The UK tennis craze is virtually over for another year. We have to outplay Ecuador to stay in the bigtime Davis Cup competition and as I write this, there is every indication that we will go down. The weather seems to be deciding how the cricket season develops. Messrs Faldo and James turned out to be more competitive off the golf course than they ever were on it and Sam the Man took a major stake in Cardiff City AFC - he does like a challenge!

On the home front, I've got badgers at the bottom of my garden and my car is still in the workshop! However, it is our hamlet's Millennium party on Saturday night (can't accuse us of missing the boat!) and the promise of charcoaled steaks and free ale looms large in my thoughts.

The markets started off fairly well on Monday but slumped late in the day, driven by a broad fall in pharma stocks. The Banking sector was also out of favour. The following day things reversed with pharmaceuticals regaining much of the previous day's loss and the FTSE100 finishing in positive territory. Wednesday showed further signs of recovery with Banks finding some new friends. A strong overnight performance in the US promised plenty of action for Thursday. Alas, for blue chips at least, it was a dull day as a wave of pessimism swept through the City on dismal growth predictions. The US markets continued to improve, although they stuttered on Friday, as did the FTSE100. I was perplexed to read an article claiming that the new NASDAQ (Super Montage) system to be launched later this year is actually going to be less transparent to private investors rather than more. This is to satisfy the big institutional buyers and stop them moving to other platforms. Sounds like the sort of business model the LSE would like to continue to use! I guess the little guy is going to have to wait a while longer for a fair deal!

The Weekly BB Review

Lloyds third bounce at £6 started by Sands last week, turned into a Mock Turtle dance for a while as he was in, out and shaking it all about as the share price refused to follow his instructions. When all of the signals suggested it was more of a shorting opportunity than anything else, Mad Mac was on hand with an explanation for newbie Niks who had just taken the plunge and bought, unaware of the alternative strategy. Lots of good advice here and a handy summary of the behaviour pattern of Lloyds TSB from robber. Input from Minty and Mr Euro helped balance the views. Averaging down? Don't do it, Niks! Nobody here ever averages down. :=)

Romeo was still trying to get in touch with the Dark Forces this week; attempting to tempt out The Count with the old Phytopharm play in The Fanged One likes Phytopharm. For the benefit of the unwary, DocProc kindly posted up a recent snap of the fanged one. It did draw him out in the daylight for a moment but, unfortunately he was not forthcoming on the relative strengths, or otherwise, of the stock.

A yen for Zen had a catchy ring to it but on investigation I found it was to do with Zen Research rather than any enlightening Eastern philosophical movement. That said, the company is in an interesting area revolving around the production and licensing of CD and DVD components. Jon C and K11TUN thought they were alone but mobile dealer and adedeji also turned out to be existing members of the fan club. Losos and Pippin decided it was worth following up and the share price immediately began to show signs of life, although still short of expectations. shadowman asked a ream of relevant questions, some of which are answered by visiting the company's website (Zen Research).

Poor old Iriebrown came back from his TA course with all good intentions to apply a more structured approach to his investing. "No sentiment! Strong Stop losses! More discipline!" then applied it to Harrier Group and saw the share price zoom up 60% just after he decided to be sensible and sell. Harrier - Grab Them Quick has been running for some time, started by Dil back in February when the share price had fallen away from its high and showed some fleeting signs of recovery. In the event, the only way was down, although a mini-revival in April renewed interest. This week saw the share price back at last November's level before Iriebrown's fateful day! Although it is little consolation, the price fell back again Thursday, as though in sympathy and just after plumber had posted the latest encouraging assessments. All the signs look good for HRR, but it stubbornly refuses to follow the pattern. (I'm sure Limpy has some logical explanation - well, maybe!)

Another company to change its clothes in an effort to put some new zest into its operation is Torridon (formerly Memory Corporation) which is quoted on the EASDAQ and now seems to be showing definite signs of recovery. Toon Army is still a fan and The Count is still fanatical about the company's prospects for its flash memory product, despite the fierce competition faced. Anon is a little more circumspect about the chances. Torridon (formerly Memory) - cleaning up with Flash ? recounts the whole saga to date.

When Dil began The Difference Between A Chartist & A Fundamentalist Is, he probably didn't imagine what a long-burning candlestick he was lighting. The two camps appear to be (almost) irreconcilable. The best quote for me out of the whole diatribe was from DocProc, "Some fundamentalists are millionaires. Some chartists are millionaires too. Actually, some millionaires might well be both chartists and fundamentalists. Perhaps one should be a little bit aware of both, eh? .......... all the best chartists and fundamentalists have one thing in common - "Good Timing". I wonder how they get it? Perhaps the fundamentalists look at the charts? Possibly the chartists consider some of the fundamentals?." No mention anywhere of emotional or momentum traders so I guess such animals don't exist on ADVFN!

Carphone Warehouse came to the market on Friday amidst a lot of speculation about their mid-to-long-term health. With a majority of private investors in the company agreeing to lock themselves in for a minimum three months, the immediate pattern will probably not follow that of other recent IPOs. carphone warehouse another short has all of the arguments. As PicGuru says, "Its a shop (retailer !!!) that sells phones and generates the majority of its revenues from old fashioned subscriber kickbacks.". In a world where you can buy a mobile system in most high street stores, I can see that the best opportunities for CPW to make a buck are passed. Whilst the price at opening showed a small premium, I think the only people to make any money out of these will be the Market Makers. I, for one, am steering well clear.

With Bouncers and Breakdowns, I thought for a chauvanist instant that we were back to boobs and bums but it turned out to be dymaxion's latest "one's to watch." Very interesting. (Yawns discreetly!) I have, nevertheless, added them to one of my Monitors and will be keeping a weather eye on them.

Meanwhile, in the land of the Free.......

There is still hope that Industrial Control Services will come good, especially after the announcement that Deutsche Bank have taken a stake in the company. I hope that kw and others who have become involved in recent weeks. (look at this) won't be too disappointed if the recent small improvement in share price evaporates fairly quickly. I fear it will take some far more substantial news to elevate this one back to its high.

Any thoughts on Somerfield recovery - or not! has ben running for a while but was brought into focus this week with the publication of interim results. They did not make particularly happy reading. As Intfluf pointed out, the Chairman's statement was less than encouraging. With Kwik Save like-for-like sales falling by almost 15%, it again underlines the big mistake that purchase was. Somerfield sales were only marginally down but the overall picture is still pretty gloomy and only one-off capital gains from site sales kept the figures from being much, much worse. The only good news was a substantial reduction in net debt. With sales still falling, it is a brave man who can call the bottom for this one.

Telewest Communications is going through one of its better patches at the moment, appearing to have found support enough to give the share price a bounce to around 250p - still way off the comfort zone. dymaxion kindly posted the latest charts which look encouraging. News that Microsoft will be allowed the the EU to take a major stake has obviously had an immediate benefit. Whether their "passive" role in the company is fact, fiction, short-term or long-term, the fact that they are involved at all is certainly encouraging.

It is never good to hear that one of the BB regulars has been ill - even worse when you met him recently and he appeared in the rudest of good health. This week we heard that Learjet had been seriously ill and is now recuperating quietly away from the stresses and tribulations of online investing. Our best wishes go out to him for a speedy recovery and to his charming wife and son who, I'm sure, will have been heartened by the wealth of goodwill messages appearing on the site. We look forward to seeing you back soon Learjet, fit and well.

Winner of the, Poster of the Week competition this week goes to DocProc for his quotation in The Difference Between A Chartist & A Fundamentalist Is above. Congratulations Doc! A bottle of quality champagne will soon be winging its way to your doorstep!

Good Hunting!

Please E-Mail me if you have any bright ideas for weekend features. We are still working on providing a chat facility and I am trying to twist a few arms into writing about their investing experiences

The ADVFN Who's Who is growing daily and now comprises quite a long list. All entries received to date have been included. If you haven't sent me your bio yet, please drop me a few lines about yourself - a full editing service is provided! For those concerned about security, any e-mails sent to me are held on my own secure system and only an edited version of the entry appears on the public page of ADVFN's system. No e-mail addresses are published unless specifically requested. We should soon have transferred the Who's Who to a fullblown database which will allow it to be indexed and searched.

For those who have been contributing to the SETI project (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at home), there is now a dedicated ADVFN BBers user. To begin sending your results in that direction, click on preferences and login to existing account advfnbbers@lycosmail.com The tally is only about 20 at the moment but could be a great deal more if you dedicated some of your untapped PC resource to the cause. Take a look at SETI site and see what you can do.