Hello again from a very snowy scene - just a tad early this year but who's complaining? Anyway, just the "same old" as far as the economic world is concerned - "piracy as usual" has certainly been a feature of the past few days' activity. First there was the hijacking by the Argentine government, of all private pension funds there - under the pretext of "protecting the dosh". Ho ho ho me hearties.... Then there's wee Allie the glove puppet, stealing even more from future UK generations via the inevitable (and massive) tax hikes that will have to follow his coming "fiscal stimulus". A VAT reduction to get you all spending for the festives eh? That will really save the UK economy then. Allie's excuse is that the boss would sack him if he didn't co - operate. That's the boss who caused the whole problem to get totally out of hand in the first place of course. Oh yes - and then there's the matter of the Somali pirates....What's the difference between them and governments/banks? The pirates tell the truth right up front, basically. "We have grabbed some of your assets and we'll let you have them back in return for a fee." Governments: "We are going to grab every penny you have and give you next to nothing in return, and since we are the law, tough." Banks: "We are above the law and will continue to do exactly as we please, which will include continuing to steal your money whenever and however we can." Hmm - not that I'm condoning what the Somali lads are up to - but are the banks and their government lackeys really that different when you get down to basics?
Still on the subject of pirates, didn't you just love how the chief execs of the USA's "Big Three" auto makers turned up in separate private jets to demand a bailout from the Yank government - ie from Joe Public's future taxes? No subtlety about these guys eh? No wonder their industry is an absolute disaster area with idiots like that at the helm. When they were asked for their business plans, they got all hot under the collar and basically tried to suggest they were above having to do all that kind of tedious paperwork and should just be handed the dosh whatever - in the same way as happened with the banks of course. It's almost impossible to believe their arrogance - and it doesn't bode well for their companies' ultimate survival. The Big Three are dinosaurs, basically, and it's nearly certain they will disappear soon enough, just as the investment banks have vanished from Wall Street. Shame about all the lost jobs of course - but bailouts only defer the inevitable - nobody should be fooled into thinking otherwise. The incoming US president of course will ensure that loads of "jobs" are created but as per last weekend's ramblings, how many are actually going to be productive ones? At least the GM guy seems to have got the message that financial excess is a bad thing.....sort of. He plans to get rid of two of his five (!) corporate jets. Gosh - how will he manage, the poor chap?

Moving along, and back in the UK, stealth taxes are alive and well - hardly a surprise there. The latest scam is to reduce the Premium Bond payout rate. The odds are now 36000: 1 instead of 24000: 1.

Next, we note that a new movie is coming out in the New Year: "Saint Tony - The Return." Or should that read "The Rerun"?

The script is a blockbuster - St Tony rises from the undead, and saves the world economy single handed, grabbing all the limelight from World Chancellor Broon, who doesn't even get a walk on part. There's a supporting cast of millio......well, one actually - wee Napoleon Sarkozy is going to appear for a short time. Maybe Stanley the Robot will be in it too? You have to hand it to St Tone - he's a person of some determination, whatever else you might say about him - determination to make an utter mess of whatever he touches.

Speaking of "utter mess" - what about Citigroup? It seems they claim to have been "saved" from disaster by a Saudi prince. They have just announced that said prince (who had a 4% shareholding) has increased that to.....5%. Wow - some rescue. And seemingly (having just announced another 50000 job losses to add to the 23000 already gone this year) their head honcho is saying (in response to the collapsing share price) "we have no liquidity problems at all". Maybe what he actually means is "we have no liquidity at all, and that's the problem"? With over $100bn of toxic waste still to account for, maybe Citi is about to become yet another part of "USA Government Total Financial Mess Inc"?

In Blighty, the SMMT (motor industry body) wants a bailout for its members. Will that happen? Not a hope. If it were to happen, would it help the "two men, one boy, and a guard dog" type of business? Nae chance - yet if there are to be bailouts, why should that type of business NOT be helped? These are jobs too, for goodness' sake - and it just goes to prove that if you're big and powerful enough to blackmail the politicians that are in your pocket, you can get what you want. If you're the little guy, forget it. It's called "democracy." Ho Ho Ho. There's a song on my (still "mislaid"!) Tractors album that has a line saying "The little guy is getting smaller all the time.." and nothing could be more true.

Not being a "little guy" as such (although he's positively microscopic if you take "integrity/self respect" into account) maybe some people were impressed by the gritted teeth apology from the ex chief exec of RBS. I'm afraid this fella was totally and utterly unmoved by it. It's to be hoped he meant it, but methinks it was like all such apologies: "I am really, truly, abjectly sorry for having been found out - honest. Now can you please see to it that my huge number of unpaid - for RBS shares pay me a dividend?"

Moving along before you think IW is getting just a tad cynical, it seems that Fitch (a ratings agency) has downgraded the debt of seven UK building societies - which means they'll have to pay more to borrow money....which in turn means that if YOU want to borrow from them for a mortgage....you get the idea. And credit insurance facilities have been withdrawn from several High Street institutions - not good news for Debenhams nor Woolworths, among quite a few others. What's the result of having no credit insurance? "Getting nae credit", basically - in other words, nobody will supply you with goods on tick - cash up front please, or no delivery. And you'll doubtless have read about Woolies being truly in the bargain basement itself these days, with the entire company (other than for a couple of relatively minor bits) being up for sale for £1 and with maybe 30000 jobs at risk. On a similar topic, thanks to "Chris" for having pointed out that Warren Buffet's debt insurance policy has been tripled in price in the past two months - somebody is losing faith in him! (Try the WICS search engine for more about Mr B - certainly if you had followed him the other month into "buying the USA" - as he put it - you would now be sitting on some hefty losses.)

More bits and pieces, and John Lewis (in the search engine!) is "nearly there" in facing facts - its most recent excuse for the ongoing collapse in sales revenue, is actually a "valid reason". Their spokesman is now blaming the poor results on the fact that "people are not spending money". Gosh, really?

Lord Coe has proclaimed that "Olympics funding is still on track." Shame about the field events then.

After the Pied Piper sorted the problem all these years ago, Hameln in Germany is once again overrun with rats, it seems. Must be the overspill from bank boardrooms surely.

Foreign diplomats seemingly owe Boris (London mayor) about £23m in unpaid congestion charge fines. The biggest culprit is the USA - so nothing new there - they owe the most to the most anyway. Have they actually ever paid their UN dues? Can't remember...

And Sellafield's new (Yank) owners have been exempted from complying with the UK Freedom of Information Act. What a joke - but not massively amusing either. And they also have an exemption from having to pay the first £140m of any cleanup costs, which would (will?) be met by the taxpayer. And the British public just keeps right on putting up with this kind of cr.... - oops - nearly a "non family friendly" word from IW there! Just wait till nearer the festives when I get into "Bah Humbug" mode.......talking of "cleanup costs", why is that that new coal mines are being opened in the UK at a fair old rate, and six coal fired power stations are being planned? Are people nuts? (No answer required!)

Next, it seems (still in the UK) that a spokesperson for the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) was asked for a comment during the week, anent the fact that the "buy to let" sector seems to be experiencing an awful lot of repossession orders. Part of his reply was "Fraud is likely to be a contributory factor." Oh yes - I think you can rely on that being the case. Also reference "fraud", there was a report during the week that suggested you can buy a "complete UK financial ID" for £80 online. I had no idea it could be worth as much as that.

Anyway, on to some charts before I take a hot toddy out to my wee elf friends that are shivering under the walnut tree, and today's three reflect several emails received during the week about looking for potential "sell" trades at prices still high enough perhaps to provide a decent profit in due course. You'll know of course that the likes of Mapeley (try the search engine) have now dropped so low that a "sell" at this late stage in their particular game, makes little sense. Anyway, tonight we'll look at Tullow Oil, Playtech, and Robert Wiseman. "Horizontal support" is the name of the game on these charts - and earlier "resistance" too might be playing a part in the analysis, especially in the case of Wiseman and Tullow. Last week in the video updates we were looking at Carnival and several of you emailed to ask if there might be any others that were a wee bit lower - priced, due to "affordability" issues for you. My answer of course was "Do some research!" but maybe these will help you along a bit - I'm just such a helpful guy....and modest with it.

Anyway, on that note, it's time to go out and join the neighbours' sledging party for a wee bit of much needed exercise (simple pleasures are the best ones!) so I'll speak to you next weekend as usual - happy hunting for trades until then.

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'.