A week of car-hunting by Mrs. G. Having decided that we only need one now, we have been through the varous options which might suit us both. Some chance of reaching concensus there! While the lady of the house is used to driving soft tops and coupes, my more ample proportions have always fitted more comfortably inside something rather larger and higher from the ground. So she has wheeled in a number of "super mini" options and has a list of test drives lined up for the weekend. That should be fun! Meanwhile, my car has somehow discovered that its days are numbered and for the first time in its life has begun playing up. I just knew this sort of thing would happen when they started putting computers in the darned things! :=) I managed to damage a knee somehow this week and have been hobbling about on a stick, trying to remember how Martini managed it with such ease and maintaining his dignity. I just look like a crock when I do it! X-Rays on Monday to see what I've done and hopefully to get back on both feet again soon - it is a helluva long hobble to the pub.

Despite the vaguely optimistic noises in the UK, the London market preferred to err on the side of caution on Monday. A poor start in the US didn't help. The FTSE100 eventually dropped 8 points. On Tuesday bad news from the Nasdaq meant it was a technology and telecomms led day. Neither sector fared well and the FTSE100 fell to 5840. A price downgrade for Vodafone ensured that the main index lost ground again on Wednesday. It finished off 12 at 5827. Only renewed activity in the banking sector staved off a bigger drop. Thursday was fairly lifeless but there was enough encouragement from an upbeat resume from Abbey National to make sure the day ended positively - the FTSE100 rose modestly to 5868. Friday was much more active and saw an 83 point gain in the FTSE100 to 5951. 6000 next week, anyone?

If you live in the North West, lancslad is organising what promises to be a good social night out in Clitheroe on Saturday 2nd June. The venue is The Old Post House Hotel in King Street. You can find details on the thread (NORTH WEST NIGHT OUT) or drop your name to lancslad from here if you are interested. Spouses, sweethearts and hangers-on are also welcome.



The Weekly BB Review

OK, so is Hilton Group going up or down? That is the question posed by Flops in HILTON - short-term increase?. dr agon, having missed the recent peak, bailed out and expects a better opportunity in a few weeks. Whereas, ChrisG read the runes entirely differently. The three month chart looks as though they may be stumbling up towards support at around 230p, but the lack of volume of late is a concern. With the Ladbroke betting arm of the group initially losing money through the cancellation of some horse racing events in the light of the foot-and-mouth crisis, the upside is that those events which do go ahead tend to be bigger fields and thus engender more opportunity for profit. Hilton recently bought Swedish hotel chain, Scandic, which has a good reputation both in the Nordic countries and elsewhere. I have stayed in many of them and can vouch for their quality and popularity. (In fact, I'm still a member of their club, having joined when a former Anglo-Swedish employer insisted on using Scandic hotels for most of their corporate events.) I'm still undecided about the prospects of a quick move in either direction, although the 9p jump northwards on Friday should have been a welcome sight to Flops.

Another stock not quite reacting as expected this week was Aminex (see Aminex - So cheap it hurts). The preliminary results out this week showed impressive year-on-year growth and profit improvement, also nett cash inflow from operating activities was over three times better than 1999. The share price took a knock after the publication of results as a bit of profit-taking hit the MMs but there is every indication that the stock is still in demand as news suggested. SpectoAcc and Ladron, Acol and sinso have shown interest in these in the past but were strangely quiet this week. On Friday, the share price showed some small signs of regaining its former level with a 0.75p increase to 22p bid.

After sitting upon the BB shelf gathering dust since mid-February when Scrapman started it, Any one fancy betting with london clubs?? sprung into action this week as Biomax noticed some big buys going through for the casino group. Shares in London Clubs International have been in the doldrums for some time but something has shaken them off the bottom in recent weeks. dondee reckons SHARES magazine reported the NAV at around 4 times the share price, which leaves some scope for improvement. I guess all that fancy real estate in California is worth a few bob whether the place is empty or full. The share price finished the final session of the week 3.5p up at 34p bid. (I noticed a 250k M trade at offer price around lunchtime which must have helped.) The words "smoke and fire" come to mind.

It could hardly go un-noticed that it was On-linePLC's week to publish interim results. The company confirmed earlier newspaper reports that it was to demerge its Akaei division, which came as no surprise to most BBers. JonC had seen a £12.5m valuation put on the float of the games company. With so many here involved with both ONL and ADVFN.com, it was easy to see the picture becoming blurred. After AFN's news of being in "talks" had raised its profile (and price), it was fair to assume that both would profit from it. ONL also included "very positive about the futures for AdvertWizard Ltd and Avantnoise Ltd" in the statement accompanying their results, both of which seem to have a good future. (A music technician who I invited to have a look at the latter is extremely impressed with the site, its concept and its staffing and has already got some of his output on the site.) StewJames was surprised to see selling after the ONL results but that is a fairly regular phenomenon. After their recent minor revival, to see the share price drop off 2p on Friday was hardly earth-shattering. More surprising, maybe, was the way in which the AFN price held up, despite a glut of selling, only succumbing late on Friday. The MMs seem fairly happy to hold onto the stock. I wonder why?

Just Group took a turn for the better this week as CAT was happy to point out to Dil in his "personalised" thread - Dil, I've found a cracker - you owe me a pint - Just Gp.. Vern wasn't too impressed and hoops suggested that System Integrated Research might be of more interest with their good run this week. dodddy was tongue-in-cheek happy to fill in a description of the JUS portfolio, "...it is a sort of character licensing company that has the rights to Bug Ugly Aliens, could be quite big apparently...." Poor rally was the target for the repartee but we all know he's big enough to take it - even Kayak's taunting. Whatever the ultimate consequences, JUS added 1p on Friday to continue their re-incarnation.

alcide really started something with Gann Management this week. As for guidance, I'm not sure the ensuing furore helped much. It did throw up some interesting views on the usefulness (or otherwise) of Gann charts and methods. It seems there is no place here for the "neutral". William D Gann was born in Lufkin, Texas in 1878, and as a young commodity broker in the early 1900s, stirred New York by making big profits when others were making little or none. So successful was Gann that in 1909 "The Ticker and Investment Digest" magazine published a four-page interview with the man, recounting his trading record for one month as observed by their reporter. To quote from the article, "During the month of October 1909 in 25 market days, Gann made, in the presence of our representative, 286 transactions in various stocks, on both the long and short side of the market. Of these transactions, 264 resulted in profits, 22 in losses. The capital with which he operated has doubled 10 times so that at the end of the month he had 1,000% of his original margin. We have seen him give in one day 16 successive orders in the same stock, eight of which turned out to be at either the top or bottom eighth of that particular swing." Like it or not, the guy made a lot of money out of his method. But does the method stand up in today's market? Limpsfield Chartist, our own in-house guru, thinks not and dondee bought the system but couldn't get it to work for him. (It sounds a tad pricey too at over £3k!). Whether the methodology is sound or not, as mab points out, the guy has gone down in history as a legend. I wonder if anyone here will?

Teach yourself successful spread betting, started by axiom, has been running for a while now and has developed into a useful commentary and debate on strategy. Although it is generally accepted that setting "stops" is a must for safety's sake, axiom's amusing "most expensive meal he has ever had" is an example of where stops can sometimes go against you. SpiceBoy is currently experimenting with placing stops 3-5 points outside support/resistance/trendline/recent high or low (from a real, cash chart) plus the difference between the cash and the spread price and is finding "Katiesoft" invaluable as a means of keeping multiple views on the same screen. wonging shares a tongue-in-cheek top ten tips which also have a ring of truth in them - if you have active positions, don't leave the screen. This is an excellent thread and whether you are currently into "spread betting" or simply want to know what it is all about, read this before anything else. There are links to all other relevant threads and some useful tools and sites addresses.

The Way to Trade - Trading Psychology course run in at ADVFN's office in London by John Piper (stt) seems to have gone down very well. Even Cat Man enjoyed it, once he'd got through the pre-requisite IQ test and found the venue! (With a little help from his friends and technology.) gumdrop was pleased to find that she was amongst fellow nutcases which made it easier to get along with the content. soundbite agreed too that it was a very worthwhile exercise. Martini has the book - The Way To Trade and is next to do a quick learning reading course. On Thursday, John was kind enough to post up his daily market report and plenty of contact details if you wish to talk with him. I guess future courses will be popular given the feedback from this one.

Meanwhile, in the Land of the Free.......

KEYSTONE announce new US £1million contract (KYS) was good news for holders - or so it seemed. extec certainly hoped so and gave a good rundown on the pricing structure of "Keystone Profesional", description of the models being supplied by vallely. Certainly the shares looked a lot more healthy after Thursday's surge on good volumes which reversed the recent downturn. snowman seemed to expect 35p in a hurry, although the idea was greeted with some derision by most. There is a long way to go to reach those heights but at least this week saw a step in the right diection. Maybe needs a few more biggish deals and the market to settle down a bit first. The share price ended the week at 22p bid - dipping slightly.

superpete was determined that the potential of Gladstone would not go unnoticed, although galleon sounded a little wary of the future. GLADSTONE-heading north also contains the full transcript of GLD's proposed demerger of its Ge.world division which will metamorphose into Transware plc. isis sounded fairly impressed and the City took the news well, the share price pushing along 8.5p to 86p bid by Friday close. How much farther? Old Father Time is the only one to know that but I don't see them reaching 100p for a while yet!

CONSTELLATION CORPORATION - UPDATE (CST) was a bit of a closed-shop thread with Howard0181, CityTraderBoy and Fydo sharing most of the spoils. "An an announcement shortly" and "rights issue" figure largely in the conversation, although with little volume to suggest there is anything imminent about to happen, I think this is one for watching only.....at the moment.

In different circumstances the statement that Vivendi Universal had confirmed that it has made a preliminary approach to explore the possibility of making an offer for Scoot.com may have been welcomed. But, with the share price currently languishing at 12.5p bid and the possible offer figure mentioned at only 15p, it was evidently not the news long-time holders wanted to hear. In SCOOT will it go north30+on momentum and scoot - dont be caught left holding the baby" there is every possible combination of emotions. In the latter thread Bundmar and suspendors are decidely dubious about the whole deal while on the other thread jimted and Jellytots were clutching at the same straw, hoping that something more substantive might come out of it. humbugg is right to warn everyone to be wary while timeline seems to have bailed out well before the worst of the storm for a tidy profit - although still cussin' that it could have been more. BootifulBoy sounded tempted to have another crack at it but Tony 1, having learned the lessons of day trading the hard way, sounded a tad more cautious. The shares rose on Friday by 1.5p (13.3%) on heavy volumes. Interesting to note how many buys were within the spread. Doesn't that tell a story? Watch those fingers guys!

Choice of Poster of the Week this week goes to axiom whose contributions I find informative and amusing. Maybe a bottle of good champagne will help next time he decides upon an expensive meal! Congratulations axiom! Please drop me a line with a delivery address and I'll get your prize on its way. At the same time, how about sending me a few lines about yourself to include in the Who's Who?


Good Hunting!

The ADVFN Who's Who is still growing and is now a quite long list. If you haven't sent me your bio yet, please drop me a few lines about yourself - a full editing service is provided! No e-mail addresses are published unless specifically requested.