Hello again - and today has certainly concluded a week that was dominated by news of some of the 'change' to which I occasionally refer. "Walmart Posts Worst Sales Figures Ever" is just one headline from across the pond, to add to all those we have seen these past couple of months about bank failures and property foreclosures. I see too that Target (a major competitor to Walmart) is faring no better - likewise The Gap and most other big stores - and that old savings destroyer Alan Greenspan reckons the Fed will need to reduce US interest rates to "avoid recession". Maybe he should just keep his mouth shut after having singlehandedly created the principal reason why recession - indeed probably depression - is now inevitable.

In the UK, we read that "Retail sales weaken as homeowners feel the squeeze" and I note that many householders are spending half their income on mortgage payments - a totally unsustainable level.

That paragon of responsible capitalism - Ryanair - is currently offering huge discounts on a million seats, on the pretext of "kicking the competition" (Mr O'Leary's own words) but methinks 'pretext' is the correct term this time. Budget airlines are not in the habit of discounting fares by very much for the peak summer months. I would say that these carriers are in a lot of trouble and more than one of them won't survive the coming downturn - we'll see.

Moving along (or 'continuing the theme' - given my frequent rants!) to matters 'Private Equity' and 'Merger & Acquisition' I note that Thomson plans to sell most of its family silver (the profitable education division) to 'private equity' in order to fund the 'acquisition' of Reuters - fools that they are. Statistically, fewer than 50% of mergers between long established companies work out happily. Reuters has been on the go for 156 years and Thomson is no spring chicken either - the clash of cultures from such a situation doesn't bear imagining and guess which group will suffer most over time (apart from all those who will immediately lose their jobs of course)? That's right - the shareholders. "The only thing we learn from history is that nobody learns from history" - wise words from one of the Roosevelts I believe - but my apologies if I'm wrong.

Some of the employees of Burton's Biscuits certainly already know what private equity deals can do - another 650 jobs lost on Merseyside then....and Alliance Boots staff might be about to experience some tightfistedness in regard to their pension funding......

Moving along, I mentioned the "next scam" last weekend, anent carbon trading. Maybe there's an even bigger one looming however, in the form of biofuels. That one will be massive I reckon, and the prospects for the punter to lose his or her shirt are pretty high - think 'dotcom boom' all over again.

Oh yes, and how about this headline? "Smart Card Heralds Cash Free Era." Seemingly you'll soon be able to buy the likes of a Mars Bar, a newspaper, or whatever, without needing change in your pocket. Apparently it involves some kind of alteration to your debit card but it's a "voluntary" scheme. Hahaha - excuse me while I stop typing for a second to wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes. Governments everywhere would give just about anything to create a cashless society - that you can bet on. (Well, maybe not in Italy nor Ireland when I think about it - that would play havoc with the politicians' brown envelopes after all.)

Okay, time to move on before you get the idea that Williams has a caustic side to his character, and before speaking about today's charts, let me just mention that shortly the password giving you WICS access is going to be changed because I'm introducing a monthly standing order system for ongoing access after your 'free of charge' period expires. You'll be receiving an email about this soon if it applies to you - and to sweeten the pill, I'm meantime negotiating with a charting company to create a 'TTEW template' for their end of day data so that (if you want) you will be able to obtain stock and index charts at no cost to you whatever, in a format compatible with the way I analyse things. (No promises as to timescale mind, because that's outwith my control.)

First regarding charts this weekend, we'll look at a couple of triangles on Invensys, just to suggest that whether or not your first trade in any stock is a profitable one, if the chart continues to 'look promising' then there's every reason to keep watching it. (In fact, I would suggest that before you decide whether or not to set up your ongoing standing order, you have a look back through the WICS archive to see if a 'watch list' would have been a good idea in the first place!)

Then we'll examine De La Rue - 'sell' trades have been hard to find recently, as you know well enough of course (although that will change soon enough!) but this one is beginning to show signs that all is not well.

Finally we'll have a look at the S&P 500 across the pond - despite all the gloomy news emanating from the US of A, there could well be a 'final thrust' to the upside before it rolls over and dies - we'll see.

And that's your lot for this weekend - so 'Happy Trading' till the 20th.

All the best,

Ian.

PS - Don't forget to watch for the 'standing order' email - but I'll give you plenty of time to sort things out in that regard before I change the access details.

IW.