"For sale - used once only, slightly vandalised, seats missing but overall very good condition. Absolute bargain......contact G. Brown on 0207........."

It seems the London Olympics stadium is an Ikea job and will be sold after the entire fiasco is over and done with. A rather expensive flat pack then - and in used condition, Gordon can probably expect about £3.50 for it - though it's uncertain who might be willing to offer for it. With over 1.8 million Brits seeing their credit card limits reduced in the past 6 months or so, probably there will be few parents able to consider it as an alternative to a Wendy House. Interestingly, despite the credit card limit reductions, figures from the British Bankers' Association say that overall unsecured lending still comes to a pretty staggering £108bn! And it seems Debenhams is seeing an increase in the use of its store cards - surely a lender of last resort, at 19.9% interest? Scary! Savings however are way up, if the April figure of £5.8bn is anything to go by - well over twice anything achieved in any month last year - so money is definitely being taken out of the economy - via sharply reduced borrowing facilities and less willingness by the public to spend what little they have left at the end of the month. Add to that the fact that according to Citigroup, 250000 UK homeowners are now in 'negative equity' territory - where their loan is greater than the value of their property. With most lenders about to increase mortgage rates yet again, and with 'interest only' loans disappearing pretty rapidly, it's clear enough that the often - mentioned recession is well and truly knocking on Blighty's door - like a bailiff perhaps?

Never mind, Gordon will have an extra £600m available via VAT receipts from the imminent energy price hikes you're about to suffer if you live in the UK. Caring person that he is, he'll give it all back to the needy I expect - those who can't afford both heat and proper nourishment and have to choose between the two - ie a whole lot of pensioners, as well as those no longer in the 10p tax band. Ah well, it's not only the less well off who struggle as regards 'nourishment' - according to the Grocer magazine (a highly authoritative journal) UK food prices have risen by just under 20% in the past twelve months - and that's a lot, for sure! It certainly makes you wonder (or perhaps it should make you wonder!) just where and how the 'official' inflation statistics are dreamt up. Maybe a few Treasury officials are looking nervously over their shoulders, what with Gordon's plan to reclassify cannabis and all? With Aldi's footfall up over 25% and Lidl planning to open another 40 UK stores, maybe the likes of Sainsburys and Waitrose are about to experience a bit of a downturn? And Tesco too? We'll see. Maybe charity shops will become 'cool' again? I hope not - otherwise competition might push up prices and my wife won't be able to afford to visit them any more......

Moving on - no surprise (see last weekend's ramblings) that the HSBC 'shareholder revolt' fizzled out miserably. Nae real problem to big business, these annoying little people that call themselves shareholders - ignore them and pass the caviar, old boy. And talking of 'no surprise' - how is it that a whole load of business travellers are 'totally shocked' at the demise of Silverjet? More than a few heads firmly in the sand there, guys!

On to a scam or two - there always seem to be plenty on the go - and first, "carbon offsetting grants". It seems the UN is waking up to the fact that the whole carbon offsetting thing is simply a licence for the crooked to print money - as with most UN - sponsored ideas. I can't be bothered going into all the detail here - far too boring - but a Google search will educate you if you can really be bothered. Then there's the UK MPs' great idea to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act anent the need to declare their 'expenses' - just award yourself a 20% pay rise AND grant yourself an annual £23000 allowance for your holiday (oops, sorry - 'second') home. Ho ho. Williams missed his vocation there. In fact, Williams missed out on all these years of big City bonuses by walking away from the whole den of thieves after having been made redundant in 1994. And if you think I have the slightest regret, you don't know me very well - and you haven't been paying attention to these rants either - shame on you! It seems the latest bonuses total around £13bn - you might recall from an earlier WICS that I suggested 2007's would be the last of the big payouts - and these are indeed based upon last year, so they're the final hurrah as far as that particular excess is concerned. But fear not, because these cats will find another way to skim more of the cream in due course.

Moving along, a headline that amused IW during the week: "Every school has one bad teacher..." The article continued by suggesting that such people should be "moved on" if they didn't "respond to more training". Moved on to where? That would be my question - when I were but a lad, they all seemed to have been moved to my school......

The other minor amusement during the week came from the report that no fewer than seven UK power stations broke down within hours of each other. To misquote the famous playwright - one breakdown would have been unfortunate, two a coincidence, but seven smacks of downright carelessness.......

And the Schlumberger idea of developing "green coal" to fuel power stations is also a tad amusing - the chances of coal smoke ever being considered "green" are exactly zero.

Finally, before we look at a few charts, it was edifying to note that Ford will open its new factory in Mexico, not in the USA. More job losses for the Yanks then, from a rapidly failing industry. And as mentioned in the video updates, the retail auto industry in the USA is moribund and that's a situation that can only get worse. Lenders have tightened their criteria to the point where only the very best credit profiles can hope to borrow for a car - and showrooms are full of cars but bereft of buyers, from coast to coast. Is that happening on the other side of the Atlantic too? You decide!

Anyway, on to today's charts, and remember that in spite of all the seeming doom and gloom outlined above, there are always stocks that will rise in price, even in the depths of recession. For example, I have previously mentioned "defensive stocks" (use the WICS search engine) and often there are others too that might look like heading upwards. We'll look at one of these below (Southern Cross Healthcare) and we'll consider the potential implications of the most recent director deals therein as well as its 'horizontal channel'. Generally however, the more obvious trades when the economy is looking bad, are potential "sells" and for sure there are plenty of them around! (Just remember your huge advantage over shareholders - YOU can profit from falling prices - THEY lose their shirts!) But don't forget that if you feel you can only find "sells" then cut back on the number of ordered/open trades. If twelve open trades is your TTEW target, ideally these will be represented by six "buys" and six "sells". That's an ideal that can only be achieved by accident of course because nothing is that well balanced for very long - and within reason, it doesn't matter a whole lot. But if you ONLY have "sells" on the go, I would restrict the portfolio to eight at most. Why? Because a bear market rally (aka Dead Cat Bounce) can happen at any time and could potentially take you out of otherwise perfectly good "sell" trades - in the same way as a sudden drop can take you out of "buy" trades of course! Another potential "buy" might be Northumbrian Water - utility stocks certainly come under the heading of "defensives" and there's another push up out of the countertrend channel after the first attempt in April and the subsequent retrace. Then in the opposite direction we'll look at the chart of Berkeley Group - another struggling housebuilder whose travails may still be a long way from over. There's a countertrend channel and its subsequent break to the downside. Where next? Finally we'll review the S&P 500 chart in the light of the previous mention thereof - in WICS of 27th April if you have a look back.

That's all for this weekend then - the next WICS will be on Sunday 8th June as usual, so happy trading until then.

Ian

'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'.