Well, the move back to the winter quarters was a just a tad traumatic, due to a combination of a boat with blocked plumbing and a force nine gale - don't ask! Anyway, I'm more than happy to be back, not least because of the acceptably rapid internet connection that makes work just so much easier overall - websites are actually loading while I watch the screen where before, they were just too shy to do so and a coffee break was needed between clicking on to one and seeing it appear. Ah, the wonders of modern technology. Maybe I should put the donkey out to pasture and get one of these newfangled 'car' things.....

Okay - back to work then, and today's theme has to be "more scams". Where to start? How about good old Northern Even Rockier? I know a "deal might be struck soon" but that hardly alters the fact that the alleged liabilities of that paragon of banking prudence could be as high as £71bn against assets possibly totalling £58bn on a clear day with the wind behind them. And of course you'll have read about all the money they have been donating to the charitable trust whose name they have been using for their own somewhat murky purposes......"Nil" appears to be the figure in question. Not that Northern Crock is alone of course - inter alia, Abbey, Lloyds TSB and Bradford & Bingley have all been forced to admit that they too have been abusing charities' names without permission. How embarrassing for a bank to be found out - heads will have to roll. Why? Because they're guilty of sharp practice at best and fraud at worst? Nah - because somebody obviously didn't hide the scam properly. What a bunch.

And I see the Movida nightclub in London will be offering a Christmas cocktail for a mere £35000 a glass. Could that possiby be a wee bit overpriced? I realise there's going to be a diamond ring at the bottom of each glass but it will probably be a Gerald Ratner Special (You may recall Mr Ratner the "jeweller" suggesting a few years ago that his products had the same general lifespan as a Marks & Sparks prawn sandwich......bit of an insult to Marks & Sparks really...) It was interesting to note that said cocktail is to be named the "Flawless". It will be sold to the "Brainless" of course - a social commentator during the week was suggesting that anyone who bought a glass would have an intellect one level above that of a potato - hey, spuds aren't that thick.

The other big scam of the moment (from the Williams viewpoint - and maybe I'm wrong....) is the FTSE100 "pension fund deficit" thing. You may recall that a lot of FTSE100 companies (along with plenty others) have massive black holes in their pension funds - I can't recall whether it has ever been mentioned in WICS but you can always try the search engine. Seemingly the overall deficit has fallen considerably since August, to a mere £38bn or so. Why? Because the amount of money needed to buy the "AA" quality bonds that pension fund rules require, is less than it was before the credit crunch became apparent. Why are these bonds costing less? Because nobody knows (and I mean "nobody"!) how much toxic waste has been stuffed into them - so no institution wants to buy them except those whose rules require it in order to pay out pensions. Does that mean the true costs of pension funding have suddenly become a lot less? No, I didn't think so either. I think it's called "creative accounting" by those who practice it, and "crooked accounting" by normal people.

Moving along, it seems that 65 companies are being investigated by the FSA anent allegedly "creative" form filling on behalf of mortgage applicants - you know the kind of thing - NINJAs want to buy a house, the mortgage broker wants his commission to buy a cocktail or two - so hey presto, NINJA becomes PISAB (No Income No Job/Assets becomes Plenty Income Strong Asset Base) with the stroke of a pen. Magic! A bit like the tractor that turned into a field......

And I see too that the same FSA has suggested the credit crunch could get worse - surely not? Oh yes, and their retail MD has suggested that they had "failed to realise just how important is liquidity to banks." Wow - these guys really know their jobs. Talking of which, it seems there's a £20k reward on offer from the Darling Chancellor for the return of the famous "missing CDs". Hmm, if they have indeed been nicked by fraudsters, I wonder if that's maybe just a tad on the stingy side?

Next, there are profits warnings everywhere you look at the moment, and that has led to quite a few emails from you regarding where to find potential "buy" trades to balance up the easier to see "sells". Have a wee look in WICS via the search engine - type in "defensive stocks" and see what you come up with - and we'll look at one of these in the charts below when we examine Imperial Tobacco. Then we'll take a look at horizontal support again, on the charts of Next, Whitbread, and Ladbrokes.

That should be plenty for this weekend, and we'll speak again next weekend as usual.

All the best,

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'.