Well well, so the Halifax has announced that house prices have 'turned the corner' and are now rising again. Great news, eh? Just enough time to nip out to the corner shop to arrange a quick remortgage in time to pay for Christmas.

No problems after all, then, for the High Street - the tills will be ringing merrily. It's so handy that the news came out at this particular time of year, isn't it?
Are people really that stupid?
Sadly, I do believe they are.

It's as well I don't get easily depressed, otherwise that sort of lunacy might cause me to lose the will to live, just as any cursory look at 'UK Plc' might also do.

What I can't quite get my head round is "What has happened to all the money?"
When I was a student, 'North Sea Oil' was the 'next big thing' and as far as I'm aware, the Treasury has earned £zillions from it over the past 30 years or so.
Then Maggie had a great big car boot sale, and privatised more or less everything, adding even more £zillions to the pot. (And she bulldozed her way to a huge rebate from the EU - no comment regarding where Tony's currently heading with that one.)

So where, exactly, have all these funds gone?

As some of you know, I have a wee place in France, and I know the country pretty well.
No doubt that's also the case for many of you, and I daresay I'm not the first to have wondered why France has the best Health Service in the world, when theoretically Britain had far more money with which to build the very best of infrastructures.
(If you're fortunate enough to be able to choose whether to grow old - or indeed be treated for any illness - in the UK or France....it's strictly no contest).

French public transport also, to put it mildly, shows up that of Britain in a shameful light, as do its roads, and there are many other comparisons that do the UK no favours at all. Did someone mention pensions recently?

Yet France (as with most EU members) has no oil of its own to speak of - it imports almost all its needs - and to date hasn't gone down the 'privatisation road' to any great degree - certainly to nowhere near the extent that has been the case in Britain.

If you think about the massive financial advantage handed on a plate to the UK by Mother Nature - i.e. North Sea oil and gas - it's Britain that should have an infrastructure second to none in Europe, if not indeed the entire world, and I repeat - because I would really like to know - "Where has all the money gone?"

Anyway, that little rant is in response to an email from one of you, who rather expected me to know the answer, but I promise you Jason, I do not!

Maybe it was all swallowed up by a black hole - it could just as well have been, for all the good it has done the country.

Even the Millennium Dope - (sorry - I had Tony in mind as I wrote that) - the Millennium Dome, didn't cost that much.
And recent poodling by Attoni the Hun, costing megabucks in military misadventures (I love alliteration) has created bills that haven't even arrived yet, so the oil and privatisation money to which I refer, had been spent/lost/wasted long before George W's wee pet was able to have a lot of influence on its disposition.

Having got that lot off my chest, I'll move on to this weekend's trading - related issues, starting with a wee prediction that we are going to see some falling away in the major indices, both here and in the USA, over the coming week or so.
That's because there will likely be a pause for second wind after the recent runups, but thereafter, I suspect we'll then see the final push to the upside before the bear market starts to bite early in the New Year.
The reason I think we'll have another rise to contend with, is because there are an awful lot of the very weakest players who are still sitting on the sidelines wondering when to buy before they miss out.
These are the people who inevitably buy at or near market tops when finally their fear of loss is overcome by their fear of missing out - i.e. their greed.
Once they have bought, there truly is no - one left to sell to, and it's then that markets start to fall.
With most of the popular media (did someone mention Bloomberg?) pushing people towards investing, and all their talking airheads promoting shares like there was no tomorrow, the remainder of the 'Moms and Pops' who are not yet invested, are once again behaving like good little sheep and trotting happily along towards the slaughterhouse. Baaah.
(And that little diatribe was in reply to a suggestion during the week that it was high time I spoke again about the 'Big Picture' - thanks for the reminder, Alison!)

Moving on rapidly, what next? - Well, it has been an interesting week for triangles!

After we looked at a couple last weekend, there have been loads of emails from you during the week, asking me to look at those you had found for yourselves.
There seem in fact to be triangles currently forming on most charts! ....or are there?

At the last workshop, one of you observed that if you look at any chart long enough, you'll see just about anything you want to see on it, and that is a very perceptive observation. Nothing could be more true.

It was good to see some of you correctly identifying triangles after last weekend's 'lesson', and I'll put up a couple of those below, just to reinforce last weekend's effort, but it's also the case that most of the 'triangles' you asked me to examine, were indeterminate at best.

What's the lesson to derive from that? - Basically, don't 'overanalyse', don't try to see what isn't there, don't be overanxious to find a viable trade - there will be plenty as time progresses.
In other words, yet again, PATIENCE!
If you can't see something of interest on a chart, don't try to manufacture something. Just move on and look at another chart.

The other two charts today are here in response to another email, this time about 'charts that are hard to analyse'.

My response was to say that if a chart looks 'difficult', then why bother with it? Just move on.

Anyway, that's about all for this weekend - before I go, though, can I just warn you about vir*ses, tr*jans and w*rms? Earlier in the week, I received an email purportedly from the US Government, no less, telling me I had been visiting 'illegal websites' and ordering me to open an attachment that contained 'questions that must be answered'.

My Norton programme of course intercepted it and warned me that it contained an attack on my computer, and such rubbish is of little concern to me because I have a high level of protection installed.

HOWEVER, my webmaster has once again asked me to remind you that it is UTTERLY ESSENTIAL nowadays that you not only buy a proper anti v*rus programme, but that you also ensure it is being regularly updated, and that you run a system scan on a regular basis.

If you only have some sort of 'freebie' version, it simply is not up to the job, so please (for your own sake) buy a proper programme, install it, and USE it! My webmaster recommends the following: Computer Associates; Internet Security Made EZ

I frequently have to let the odd one or two of you know that something nasty was embedded in one of your emails, unbeknown of course to you, and if it's in your email, it will likely also be in other programmes - possibly waiting to grab your banking details or something like that.
Similarly, keep your operating system up to date - if you don't have the latest fixes, it's like leaving the door open and complaining about being burgled.

OK - on to the charts - see below - and all the best till next weekend - I have to go now and split some logs for the fire, so that will warm me twice over on this cold and snowy afternoon.
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'.