Happy Easter - I trust the sun is shining where you happen to be at the moment - it certainly is doing so here.

Not a lot going on - it appears the entire world simply stops for the long weekend - the only problem is, they all seem to come here to ski! I have never seen so many people on the slopes at Easter, so it's just a sunny terrace for me with a glass of something cool while I sit and watch the world go by this afternoon and tomorrow, before needing to shut up shop for the trek back to the summer pastures - via the usual visits to various relatives and friends. It's always a bit of a wrench to leave the snow behind but hey, we all have to make the odd sacrifice.

Most of the 'news' over the past week has centred around property issues, as well as the (by now well - known) 'private equity' stuff - I see the proposed £10bn Sainsbury's deal would make the perpetrators (a term chosen entirely intentionally) thereof some £700m over the next four years - and of course as a current shareholder who sold out, you would likely make a tidy wee profit too. But as for poor old Sainsbury's itself - well, it would be saddled with a mere £8bn in debt - I'm sure it would be able to cope though. Hey ho. Doubtless you'll recall last weekend's WICS comments on 'private equity' deals.

I see too that the famous (infamous?) US corporate raider Kirk Kerkorian - what a great name! - is offering $4.5bn for Chrysler so there you go - he's 89 years young and still going strong. Makes Warren Buffet look like a spring chicken and just goes to prove that you don't need to 'retire' in this game. (And I know from your emails that some of you good people are in your 80s and happily trading via TTEW - you're an inspiration to Williams, that I promise.)

Reference 'property' as mentioned above, I note a certain divergence in the Republic of Ireland (thanks for the email, Joe) between the views of the housing minister and those of a leading financial consultancy. The housing minister's opinion seems to be that Eurozone interest rate rises are going to "Stave off a property crash....." Not sure how that's going to work, myself, but politicians were never that clever really and there IS an election looming. The financial consultancy on the other hand reckons that "Property values will suffer from a slowdown in industrial growth as more and more jobs are lost in the shifting of economic activity to Eastern Europe." Hmmm, I wonder which of the above statements makes the better sense?

Sticking with Ireland, you'll have noted the mention in last weekend's ramblings, reference 'Alt - A' loans in the USA and the current difficulties involved in packaging and selling these - and during the week we see that another US lender, M&T, is in trouble having failed even to get an offer for some of these, and also having had to buy back some of those already sold, under the terms of a penalty clause relating to the number of defaults. M&T is owned by Allied Irish Bank.....

Still on property (sort of) I also read that in the UK, "Over 50% of school fires are suspected to have been the result of arson." Gosh - as a schoolboy I dreamt of the place going up in smoke - only 50%? I would have expected 99% if they're still as bad as when "I were a lad".......not my favourite place for sure - and I wasn't even allowed to sleep at the back of the class - always forced to sit at the front as a "troublemaker" - moi?!

Anyway, moving on to today's charts, first we'll look at Petrofac because one of you (a total beginner - so very well spotted as an example from which to learn) emailed me about it during the week and asked some good questions about past trade entries and stop loss/DMA management - it's a very good chart to examine in that context. The other chart today is that of the FTSE 100 because it's at an interesting juncture and well worth taking another look at.

And that's the lot for this weekend - there will be no WICS next weekend (14 - 15 April) due to my travel arrangements - the next issue will be online late evening of either 21st or 22nd April.

Best wishes until then,
Ian.

(PS - just to let you know too that I'll be shutting up shop around noon on Tuesday 10th so I'll not be answering emails between then and probably Wednesday afternoon 18th.)