Did the earth move in Italy for the G8 summit participants then? Seemingly the whole thing was "chaotic" according to reports - nothing new there, then. G8, G20, Gee whiz - meetings of all the really important people, where they sit down and admit that they have really, really screwed up this time.....or maybe not. (That's "not" as in "not admit" of course - not "not" as in "not screwed up".) What a lot of "nots" - another one ("not" coherent?) might apply to the BMW head person's assertion during the week, that "The motor trade crisis is over - there has been a stabilisation in the negative trend with the year on year fall shrinking from minus 28% to minus 16%"...... Where do they find these people?

And how about "not a chance" as regards the UK managing to hold on to its AAA credit rating for much longer? According to the IMF, it appears that Britain is the "only G20 country that "will be unable to provide further economic stimulus" (to try to spend itself out of the current mess). Blighty is running a structural deficit of 14% of GDP - an even higher figure than those for Iceland and Ireland in fact. Oh dear.

And of course there's the other "not" anent Wee Allie's new "reform the banks" pronouncements. Not a lot of substance there, eh?

Coming back to the danger to the UK of losing its top level credit rating, so what? "So", interest rates increase because people will want to be paid more for taking more risk - "so", even more costs to the economy, reducing even further the recovery prospects etc etc. (Try "gilts" in the search engine for more, if you can be bothered.) Anyway, it seems that (according to some professors) Britain's new mathematics A Level has been "dumbed down" - their words were "weak and mindless" - so maybe nobody will be clever enough to notice when the rating drops....apparently there are "50000 too few university places" - that's not entirely surprising, the way jobs are disappearing and more people fancy trying for a degree. How to fix the shortage? Easy! Just do what governments always do - find some other institution that's pretending to offer some kind of "training" and call it a university......."Yes, I'm a graduate of McDonalds and I can do you an A burger, a double A burger, or an AAA one..." Given that there are seemingly "between 48 and 130 applications" for every graduate vacancy at the moment (Association of Graduate Recruiters) maybe even more university places are not really that necessary - but they take some numbers off the dole figures of course......

Anyway, that's maybe a wee bit of a cynical comment, but although this whole "credit rating" thing is a bit farcical really, it will add substantially to the UK's already horrendous burden if the AAA rating is lost. (To prove the "farcical" contention, here's an email from "Chris" along with a link to a piece that's well worth reading):

"Hi Ian

Did you see the following article?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aeTzfvEedKpQ

Morgan Stanley are going to repackage repackaged debt and pretend that it’s a great investment????? Isn’t this exactly what caused the problem in the first place? How the heck are they being allowed to get away with this again? Oh well - time to sell anyone that buys this stuff.

On another note saw an interview with a chap from National Savings & Investments and he stated that for the first time in many years the saving rates of the 50-65 yr olds is going down. This means they are having to spend more just to live. For me I interpret that as they are unlikely to be buying luxuries like holidays and new carpets. Scary times still ahead.

All the very best.

Chris"

Thanks for that, Chris! Scary times indeed - just as well I'm comfortable with "scary" via my Really Scary Granny! Maybe Morgan Stanley will employ some of these new maths geniuses once they graduate......speaking of which, nobody noticed last weekend's typo - it was "arithmetical", not "mathematical" but it was a typo nonetheless, so humble IW apologies are called for. Porsche isn't begging for €175bn - the figure is €1.75bn. Plenty, for all that!

Still with "motors" - Jaguar has just launched its new XJ model at the Saatchi Gallery, no less. It seems "People will buy it and keep it for forty or fifty years, when it will be a collector's car...." That's what the designer says, anyway. Ho ho. Listen, Mr Callum - it's full of fancy electronics. In a lot less than fifty years, it will be broken and unfixable. In fact, it's a Jag, so it will be broken in about six weeks. And the "new General Motors" arises from the ashes of the old - the head man has a telecoms background and admits he "knows nothing of making or selling cars." That's a good start then - the "old" GM clearly knew nothing of such things either.

Speaking of "telecoms", one or two of you were wondering why "Micha" (mentioned in these ramblings on June 21st) was the "stupidest man on the planet". Well, he was inching his way along in the huge traffic jam referred to on the 21st, doing about 1mph, the same as everyone else caught in the snarlup. He took the opportunity to have a wee chat via (handheld) mobile phone..... but in his case the number was TWO mobile phones. The conversation seemed pretty lively and it was quite funny (albeit scary) to watch the extremely animated head movements from "ear to ear" - steering the lorry was obviously via some hitherto unknown Latvian telepathic invention. But the funniest bit was the fact that he was so engrossed, he had failed to notice the German police lady who was surveying the traffic jam from the central reservation - her expression on noticing him was a sight to behold......when last seen, Micha and lorry were being ushered on to the hard shoulder. Bedtime with no supper for him then.

Still on the theme of "police lady", those of you who have French, will know that you get gendarmes and gendarmettes in that country, and it got me to thinking that "numpty" really ought to have a female equivalent, so as not to be sexist. How about "numptette"? That certainly describes the young female person who was trying to turn her car across the oncoming traffic at a busy junction the other day - while spooning a tub of ice cream into her face. Maybe it was so cold it had frozen her brain? Probably not - after all, a brain needs to be present before it can be frozen.. Anyway, another day, another dent - but more than a little annoyance for the poor chap whose car she ran into.

And speaking of numpties (doubtless numptettes too) - Marks & Sparks shareholders are yet again "threatening revolt" over the fact that the chief exec is also chairman. As if the shareholders matter!

Anyway, onward - in fact, 12000 miles "onward" - it seems that a town in Australia has banned the sale of bottled water. The grounds of course are "environmental" and seemingly tap water there is "just as good" as that nasty bottled stuff. So they don't use chlorine in the public supply then? How about "freedom to choose", guys? Even here in the mountains, well above the nitrate zone, the public supply has a bit of an "after taste" and this family certainly isn't too keen on imbibing chlorine. (By the way - it's great to have so many Antipodean subscribers these days - sure, by its nature, WICS concentrates on the Northern Hemisphere - but hopefully the charts at least are helpful to you - and any decent broker can offer you trades on the kind of stuff we look at here.)

Still in Oz, it seems that the government's current "stimulus and infrastructure" package is "nothing to do with getting votes in marginal seats." Of course it's not - how could anyone be so cynical as to suggest otherwise? Just as in the UK, the Broon one's assertion that he'll "build 110000 new cooncil hooses with nae money" has absolutely zilch to do with the coming election. And I had no idea he was so good at DIY. On a more serious note, home repossessions in Western Australia are running at an all time high - so much for all the fancy talk these past months, that "the recession is over because China is buying minerals in huge quantities again". China has simply been stockpiling - and it has pretty much bought all it wants, now and for the foreseeable future. Australia is heading in the same direction as are all developed economies, of that we may be sure.

OK - enough rambling - on to a chart or two, and first today we'll examine that of BHP Billiton - seeing that "minerals" were mentioned above. Is it heading for a break of horizontal support now that its trend has turned back down again? Then we'll look at a similar thing on the chart of Victrex, before considering a triangle on the CSR chart - will it break out to the upside? Finally there's a picture of the Swiss SMI index - we haven't looked at it before, but it has a distinctly weak appearance - I'll explain more on the chart.

That's all for today then - hopefully your weather is suiting you wherever you are, and I'll speak to you again next weekend as usual - all the best until then. Time for an ice cream now methinks....

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'.