Another somewhat glorious day here in the mountains - what to do with it once these ramblings have been forwarded to my webmaster? I daresay I'll find something of interest. Certainly it's to be hoped that wee Allie Eyebrows finds things of interest, to while away the weary hours while the Brown One does his job for him....in an interview during the week, Gordon growled "Ah huv steered the ecoanomy through duffucult times before an' Ah buleeve Ah kin do so again....." Good man - his government could save a bob or two then by doing away with all the "Special Advisers". £6.3m a year - I ask you! Anyway, as part of his "steering" we see the latest extra £2.7bn of income tax handback - as in "hand back with this hand, and take back with this one next year...." Break the Golden Rule? Of COURSE he'll break the Golden Rule! By most sane measurements he already did that when he gave the UK taxpayer a share of the Northern Wreck debt. (If you don't understand the reference, type the exact phrase "golden rule" into the WICS search engine.) So much for all the "prudent" posturing. Numpties Rule OK. Maybe he'll get enough from taxing bingo halls to pay for it all of course. Oh yes - and it seems the MOD has released a whole load of previously classified UFO files to the National Archive, so at last we'll be able to see how Tony arrived on the planet.

Scams this week - Sainsbury's prices are not exactly the cheapest - caused allegedly by their insistence on quality, traceability, ethics, rising wheat/rice/meat prices, blah blah. But nonetheless, their profits are up, bonuses are up - only £9m to the chief exec between salary & bonus....ho ho. And it appears that in the general world of "Big Business" the hard times are coming. Deloittes (a financial consultancy) report that their "Pay Experts" are meeting the so -called "remuneration committees" of some of the world's biggest companies to discuss how to con shareholders by reducing bonus targets for execs, as these become harder to achieve in the coming recession. HBOS has already halved its long term targets for the payment of director bonuses. And people STILL buy shares! Baaa....

Bradford & Bingley are going for a rights issue despite having claimed they didn't need one - "48% discount" on current price. Or is that "nae discount because the shares are virtually worthless anyway"? And as predicted here often enough, the bad news re banks just keeps getting leaked out in dribs and drabs - if you can call Barclays' and HSBC's most recent admissions mere dribs of course. What's a billion or so these days anyway? A drop in the ocean! Alliance & Leicester has cut back lending by £4.5bn, and the LIBOR rate has actually risen during the week despite all attempts by government to "free up" money for the housing market. (Use Google to find out about LIBOR if you're newish to this game.) Gordon of course has an idea there too - he'll spend another £200m of YOUR money (if you're a UK taxpayer) buying new apartments either to let out or to "sell" in some kind of shared ownership deal for first time buyers. Peanuts of course - and if his track record is anything to go by, a virtual guarantee that such properties are still being offered for at least double their true value....

The other thing that tickled my sense of the bizarre during the week was a report that some Kiwi professor reckons that the IQ of the general population is increasing by about 3% every decade. Hmm - that would be a tad unbelievable methinks - but I'll content myself with that comment and move on rapidly....

Anyway, not a lot of anything new seems to be going on in the markets and there is little of consequence to report for now - the sheep are keeping things supported to a degree and that is going to continue for a while yet. For sure, that 3% IQ hike seems to have bypassed your average shareholder/share buyer....Oops - and I said I wouldn't comment any more about that. Wash my mouth out! Some sectors of course are so obviously suffering that not everyone still believes the "Great Buying Opportunity" con (again, type that into the WICS search engine for more references thereto) and Humberts (a posh estate agent) has finally gone down the pan. How long before Savills breaks its support I wonder?

On that note, let's look at a chart or two, and first we'll revisit Aveva (featured in video clip 1259) and see if it might be consolidating in a wee channel. Then we'll look at Keller because it shows an excellent example of a triangle breakout that reinstated the prior trend, and now it's showing some pretty good horizontal resistance in the opposite direction - both formations being of significance within this TTEW methodology. Finally, there's some very nice horizontal support to look at on the Quintain chart. Just remember please that I try to choose these WICS charts to enhance your learning experience - how pompous a statement is that eh? But seriously, the idea is to give YOU "ideas" as to what charts "need" to look like before being of any interest - and you know how to contact me if you're not sure about such matters!

On that note, I'll speak to you again next weekend as usual, so happy trading until then.

Ian.

PS: Just a note to say that the WICS and video password will be changed on May 31st. If your 3 months' worth of no cost access is about to expire, you'll shortly receive an email with the necessary information to let you continue to suffer these ramblings and view the video updates, by subscribing on a monthly basis. If you are still entitled to access, you'll receive the new password in good time - it's imperative that you have whitelisted my address so that it doesn't end up in your junk mail. Please check out the email help here.

'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'.