A poor finish to the previous week in the US, ensured that the London markets opened in a cautious mood on Monday and Tuesday. There was no real enthusiasm for trading on either day, although the FTSE100 did manage to close marginally ahead at each close. Following some downbeat comments from the Greenspan man, US markets were looking fragile and that sentiment was beginning to creep in the London markets by Wednesday. On Thursday, with no help from poor US figures, only pharma stocks saved the FTSE100 from falling more than 35 points. With the markets finishing the week in a blaze of red arrows on both sides of the Atlantic, we could be in for a rough old ride next week, I'm afraid. Best batten down the hatches!

The Weekly BB Review

With Addo disappearing to take a break, rivets took up the baton to set off the Breakouts.......24 - 28 July thread. This has now established itself as a regular and popular feature on the BB but predictions were made extra difficult this week by the sudden and continuing change in sentiment in the US. By the end of the week some promising early trends were looking decidedly irregular.

As might have been anticipated, the main focus of attention this week was ADVFN.COM itself as the long awaited Press Conference and Trading Statement loomed large. The Like it or not AFN heading for £1 thread has been running for a while now with Aquila (who else!) beating the drum the loudest. While DocProc was riding the cyberwaves, he came across an interview with the CEO (Bullshare which explained a lot about the company's revenue model and gave some insight into his long-term ambitions for the company. As gateway pointed out, early in the week it was possible to pick up seemingly unlimited amounts of shares at no premium. However, as the week wore on and the price continued to rise, Lofty gave us a picture of the luxury with which he surrounds himself whilst trading - high-tec swivel back padded arm black executive deep cushioned chair indeed! Robbb was unhappy that trades were not always declared at the time they were struck but delayed by an hour - another of those archaic rules which needs the chop! - and on Wednesday jt was king enough to reproduce an upbeat asessment of the prospects for ADVFN.COM from Tales from The City. Mad Mac, PW and Nickb were the first to applaud. By Thursday, volume was over 1m shares before my 10 o'clock coffee and the price percolating away nicely. It hit 2m shares before I finished the cup. Renda2 saw the trend continuing at least to the weekend but I think everyone else was hoping for a more sustained run than that. Closing volume was over 4m and tempers seemed to rise as quickly as the share price. Analyst took a lot of heat out of the situation with a detailed account of some of the historical references to the sort of ramping activity which goes on today - "there ain't nothin' new under the sun!" Mad Mac did some thinking about the commercial model of the company and by the end, I think had persuaded himself (if not the rest of us!) that maybe, given some time, £1 isn't such a silly target price as it may first have appeared. As for Addo being Dan Wagner in diguise, NickB that is going too far! The share price drifted off a bit in the final session - just a bit of tree-shaking in advance of next week's news? We'll find out soon enough. Some of the best and the worst on this thread but if you are going to visit it, make sure you have plenty of time on your hands. Its a loooong read.

What began, at the end of June, as a thread searching out the bottom line price for Kewill Systems, turned by mid-week into a search for the top. Kewill !!! this is relentless., started with insideryou seeking reassurance but finding none from the immediate responses from NickB, ChrisG, Tubby or dodddy. By mid-July, the takeover rumours were beginning to circulate, news posted by Novision helping the cause. By the beginning of this week, insideryou was rueing his safety-first approach as a missed opportunity as the share price rebounded quickly to something approaching 1000p. CAT and Blueflame were amongst a host of bulls and hopefuls as the rise continued following the company's reported rejection of an approach by Parcelforce. I have used the company in the past in a professional capacity and found them extremely good. But the technical efficiency of a company seems, these days, to have little or no bearing on its share performance. A 10% fall on Friday seems to have been linked to the bad overnight figures from the NASDAQ. We'll see soon enough. I'm watching closely along with the crowd.

Caerleon has obviously been following London Forfaiting Company for some considerable time. He began LFC...any views way back in February sounding a bit concerned about the prospects, with Clem trying to reassure him that some of the less-than-kind comments about the company had been strictly for his benefit. Then stony silence. Until Tuesday when Haystack posted the latest chart showing a sudden spurt upwards in both volume and price. mancunium decided to dip his toe in but was peturbed that there was no sign of any buying by the directors. Meanwhile, Clem's mountain of paper suddenly began to look as though it was worth more than just wall-covering. There was no hint of a reason behind the change in fortunes but Caerleon gave an excellent appraisal of the business of forfaiting - he has obviously researched the subject very well since February but is not impressed enough by the prospects here to have invested. On the Free BB menziro added the most recent thought in LFC - more of the same ?. Nuff said.

When Tomkins announced the sale of its European food manufacturing businesses last week, (Tomkins in £700m buyback) the statement included an ambition to reduce debt with the proceeds as well as buy back a large chunk of its own equity. The former action was welcomed by most. The Count was looking ahead to bigger dividends but PW had tax reasons for hoping that concentration on improving capital appreciation will take precedence. Pippin translated "buy-back" as downsizing and Clem was all for breaking the group into smaller units altogether. Whether the current direction of the company leads to it going "private" or the subject of a bid, we will have to wait and see. Meanwhile, the share price continues to improve, albeit gently.

Don't you just love threads with lots of ??s in the title? wanabee obviously does. When he started Strange goings on??????? it was Hansom Group he was talking about. Funny, when Picguru began a thread on the same subject at the beginning of December last year (A Hansom AIM Cash Shell), he didn't get any takers at all. However, back to this week, wanabee had been doing a bit of research on the principals involved in this company (and others) and was beginning to see some strange connections. Renda2 and mdavey looked on in interest. The share price began to look as though it was heading North on Friday - back to its Spring high? Worth watching to see what develops but the whole arrangement of the company's ownership seems a trifle complicated.

While GEO Interactive recommenced its slide - largely due to the bad vibes coming from the NASDAQ during the week, Addo, having curtailed his holiday early, came up with what could prove to be the origins of the company (Geo Interactive, important historical picture) to the obvious delight of NickB and Pdm. The shares have been bubbling about looking for a support level of late and rumours of a NASDAQ listing have hindered rather than helped. Still on my list of ones to watch.

When DocProc posted up Modem Test, I thought I'd give one of them a try just to see how it panned out. A bit of a shock to see in the result that my modem is really running a lot slower in real terms than I thought it was. Give one of the tests a try. It only takes a few minutes and you might find it a bit of an eye-opener.

If you want something REALLY useful to do over the weekend, why not help Limpsfield Chartist find a name for his new house. There are quite a few fairly suitable examples here already (Limpsfield Chartist moved house so a new name for him methinks) but I'm sure there is another even more appropriate lurking in the back of someone's mind. My favourite so far is Sardine's "Dunchartin". Whatever you decide on Limpy, I hope the move goes smoothly. I'll be moving house myself pretty soon, so any tips you can pass on will be very useful!

It looks as though the web site of ADVFN France is making progress - at least "ce site est actuellement en construction" Well spotted DocProc!

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

Total Systems.....Good News?? was a timely reminder posted by ARGY2 in early June that the company was worth keeping an eye on. At the time only nicnac and Shrewd Dude seemed to agree. Six weeks or so down the line, it looks like the Total Systems share price is heading back towards the April spike. The reason? As rossco pointed out for us, the company have signed a contract with Dixons Group to supply their Ultima insurance system to handle the retailer's Mastercare and Coverplan Services. Quite a coup and some good high profile PR for them. I hope more BBers managed to take advantage.

Telewest Communications are one of those companies which you always feel might come good one day but, just when they are on the verge of a breakthrough, bad news knocks them back again. This was the theme of gareth_ap's TELEWEST Views please as badly reported news of problems in the supply of set-top boxes sent the shares tumbling below the 200p mark. Both stouch and h came across as fairly negative. However, this company has a habit of bouncing back, as exolister, appears to agree, so they are probably worth keeping on your Monitor list for a while.

Last year's cyber pin-up, Lara Croft, appears to have fallen from grace. Probably drinking too much Lucozade! When lordsnor began LARAS MAKERS BITE BACK earlier in the month, the stories circulating were all of takeovers and bids. The price of Eidos shares reflected that with a brief and limited rally. Now that all of the rumours have been refuted or denied, the general feeling is that Lara is now too long in the tooth to make any more impact on the crowded games market and the company does not have any exciting alternative available. I tend to agree with bozzman when he concludes that the company is "Overpriced with a bad future, Sell and move on." There are better opportunities out there.

Lloyds/TSB - Banking on them to rise, kicked off by Novision, highlighted what appeared to be a good set of results for Lloyds TSB, belying the current share price. A later news item stating that their popular Chairman is to standing down next April took some of the icing off the cake. atlantic_drifter and belsizepark were both optimistic about the current position. I liked BSP's old saying, "you are better off leaving your money in the shares of a bank than in the bank itself." That certainly strikes a chord!

I have had a good week beta testing the new Level 2 pricing system. It certainly does help give you the wider picture. In fact, I'll probably refuse to give it back when the time comes!

My winning candidate of the, Poster of the Week competition this week is Caerleon for his original and detailed description of the business of forfaiting in LFC...any views. Congratulations Caerleon! Just drop me a line with your postal address and a bottle of quality champagne will soon be winging its way to your doorstep!

Good Hunting!

The ADVFN Who's Who is still growing steadily and is now a quite 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 securely on my own system and only an edited version of the entry appears on the public pages of ADVFN's system. No e-mail addresses are published unless specifically requested.