends meet these days. And still with banks, it's nice to see the Goodwin gang (ex RBS) being investigated by the Scottish polis for alleged fraud. A conviction would be poetic justice indeed - but unfortunately the compensation cost to the public would be so high, that a fudge is inevitable.

Anyway, let's move on to a few charts, and tonight we'll start with that of Next Plc, where the recent triangle has been broken to the downside....or has it? It's a company with massive debts to service, and the word on the street is that it's not exactly setting the heather on fire as regards customer footfall.....Then we'll examine why British Sky Broadcasting has now technically moved from "downtrend" to "uptrend". After that, we'll take a look at a classic channel probe and retrace for Charter International, before finishing today's offering with the German Dax index, which looks to be setting itself up nicely for a drop through support around 4000 - a good "round number" if ever there was one.

That's the lot for this weekend - so all the best till next time.

Ian.

PS - re "investing" as mentioned above - what I'm getting at is that once "the bottom" is reached in the next couple of years or so, it will mark a MAJOR low point in overall price levels - far lower than today - but thereafter, markets will recover slowly but surely in a process that will take many years. Sure, there will be retraces - there always are - but overall, markets will recover. Thus if you have cash available to put into (say) a property or some other "asset" when prices reach rock bottom, you'll be well positioned to ride out the eventual (and inevitable) inflation that will come along in a year or two's time once the current deflationary forces are spent.

'IMPORTANT NOTICE: These WICS charts are for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. They represent only MY understanding of what is happening in the market for any particular share, stock, commodity or index. In NO circumstances should they be construed as recommendations to trade. If I choose to trade what I see, that is MY decision. YOU must, in turn, come to YOUR OWN conclusions about what action, if any, YOU might choose to take'.