Hello again - and a special "welcome" to all you new guys and gals - surely not everyone in the world totally wasted their time over the festives, judging by the number of requests these past two weeks for access to these ramblings! Hopefully you may find them beneficial - although probably not everyone will be able to take the IW sense of humour - and the "committed shareholders" among you will very likely dislike me intensely - but rest assured the contents of WICS are intended to be as helpful as possible to as many people as possible. Don't forget too that you are more than welcome to email me, both for specific mentoring help and with comments re the content of WICS. Oh yes - while I remember - quite a few new subscribers seem to be located in Oz and NZ. "Yes" is the overall answer to you good people - as in "yes, this TTEW methodology works every bit as well in your markets as it does anywhere else." Sure, the Sharescope charting package I recommend doesn't meantime cover Antipodean stocks, but it's only a charting package - of itself, it is not totally essential - although it has to be suggested that most serious traders WILL be using it. Your broker's own charts should be more than adequate for your needs as regards looking at Down Under companies - but in any event, any brokers worth their salt will be able to offer you trades covering just about any major world stockmarket - so don't feel short - changed! To make serious inroads into this fantastic business, you really need to look beyond the southern ocean anyway. Fair enough, the Williams "non trading - related" remarks are generally Europe/USA - orientated but that is surely understandable.

Anyway, on to our muttons and it certainly didn't take the Broon one long to come up with his first big taxpayer ripoff of the new year! A "ring fence" for bank toxic waste eh? (If you're a newcomer, please use the search engine & type "toxic waste" therein, if you have an hour or so to spare.....) Seemingly the cunning plan is that banks will finally admit to the full amount of radioactive material they still hold, and the UK government will then underwrite said amount (for a fee) - so that banks can "make a new start"......that will be "Make a new start creating the next lot of toxic waste" of course, because Broon wants them to start lending again to anyone who can put a cross on an application form. Will the banks co - operate? Perhaps - although this guy would take a fair bit of convincing before believing that banks have any kind of a clue as to their true levels of exposure. Will the UK taxpayer be landed with even more massive cost? Definitely. Broon of course is claiming the scheme has been his idea - funny how the Yanks set up the same thing for Bank of America last week. Surely they must have a mole in No 10? And still at No 10, some "baroness" or other, with some kind of "responsibility" for business matters, seems to have claimed to have seen some "green shoots of economic recovery". She was made to backtrack on the remark pretty sharpish but nonetheless, with people like that in charge...........

And in truth, this weekend it's hard to find much that one might call "serious economic comment" to pass on - as mentioned last weekend, there have been so many jobs disappearing and so many companies folding, that there is no point in even trying to list them here - and you'll have already read about most of them in the general media anyway. The only truly serious point to make (as frequently pointed out in these ramblings) is that government intervention in markets doesn't work. All it does is cost the taxpayer enormous sums - so enormous that your children and their children's children are still going to be paying for the unbelievable arrogance and stupidity of the likes of the Broon and Bernanke Gang. So tonight I'll just concentrate on the silly stuff and the scams that have come to the fore during the week. Before leaving the "toxic waste" theme however - very well done to Delhi for banning plastic bags - that shows a bit of forward thinking that the West could learn from.

Where to start then with scams and silly stuff? How about with "Unbelievably silly"? I refer to an article in a Yank newspaper, sent to me by one of my contacts across the pond. Seemingly the paper's "economics reporter" has decided that cash is going to become the "next bubble" because everyone is trying to hold on to it. Gosh - that is just so perceptive - give the guy a Nobel Prize! Let's see - how are bubbles created and sustained? "Excessive availability of cheap credit, to add fuel to irrational beliefs that a specific asset class can only rise in value" might well be a reasonable analysis of the root cause of any bubble. Apply that thinking to cash - and imagine a conversation with a prospective lender: "Mr Lender, I want to borrow $1m to buy cash please...." Aaaghh. Nah, I reckon the next bubble will be in tulip bulbs myself.....but to be serious for a moment, several times in WICS, mention has been made that "cash is king" - don't let anyone persuade you otherwise, for another couple of years at least! It matters not, how much of the stuff Ben & Broon try to print, because cash is being destroyed far quicker than printing presses can keep up with - and what is left, by definition holds more "value" because (nearly) everything else is falling in price. Yes, in due course we'll see inflation resume - but not for a considerable time to come. It's a bit worrying to note that according to a recent survey, nearly 30% of Brits now believe that property prices are "bottoming" - not a chance, people! Property still has a long way down to go before it reaches a sustainable level. "Three times salary plus 20% deposit" should be about right methinks, so maybe £100000 or so for the "average" house will set a reasonable base in due course. (IF salaries too don't start being reduced....)

Moving on - but still with falling values, we see that WICS of 7th September 2008 was correct to have reported a change of name for the Norwich Union With Profits Fund - but it's only down 16%. Even Friends Provident managed to beat it, reporting a tasty minus 20%....

Northern Wreck (ex) shareholders seemingly are going to court to prove that Broon ripped them off. Listen - you have already lost your shirts - don't throw any good money you have left, after bad! I know the Equitable Life patsies have eventually "won" their compensation case but they'll probably all have shuffled off before any payouts might start to filter through the system.

The third Heathrow runway gets the go-ahead, not entirely surprisingly, but some government person claims it will be for "green flights only". Does anyone actually believe these people? A bit like another minister claiming that "everyone" in the UK is going to have broadband. It's interesting how many current UK government ministers have the same rather unusual first name of "Lord" - must be coincidence surely?

Some good news from the British Advertising Standards people - they have banned a major biofuels advertising campaign - so not everyone has been taken in by that particular scam, thank goodness. But the expenses claims for UK MPs and peers have been exempted from the Freedom of Information Act, so scams are certainly not dead - will people ever wake up and smell the coffee?

Moving on, it seems the head honcho of JJB Sports "lost" his (large) shareholding therein when the Icelandic bank he had borrowed the necessary dosh from, took the shares away from him. Seemingly he is "unaware as to when this happened, and the relevant price per share...." Oh, please! And speaking of "Please" - a word to Microsoft - "Please, not Windows 7!" What on earth is the matter with XP? I know Vista is total cr*p but XP actually works. The sole reason for change of course, is to put even more dosh in Bill's ample pockets. Frankly, if I could be remotely bothered to learn a few new tricks, Windows would vanish from my life and a Mac would take its place.

Back to more good news, and Arizona plans to dump speed cameras outside urban areas - well done to them! Fine to have 'em where they do a decent job, but they're an abomination on the open roads for sure. And still with good news (depending on your point of view of course) - wine sales in the UK are doing very well and seemingly Blighty is now the world's biggest importer.....but sales of bubbly are flat...sorry - couldn't resist that one.

Zimbabwe has printed its first $100 trillion banknote - worth about £22 on the black market apparently. It would be hilarious were it not so tragic. And talking of hilarity (and potential tragedy), what about that Austrian "health" drink then? You seemingly get healthy in Austria via a good dose of arsenic - if you're as long in the tooth as IW, and if you were a student in the early 1970s, you might recall Austria's previous attempt at the exporting of home - produced beverages. That too ended in tears, when Hirondelle wine was discovered to have acquired its distinctive flavour via the liberal addition of antifreeze.....

Anyway, I'm aware tonight's offering has been a tad disjointed, but it has simply been that kind of a week. Before examining a chart or two, just a quick addition to last weekend's Really Scary Granny predictions, as a result of several emails received during the week: first, oil will bottom very soon, and then rise substantially in price as the year progresses. (I did suggest late last year that when asset prices were "low enough", I would point that out here.) Now it's true that "all" the pundits are saying the same thing, but for once, IW tends to agree with the consensus. Anyway, we'll see! However, not to disappoint you, the second prediction concerns gold, where all the world and his brother says it's going to head sharply upwards in a sustained move. "Nope" would be the IW take on that. As with all asset classes other than oil, it's going to head downwards for at least a year if not longer, before inflationary pressures begin to push it back up. In due course it will become an irresistible buy - but not yet. Don't forget to revisit WICS of 7th September 08!

OK - on that note, on to tonight's charts, and first we'll look at another of these channels on the chart of William Hill, to see how it might resolve. Then we'll examine Spirax Sarco, anent a possible trend change via a "probe and retrace", followed by a triangle on the Wetherspoon chart. FInally we'll look at another trendline probe and retrace on the Spanish IBEX index, where we'll also discuss the choice of suitable DMAs.

That's all for this weekend then - it's snowing merrily again here, so it's off out to the woodshed now for a spot of log splitting exercise. All the best till next weekend.

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'.