Hello again from the even deeper depths of Scandinavia - another forest and beautiful lake, more ducks/geese/curlews/swallows etc etc to make plenty of racket as the sun rises at 02:30 or so..........fabulous! And this time, a moose wandering through the birch trees just below the house - again, just fabulous. It's a big animal for sure, yet it moves so quietly. Seemingly there are also brown bears in the area, not to mention lynx and wolves, although we have yet to see any of those particular beasties. (And in answer to a couple of emails anent last weekend's mention of the "monster pike" - "no" is the response, sadly.An enjoyable hour was spent trying to tempt it to a big tube fly but the perch it had grabbed a wee while earlier, must have satisfied its appetite - not surprisingly really.)

Anyway, enough of this idyll for the moment - and back to what laughingly passes for "reality" - where the biggish news of the week seems to be the matter of Vauxhall/Opel's survival. You'll have been reading about the imminent GM bankruptcy of course, and the need to sell off the European business. Doubtless too (if you have been reading any recent WICS issues - and shame on you if you haven't!) you'll know that Fiat was thinking of making an offer, but they have now (very wisely?) withdrawn. The sole bidder left is some allegedly Canadian setup called Magna and they will undoubtedly acquire Vauxhall and Opel. Seemingly, the Mandelson one in the UK is "confident" that British jobs will be OK. Oh dear - that may prove not to be the case, given that his Russian boating pal Deripaska seems to be involved somewhere along the line. "Magna" may well prove to be another way to spell "Murky"........methinks it's all the government handouts these folk are looking for, and car manufacturing may have little place in their future plans. Does anyone remember DeLorean and huge grants for a factory in Northern Ireland?

Speaking of Ireland (albeit this time south of the extremely porous border) it's more than a little amusing to see the government of the Republic having to shell out another €4bn to a bank - mention has been made here before, that Ireland is bust - and this is just another nail in its coffin. The bank in question had been lending money hand over fist to its own directors, to fund whatever nefarious little "business ventures" they were involved in - mostly Bulgarian and other property scams ....sorry - slip of the pen - "schemes". It had also been lending loadsa dosh to people wanting to buy shares.....in the bank. Ho ho ho - and we laugh at the antics of bankers in third world countries?

Moving along - but back to Germany for a moment - it seems Porsche hasn't been so clever after all, and has had to go begging for a loan from VW. Ah, family feuds are the worst kind eh? Maybe they should stick to making cars - although nowadays a move towards making even more of their unbelievably expensive pushbikes - with a major price reduction - could be a better idea. Hewlett Packard is closing its German factories (and its Scottish one) and is relocating to the Czech Republic. Bad news for Scotland - but far worse for Germany because so many other companies that are based there, could so easily make the same move. Germany is deep in the mire, because nobody is buying very much and their economy is so export - dependent. There are far, far more jobs still to disappear there, that is certain. It was interesting to hear the usual suspects come out with the same old solution - "If the German public would only spend a bit more, the economy would recover......" (try "stupidity" in the search engine...)

Speaking of stupidity, the British Bankers' Association seems to be claiming that the UK's housing market is "over the worst." Since we all know how clever the banks are, that must surely be true then? And still on the "stupid" theme, people seem to be bidding up the price of junk bonds (try Google if you don't know about these). Yields are dropping back a bit - but are still pretty high in percentage terms. The sheep just never learn. You can get 20% on some company bonds - wowee - give me some of that! Oops, the company has just gone bust and the bonds are worthless....I want my money back! Try "yields" in the search engine if this is all a bit new to you - and a big "IW welcome" to you if that's the case.

Next, we see that Heineken (beer brewers) are probably going to have to supply a whole chain of pubs (Globe) at nil cost for years to come, and are buying up the company's bad debt to try to protect their own interests. Waste of time lads - as my wise old Dad used to say, "The first loss is the best loss." (Meaning "don't throw good money after bad.") What are stop losses for after all? Think about it!

Moving on, it seems US commercial property has not only seen an approximately 50% drop in valuation these past 18 months, but about $1.2trn of its total $3.5trn debt burden is due to be refinanced over the next 18 months or so. Hmm, how many bankers are going to be willing to take on/continue tolerating the debt? Commercial property everywhere is only at the start of its overall collapse.

And finally today, a couple of gold medals in the category "rewards for failure" - first there's the ex boss of British Telecom, who gets a meagre £2.85m payoff for having pretty well destroyed the company - how does that sit with the next 30000 employees who are about to be "let go"? And the other similar award surely must go to the ex Speaker of the UK's House of Commons - a numpty of high degree indeed. He will almost certainly receive a peerage and thus a seat for life in the House of Lords. Oh dear.

Finally finally, mention must be made of ongoing identity fraud scams - things are now so bad that in New Zealand, a parrot nicked a Scottish holidaymaker's passport - it is to be hoped his credit card didn't vanish too. I wonder what a New Zealand parrot will make of the Scottish accent when phoning the relevant bank to withdraw funds? "Ah, ah...g'day the noo Jimmy....screech.....ah, soarry Jimmy...Ah've goat the parrot 'flu..."

Anyway, time methinks for a chart or two before bedtime with a wee sedative, and first tonight - having mentioned commercial property above - we'll look at a brace of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).and see which might perhaps represent an opportunity to a trader. The two in question are British Land and Liberty International. One shows a fairly clear channel with a decent "probe and retrace" while the other "has already gone", as regards that particular formation - but has some nice horizontal support a bit below the current action. Ah, decisions, decisions!

Then (coming back to Germany's troubles for a moment) we'll look at Thomas Cook. What was that? You didn't know it was a German company? It's a London - quoted company of course, but its parent is a huge German setup that owns department stores and a big mail order business - all of which are in deep trouble. Is the travel industry thriving at the moment? You decide! Finally we'll update the DAX chart in response to an email from "Celia" - thanks for the question!

Oh yes, before I forget - in the video updates I mentioned the matter of "prices/spread costs" and to answer the question, here's an email from "Paul" that hopefully will help a little. Certainly if you're spread betting, this can be a pest but we all have to live with the situation and after a trade or two, it becomes straightforward enough really.

Here's the email:

"Hi Ian I have a question for you about how to deal with the spreads. I emailed you last week about national grid plc and told you that i had my first order in to buy at 601 thinking that this would be a break above the historic support/resistance point. All very well but finspreads bought when the price was at 597 due to the spread!!! Thinking about it the spread will also come into effect on stop losses as well. How do you work with the spreads? Should i just try to take into account the spread and place the order at 604 hoping that this will correlate to the actual price hitting 601 or thereabouts?? Seems a little haphazard to me. Regards Paul "

My reply was:

"You just add on the spread cost as it relates to the price. Always check the screen (cash) price when you order, against the quote. If there's a few days before the price gets near where you want it at cash price - ie 601 in your example below, then double check that the spread isn't different to when you ordered - that can often be the case. If (say) it's now 6 points rather than 4 as below, then you need to change your order for your fill from 601 + 4 to 601 + 6, or whatever is the case at the time. I would also add another point to be on the safe side, in case a fraction of a point over your calculation might be involved. It's a minor pest but cannot meantime be avoided (if spread betting) because the big providers (the only safe ones to use!) are all doing things that way at present. That situation may revert (I hope) to the previous facility to open at screen prices. If using a broker the problem doesn't exist because they still permit screen - based entries - but the margin etc costs are far greater than via spread betting. "Haphazard" is a valid enough term but we just need to get on with it!

Ian".

OK, that's all for this weekend - so happy trading till next time.

Ian.

PS - just a reminder to Australian based subscribers - don't forget than any decent broker can offer you plenty of the types of trade and stocks covered by these ramblings - the fact that examples tend to be from the UK is neither here nor there frankly - and I'm happy to discuss other stocks if you care to email me about them. As regards charts, try www.incrediblecharts.com if you prefer to deal with those companies that are based Down Under. The TTEW methodology works everywhere!

PPS - Please note I'll be unavailable all day on Tuesday June 2nd.

'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'.