Zoo.......oom! Oops - what was that that just flew by? My goodness - it's another weekend already! Spring is well and truly sprung in the mountains, the wildflowers are blooming in profusion, the wee birds are twittering merrily (clever beasties eh - the way they can use mobile phones these days....) and "optimism" is most certainly in the air at the moment - as is all the Williams family bedding on this lovely morning. The Yank "consumer confidence" index made its fourth biggest one month move in 32 years, up from 26.9 to 39.3. Wow - everything must all be OK again. Politicians at long last have "got things right". (If you're unfamiliar with these statistics, use Google & type in "US consumer confidence".) What was that about politicians, Williams? Are you actually suggesting that Broon & Obama have saved the world as we know it? Not that I'm laughing at any kind of illness - please never get that idea - but surely any belief that politicians actually have sorted the world economy, suggests that the "believer" therein needs some kind of professional help? Not so much "swine 'flu" perhaps, as "swine flew" - as in pigs flying? As the year progresses, there are going to be an awful lot of disappointed people around, that's for certain.

Speaking of "disappointed people" - investors in Cerberus ( a hedge fund) may be a tad unhappy this weekend after it lost all of its 80.1% stake in Chrysler upon the bankruptcy thereof. It paid £6.6bn for the Chrysler stake in 2007. Oh well, easy come, easy go - most of it would have been borrowed dosh anyway and it's peanuts compared to all the other money that has been lost/is about to be lost. Fiat (see last weekend's WICS) has got its 20% stake "for nothing" but maybe that "nothing" will still add up to a whole pile of burning dollars on the bonfire of the next phase of this crash. General Motors is discussing matters financial too - it is considering offering its existing shareholders 1% of the "value" of their stock........

More disappointed people can be found at Warren Buffet's annual egofest. Five consecutive losing quarters and his own admission that he has made some pretty "dumb investments" recently, have shareholders insisting he name a successor pretty smartish. Try "Warren Buffet" in the search engine for more - but surely the dumbest move he made was buying into Irish banks last year? It takes real skill to go from "incredibly astute" to that degree of dumbness - but it appears Mr B may simply be like so many others - brilliant when all markets are booming, but.....

And still on the "brilliant" theme - is Barclays Bank brilliantly run or not? It certainly avoided the UK taxpayer bailout (by getting a bailout nonetheless of course) but is there a whole lot of toxic stuff still hiding in its extremely dark and impenetrable cupboard? We shall see - but if so, remember where you heard it first......and of course you'll know by now that bankers in general are laughing themselves silly at government stupidity, as they pocket their (still massive) bonuses and give themselves some pretty tasty pay rises too. Ho ho ho.

As regards pay packets, it was interesting to note that the UK government owns a company that allegedly specialises in "alleviating poverty in developing economies" - and whose chief exec has been trousering between £579,000 and £1m a year via his pay packet. Nice work if you can get it, eh?

Still in the UK, seemingly £285m was allocated last autumn to a "mortgage protection scheme" that was "designed to help 6000 families keep their homes". To date, it has helped........one family. (But to be fair, there are another 450 cases being "considered" for assistance....) What a load of rubbish - it's just like the alleged grants for energy saving, or conversion of cars to lpg - fine words but nae parsnips.

Anyway, onward to things possibly more useful to us as traders - but first, the week's best "stable door" story (if you're new to this nonsense, please try "stable door" in the search engine...) and it has to be the adder that bit a British postie when he put his hand in a rural letterbox. The postie suffered no lasting damage, and the snake slithered off into the boondocks. The next thing that happened was that the post box was taped up and a big sign warned "beware of poisonous snake". Hmm, like it was going to come back after its fright? Maybe ALL postboxes should be taped shut in case the wee beastie fancies setting up home in another one? Oh dear - everyone should have a personal nanny these days. I would ban wasps, myself.

Moving on to a chart or two then, and today we'll have a look at that of Tullow Oil, where a trend change may be brewing. Then we'll see if Inchcape might be turning back up enough to offer a potential buy trade. Next we'll ask if HSBC Bank (Epic Code HSBA, by the way - to avoid any confusion) might be heading above "round number" resistance at 500 - and why maybe a potential "buy order" at 501 could be a tad premature. Finally we'll consider where a stop loss might now be working on the Nasdaq 100 - last featured in video clip 2336 if you care to refer to that.

And that's all for this weekend - time to help Mme W with some of the "house airing" on this beautiful sunny day before a wee rest is called for - possibly a drinkie by the sunlounger might also be involved - but just a tiny one - honest!

By the way, don't forget that there's going to be a bit of a "reduced service" between May 12th and June 17th while this old house gets a bit of "refreshing" - the laptop will certainly be travelling with me to Scandinavia but we'll be moving around a lot and won't always be near a broadband connection, that is certain.

All the best then, till next weekend as usual - and may the sun also be shining on you, wherever you are!

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'.