It must be great to be Chancellor of the Exchequer - when the 'rules' don't suit you, you just change them. Regular WICS sufferers will know that one of my favourite mantras is the John Maynard Keynes quote "When the facts change, I change my opinion - what do YOU do, Sir?"
In Gordon Brown's case we could justifiably modify that to "When my Golden Rule starts to show me up for the crooked little con man I really am, I'll just alter its parameters, despite having promised it would never be broken".
I refer to Gordon's promise that over the economic cycle, increases and reductions in budget spending should cancel each other out. The current (and totally unsurprising) sharp slowdown in the economy SHOULD therefore mean some pretty hefty tax rises this autumn, but our beloved chancellor has simply decided that the current cycle actually began two years before he previously said it did, and the growth during those two extra years (1997 - 1999) has 'freed up' an 'extra' £10bn for him to play with. That will buy a whole lot of Smarties, for sure.
Just where will this magical 'extra £10bn' appear from? Has it been liberated by the Tooth Fairy from under Captain Hook's mattress?
Of course not - it's simply going to be an extra £10bn that Gordon will borrow to stave off immediate tax increases before he becomes PM, so that he can let the next chancellor take the blame, and which of course will have to be repaid at some stage. (By the aforementioned tax increases, obviously.)
I'm still totally astonished that anyone actually believes a single word uttered by this particular bunch of thieves.

As John Hawkworth of PWC suggested on hearing Brown's latest pearl of wisdom, "As soon as you fiddle around with the rules, the credibility benefits of having these rules is rather less".
Gosh, John, is that right?

Oh yes, and while I'm on one of my rants about the total ineptitude of government economic 'policy', I see the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has determined that UK 'growth' is at a twelve year low. Given that the alleged 'growth' has been entirely debt fuelled - thus completely artificial - and is falling away because most people are close to being fully borrowed, I don't reckon we ought to be terribly surprised by that particular nugget.

And yet....up goes the FTSE!....but not a lot higher now, I suspect. As with the USA, breadth is now falling away despite huge public optimism that stocks are on the way up (breadth falling away means price increases are on fewer stocks - the rise is not across the board.)
As breadth begins to drop, and volume too starts to fall away in spite of overall bullish sentiment, there is a high likelihood that the strong are selling to the weak - and that sets up a very high probability of markets turning back down pretty soon.
Nothing really has happened to alter what I've been suggesting recently - that the USA will turn down in the next couple of weeks or so, and Europe, including dear old Blighty, won't be too far behind. Obviously, even though we can be reasonably confident of a bear market resumption, the exact timing of its start, is something at which we can only take an educated
guess and we can only wait and see how things pan out.

That leads fairly conveniently into my next 'topic for today' - PATIENCE. I know from your emails that many of you don't like my use of capital letters, but believe me, that word deserves them!
I have gone on about 'patience' before in WICS and I make no apology at all for doing so again today.
Indeed, from dealing with mentoring questions lately, I'm beginning to believe it may be the single most important attribute of a successful trader.(And, sadly, the converse also applies.)
I know things have been 'slow' lately, with many potential trades taking a long time to be filled, and I know the predicted resumption of the long term bear market is taking an inordinately long time to get going.

However, what's the problem with just sitting and watching? Sometimes when I'm fishing, nothing rises for hours on end - so what? Many times I return from the water entirely empty - handed.
If you expect 'action' every time you head for the river, you won't enjoy fishing for long, and the trading environment is identical, except (in the case of TTEW style trading) the 'quiet hours' can be 'quiet days' or even 'quiet weeks'.
And what happens during such periods? Do people analyse, think, wait.....?
Some do, but others create a trade where none exists, and jump in out of sheer impatience.

Don't worry - it's entirely normal - but as with much 'normal' behaviour, it simply doesn't suit the totally unforgiving and emotionless environment known as 'The Market'.
Therefore, as with perhaps giving up smoking, or whatever perceived 'vice' you might be trying to kick, maybe it would be a good idea to make the cultivation of infinite patience, your prime trading target. At least (please!) think about what I have said above - I know I can be flippant about some things, but I absolutely promise you that the more you take on board the
absolute necessity of cultivating patience, the more you will profit as a trader.

The first chart today (Marks and Sparks) may help demonstrate what I'm getting at to a certain extent.

The other topic today (covered by the two charts of Next Plc), is that of choosing the 'correct' dma pairing to manage a trade, because one or two of you have asked me recently about this - there are several other examples throughout WICS and no doubt you'll find them as you trawl through the archive, but you know where I am if you need more guidance, as always.

While I remember, 'my' webmaster will be away next weekend and therefore next Sunday's WICS offering won't be online till Monday 1st August, in the late afternoon.

All the best until then,
Ian.

PS: I trust you are still keeping an eye on Tate & Lyle?

PS: Spreadex have let me know they're offering a bottle of Bollinger to those TTEW students opening new spread betting acounts with them - just the thing for a warm summer's evening!
Anyway, I know you'll check them out to see if they might suit your trading needs, and you won't open an account purely on the basis of free booze - in any event, you'll need to have completed a couple of trades with them before your bottle arrives, which of course is fair enough. Overall, I find they are pretty good. Here's the link if you're interested:

'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'.