Another wee suckers' rally last week then? Certainly a nice FTSE100 bounce up, of over 200 points, but it gave back over 100 of these on Friday for all that. There were lots of 'Great Buying Opportunity' exhortations on the go, but I was pleased to note there might still be a tiny amount of honesty around too - when asked during the week where he thought markets were heading, Gervaise Williams (no relation) - head of one of Gartmore's investment funds - was brave enough (or silly enough) to reply "None of us knows." That won't have greatly pleased his employers, who have no interest in the world, beyond grabbing ever more punters' cash to 'manage'.

Ah well, perhaps if he receives his P45 he can buy the TTEW manual and make himself some cash.

Plenty P45s on the go anyway I see - "Highest unemployment in nearly four years" according to the ONS (Office for National Statistics.)

And another headline: "Soaring Energy Costs Bust Inflation Target" - plenty more inflation to come, that's for sure, and with it, interest rate increases, which of course themselves add fuel to the fire by pushing up mortgage costs.

Standard Life policyholders won't have quite so much spending money as they expected either. (Why am I not surprised?) Even before the Stock Market launch, they have already cut bonuses by 10%. What a bunch. And regarding said launch, I note a comment from Oriel Securities' insurance fund analyst: "I do not see Standard Life as a 'must - have'. If you want UK exposure (in the sector) you can just as easily buy Legal & General or Friends Provident, and you can get international exposure from Aviva or the Pru - and these others in the sector have made more progress in putting their house in order." How true.

Not really an awful lot of very much going on overall though - this sporting event thing appears to be having some kind of effect on a lot of people - certainly I have received a lot fewer mentoring emails than normal during this past few days.

Therefore (to some relief perhaps) I don't propose to blether on any more today - it's another beautiful afternoon and I need to sit in the shade and tie a few more fishing flies, with another trip looming - it's a truly hard life.

As far as the matter of 'lessons from the charts' goes this weekend, in the manual I mention "Trade the rumour but exit the fact" and the charts of Cadbury Schweppes and BAE are perhaps good examples of what I meant.

The other chart (of Minerva) is included this weekend mainly to illustrate a great example of one that has been extremely easy to work with, in terms of finding a suitable dma to manage the SL. (Stop Loss.) I realise from the odd email that some of you find WICS more than a little complicated, so perhaps for a week or two I'll make a point of simplifying matters a bit. (WICS of course by its very nature, HAS to be a good bit more 'advanced' than the manual. That's the whole point of it - it is meant to take your trading knowledge to a higher level than is possible with the manual alone. But make no mistake - if you find 'channels', 'trendline changes', 'triangles' and so on to be complex and difficult, you will still do just fine by sticking to the basics of the manual on its own. Sure, you may need to do more 'trawling' for viable trades, but you don't NEED to deal with the more complex trading issues, if you don't want to.)

And yes, I know that a proper indexing system for all of WICS would be a great idea, but as I have suggested more than once in the past, I have not the time to produce one - nor indeed the interest, frankly - that type of 'admin' is just not my strong point - if one of you good people would like to take on the job (for little reward other than personal satisfaction, because I'm tightfisted! Only kidding - how about in return for a copy of the new forex course when eventually my publishers have that manual at the top of their scheduling and start printing it? Have a look at the 2004 index that one of you produced before - sadly - being unable to continue, and if you feel you could do the same for the whole shebang, please email me - but don't all rush at once...)

Anyway, that's the lot for this weekend - other than to give you a little prior notice that I'll be away between the 5th and the 20th July - I'll remind you nearer the time of course too. Oh, and the password will be changed in the next few weeks - again, I'll let you know in plenty time.

All the best,

 

Ian.